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The Planet Mars will teach us a lot about successful space colonization. However what will the Moon teach us today that we don't already know? did you ever seen an equation that is messy, someone start off wrong in a video or Formula and you just know its wrong by looking at it with a quick glance, perhaps a gut feeling without even doing all the numbers? I feel this is what is happening with Moon to Mars but Going in the opposite direction Mars mostly compares to living on the Moon and not the other way. I would say the Moon compares to living on Callisto, Oberon, Triton, Mercury, Pluto, Namaka or Themisto Eris or Ceres and not Mars.
I believe the Moon is more comparable to living on Asteroids or Mercury or Callisto. This is my personal opinion, I believe others share a similar opinion and some others do not but there are many online opinions, from talking with people and reading posts on the forums.
Let's first compare what the Moon of Earth and Planet Mars share in common, both will have rocky items scientists can study, both are spherical in shape and people have seen them in the sky since ancient times, neither of them are comets nor are they 'Gas Giants' and neither have rings surrounding them. However Mars and the Moon share less in common with each other than they do with other worlds.
Mars is of interest to Astrobiology the Moon is not, Mars is of interest to scifi writers and philosophers who talk of 'Para-biology', it may inspire new forms of engineered animal science and Xenobiologists, it could have something 'alive'. In that sense Mars is more similar to active worlds of Europa, Titan, Enceladus. Mars is moving and it could compare to the worlds on distant Exoplanets which might contain life or Mars science might offer similarity to 'life finding' missions, it might be compared to the career of guys at SETI who search for signals. Going to Mars is an unknown for discovery, maybe finding life there will continue to be 'difficult' it might be that we also spend lots of time searching for life in the next 50 years on Mars and don't find much so in that sense the Planet Mars could become like the Moon, maybe Astrobiologists will move on to Europa or Enceladus as soon as an Orbiter sniffs out some hydrocarbons but for now Mars asks the question 'Is There Life' but for now the Lunar surface is " Magnificent desolation " a phrase Buzz Aldrin used to describe the Moon, for now we know the Moon of Earth is not like Mars.
The journey to Mars is long, this distance motivates new ideas and offers incentive to create something new. Mars will make ideas for new spaceships, Nuclear Propulsion for example, an Artificial Gravity Space Station, Large Ship Food Preparation and Delivery, connecting distant outposts by Balloon or Helicopters, using the ionospheres on worlds and planets like Mars for long distance radio communication between towns and villages, there will be radio reflections in the Mesosphere 40–100 km or Thermosphere, it could offer opportunity to begin using Lagrange points or other Solar system communication networks to keep Mars in communication with Earth, maybe an MTO laser type craft. The people on Mars or Martian citizen, Mars will be far away to be an experiment in democracy and government, it can start using the atmosphere to make product for plants and animal, using it to make rocket fuel. The Moon offers no such compulsory that one must have new Rockets, the feats can be redone using an Apollo system a big Chinese Rocket or Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, there is no urgency to cut down travel time to the Moon but the trip to Mars would take about seven to nine months one way, depending on the distance between the two planets so it invites new ideas and new forms of space propulsion, the communication to the Moon might be compared to communication sending a message at the South Pole, the Himalayas or the ISS, Mars asks for new ideas the Moon can be re-done with a re-run of mostly old ideas.
On the Moon you are cooked absolutely burnt on the Moon the Lunar day time reaches 400 Kelvin 250° Fahrenheit 120° Celsius, on certain area with reflective surface the temperature swings might be even higher. Sending protected humans into a burning building even on Planet Earth with prepared protection Firefighters can be exposed to up temperatures only for a few minutes before something 'gives' and heat stress disorders occur. On the Moon this heat is constant during the day then at night you are frozen like a block of Butane. If you wanted to use it as a fridge to kill life and freeze Ethanol, Ether, Carbon Disulfide down to 140 K or -208 degrees F -130° C at night, at the Pole of Earth's Moon temperatures can drop close to 'Absolute Zero' - 424° F - 253°C or 20 K there is possibly no known space suit that will last these near absolute zero conditions.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/1 … nasa-xemu/
on Mars we do not deal with such extremes therefore Mars seems more like a stepping stone to the Moon of Earth. Mars has seasons and more or less orbits the Sun in a circular pattern, the Moon orbits Earth, Mars might be do-able and almost has the potential for supporting life if you build it.
Circadian rhythms which are part of a 24-hour cycle that are part of the animal, plant and human body’s internal clock are comparable to Earth from Mars. The Mars day is 1.027 Earth Days or 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, to make the Lunar Day like Earth power and energy is wasted to create an artificial condition which already exists naturally on Mars. There is a lot of 'Land' on Mars the same as Earth which is 70% Water, Mars the seventh largest planet in our solar system and about half the diameter of Earth will have a lot of area that can one day become a site for Biosphere or Biodomes, perhaps powered by Nuclear but also protected from small impacts by a small layer of atmosphere and farms collecting Solar Power during the 24 and a half hour day cycle.
