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louis

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 7,208

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

Interesting - that's been my suspicion re the negative impact on the immune system of zero G  in LEO...the immune system is simply not getting a workout on the ISS.

Just a reminder in case anyone thinks otherwise - there will be plenty of light at the Mars base even in winter. For one thing, Mars's wobbly spin means that the seasonal effects are less extreme.

I Was Isolated for a Year in Antarctica—Here’s What Surprised Me Most When I Came Back after being a station leader for an expedition to Davis Station, Antarctica...around the clock for a full year—through months of darkness and with no escape from the frigid cold, howling winds..

Viruses do not live in Antarctica. When I was in the harsh and bitter cold, I was perfectly healthy. When I returned back home, I picked up every virus in Australia. I was totally unprepared for the way my immune system reacted

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Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,360

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

For SpaceNut re Davis Station article .... Thanks for posting that ... I found it helpful in thinking about the selection process for leadership.

The woman who won the leadership post competed with 13 men.  I suspect they were ALL highly qualified, so the selection committee were looking for qualities that were highly unusual in the human population.

I would think Ms. Roberston would be someone who would be consulted with close attention, if a group decides to fund an expedition to Mars.

The trip will be longer, and the dangers even more extreme, but the human dynamics are quite likely (in my view) to be similar.

For Louis ... while your observation about zero gravity is important for the subject of the effects of isolation, that was not a feature of the experience reported.

The impact of isolation in ** this ** case was the absence of influx of new biological stressors.  Zero gravity would be in addition, were it allowed to occur, which I certainly hope will not be the case.

The funding agency should (in opinion) pony up for a full 1 G environment for the trip to and from Mars, or just forget about trying to make the trip.

GW Johnson has made that point multiple times, as have many others.

(th)

Rachael Roberston is an international speaker and author. Her latest book is Respect Trumps Harmony: Why Being Liked Is Overrated and Constructive Conflict Gets Results.

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,812

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

(th), I have and opinion(s) on this, but you have not invited me to the conversation.  I will put something in Alternate BFR.

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juliusbarry

InActive

Registered: 2020-07-31

Posts: 3

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

To turn it into a actual colony, I'm of the opinion that the temperature during the winter has to be put into consideration.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,360

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

For juliusbarry re #29

Thank you for bringing this topic back to life!

You've launched with an intriguing teaser.  Would you be willing to develop your ideas a bit? 

To start with, it would be helpful to show a comparison of conditions at McMurdo over an Earth year, compared to conditions at a location you select on Mars for a Mars year.

My guess is your graph will show that conditions at Mars are more severe at every time of the respective year, with the exceptions of the presence of water and the greater power of wind flows.

In other words, I would be surprised that your research shows McMurdo is more severe than Mars, as your opening Post #29 would seem to imply.

If you have not yet visited the My Hacienda topic, please take a quick look.  It is designed to work out the requirements for a community able to sustain itself at first (Earth) world levels, whether on Mars, or at any difficult location on Earth.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-08-01 05:59:04)

juliusbarry

InActive

Registered: 2020-07-31

Posts: 3

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

For juliusbarry re #29

Thank you for bringing this topic back to life!

You've launched with an intriguing teaser.  Would you be willing to develop your ideas a bit? 

To start with, it would be helpful to show a comparison of conditions at McMurdo over an Earth year, compared to conditions at a location you select on Mars for a Mars year.

My guess is your graph will show that conditions at Mars are more severe at every time of the respective year, with the exceptions of the presence of water and the greater power of wind flows.

In other words, I would be surprised that your research shows McMurdo is more severe than Mars, as your opening Post #29 would seem to imply.

If you have not yet visited the My Hacienda topic, please take a quick look.  It is designed to work out the requirements for a community able to sustain itself at first (Earth) world levels, whether on Mars, or at any difficult location on Earth.

(th)

Alright. Thanks

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

To turn it into a actual colony, I'm of the opinion that the temperature during the winter has to be put into consideration.

Welcome to NewMars juliusbarry, and you are quite right in that we do currently leave the installation when its no longer warmish.

For Mars we get cold every night and need to design for those energy swings.

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: McMurdo as a prototype Mars Colony

In the cold and wasteland of Mars what garden could you have in the Biodomes, a Bacteria can regulate a Bio Dome?  bacteria to break down space septic tanks, to help release gasses or water, produce usable soils, clean water, then small insects and worms, pollinator inside a Biospehere structure, hopefully one that will not sting. Perhaps some small mammal or fish for eating & fertilizer. Movement in and out of Caves or Lava tubes maybe happen so then  Troglobite & Troglophiles that can survive inside caves must be considered for a larger series of eco-systems that may connect domes with caves.

Why future space farms depend on plants grown in Antarctica
https://www.verticalfarmdaily.com/artic … ntarctica/

Figuring out how to feed people in space is a major part of a larger effort to demonstrate the viability of long-term human habitation of extraterrestrial environments. On May 12, 2022, a team of scientists announced that they had successfully grown plants using lunar soil gathered during the Apollo moon missions. But this is not the first time that scientists have attempted to grow plants in soils that typically do not support life.

I am a historian of Antarctic science. How to grow plants and food in the far southern reaches of Earth has been an active area of research for more than 120 years. These efforts have helped further understanding of the many challenges of agriculture in extreme environments and eventually led to limited but successful plant cultivation in Antarctica. And especially after the 1960s, scientists began to explicitly look at this research as a stepping stone to human habitation in space.

In 2004, the National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center collaborated to build the South Pole Food Growth Chamber. The project was designed to test the idea of controlled-environment agriculture – a means of maximizing plant growth while minimizing resource use. According to its architects, the facility closely mimicked the conditions of a Moon base and provided “an analog on Earth for some of the issues that will arise when food production is moved to space habitations.” This facility continues to provide the South Pole Station with supplementary food

Antarctic bacteria live on air and make their own water using hydrogen as fuel
https://theconversation.com/antarctic-b … uel-171808
We discovered more than a quarter of these Antarctic soil bacteria create an enzyme called RuBisCO, which is what lets plants use sunlight to capture carbon dioxide from air and convert it into biomass. This process, photosynthesis, generates most of the organic carbon on Earth.

However, we found more than 99% of the RuBisCO-containing bacteria were unable to capture sunlight. Instead, they perform a process called chemosynthesis.

Rather than relying on sunlight to power the conversion of carbon dioxide into biomass, they use inorganic compounds such as the gases hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide.

Will people in the colony also dig for the past on Mars?

Antarctica: working for 2 months at -40°C to complete the Little Dome C camp
https://www.cnr.it/en/press-release/109 … ome-c-camp

At the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica, the first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice has been successfully completed. The campaign is an unprecedented effort in paleoclimatology studies, as its purpose is to go back in time by 1.5 million years to reveal invaluable information on temperature and on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the past.