Propaganda Feats and Politics and Religion - Apollo was a fantastic amazing feat for its time which can not be under stated, they also had a religious reading around the Moon. However the Moon is a 'been there done that' for mankind and the USA got there first and put the flag in it during the 'Space Race'. Perhaps we believe we are still going to 'Race to the Moon' because a past memory or because the Moon is so close we are blinded by it. The Moon is part of religion, in Asia in tribes of North and South America, in Africa, the Middle East and Europe you see Moon symbolism for centuries, even a secret brotherhood group the Freemason Shriners have red hats with Moon symbol. The Pagan Witches put symbolism of it everywhere separating days and nights, the month, the woman's fertile cycle. Neo-Paganism uses the Moon icon and maybe as humans we have an almost political sinful Infatuation with it like an old mohammedan raider on a camel attacking people on other camels and then going the next day to the Mosque with the Moon icon symbol above it, sometimes it was part of human hunting cultures the moon high perhaps helping the man hunt at night, particularly in regard to women fertility. It Perhaps unknown to our human at mind operating on some unconscious level we are still engaged in moon-worship??? However I am not pushing any Atheism Communist Nihilist belief nor am I pushing any religion on any person but maybe Morally and Politically there is some Spirit or Karma or something in our genetic memory or DNA or maybe a Politics thing happening, the Moon forever looking at us calling in " Great Moon Hoax of 1835 ". The Moon is famous in the American psyche as the Best Comeback and Underdog, Apollo 13 even dodged a bullet unlike the Shuttle so it is thought if an emergency were to occur, astronauts could feasibly get back to Earth but perhaps that tempts fate with fallacy, a misconception or mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound arguments and unlucky Apollo 13 got 'Lucky'.
Perhaps by politics Mars becomes a Pyramid shape again, the Admins of both the Bush Senior and Bush Junior years the Launch to Mars plan was pyramid-shaped included the Shuttle Station or the International Space Station and Shuttle but now its Gateway / ISS / Moonbase and Billions more will continue being spent annually on Space Stations or SLS another political 'Pyramid'. Relations could have been good between Space-X and the Joe Biden Kamala Harris Admin but they are not, the NewSpace industry could be moving quicker, meanwhile it looks as if China will be doing its own Mars Helicopter and Mars engine.
Politically maybe the visual description of the Moon tempts, it was in Shakespeare or Poems as lovesickness. It was something to fight and conquer in mythology with Werewolves. On the concept of temptation is often described by religion as a lack of discipline and sin in context of self-control and ego depletion, maybe the Moon offers a political temptation, it is nearby and perhaps offers a false reward like a drug addict or alcoholic or guy hooked on cigarettes returning for more, so people would like to go and chase those past political highs, let the Roman Empire try conquer Germanic again one last time or the rock star Elvis doing one final show in Vegas instead of fixing himself he burns out the last of his energy. "The moon makes sense they tried it before" some say, they already know that lifeless rock and "because it's nearby" let's play it safe while exhausting time and energy and an increase of greater risk and even put a 'Gateway' station type thing around it. Will the Tax Payers of the future be so impressed by another station with no artificial gravity and another flag planting mission, a lot of people remember Edmund Hillary and some remember Tenzing Norgay people remember the old explorer name wrote down Christopher Columbus the navigator from the Republic of Genoa but would the Moon be an expensive way to visit past glories, how many people can you remember from the past Space-X or Soyuz flights for example or eventually people will stop remembering names?
Back the the numbers of the Moon, the Earth and the Planet Mars.
You can compare radiation on Mars to Earth but you can not really compare radiation on the Moon, Mars radiation is an issue it is higher than that of pilots or Astronauts on the ISS or Space Tourists and 13 times the maximum exposure allowed radiation workers each year but it is something humans can work it and figure out by limiting exposure and other measures. on Earth the region of Fukushima in Japan is one of the World's Nuclear Exclusion Zones the Japanese set up a 18-mile or 28.9 km no-fly zone around the facility, and the land area within a radius of 12.5 miles (20 km) around the plant, covering an area of 230 square miles or 600 square km, was evacuated, after the Chernobyl disaster an Exclusion Zone was also established it has become a de facto biological reserve. Radiation on the surface of Planet Mars is about 40-50 times the average on Earth, with water and building material and 24 day farms the Radiation it is something we might figure out. The Chinese Rover grew stuff for a time and it died in the extreme conditions, also on the Moon the Chinese measured that a colonist would get between 200 to 1,000 times more radiation than what we experience on Earth
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-moon.html
Moon 'Asbestos'
We have no sample returned from Mars but the Moon dirt or dust is thought to be more toxic and Martian soil is toxic, it has no wind, charged solar wind particles to continuously hit the surface of the Moon. The Moon Dust is expected to cause more damage to an Astronaut's lungs, nervous, and cardiovascular systems, the Moon could be more 'charged' with increase the probability of electrostatic discharge and arcing.
PDF
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lunar … f/5019.pdf
' The results indicate that charging/arcing may pose a serious safety risk to astronauts at the lunar terminator and far-side due to the combined condition of dust coverage and high-voltage plasma charging.'
Mars dust is fine particles which tend to be round and polished while people compare Moon dust as kind of like asbestos, a serious health and safety hazard on Earth, a product now almost completely banned in near 70 countries.
Send Robots to the Moon not humans say Australia Lawsuits
https://web.archive.org/web/20080207065 … 828906.htm
'Mining companies and other industries that used asbestos are now being sued by affected workers and a new wave of cases may be looming among home renovators. Are you at risk'?
The Moon has no atmosphere to test Aircraft as I wrote earlier about the Atmosphere of Mars, Mars can have large payloads but requires a heat shield innovation. There will be no heat shield for a ship on the Moon ionized layers of reflection in the air for radio, you will never fly a Helicopter or Balloon there like you can on worlds like Venus or Titan or Mars but maybe one day far in the future someone might a a Biosphere City on the Moon with a flying machines including forms of aircraft but for now it seems an impossible task, Mars offers study of clouds and acoustics. The atmosphere of Mars while thin offers an opportunity to fly and also offers some protection to the Solar system radiation, Mars offers some protection against meteorites, the Lunar surface will be constantly blasted by micro-meteorite impacts. Mars might help build computer models on the atmosphere of planets, the Dust devils and dust storms are prevalent on Mars, the air itself tempts us with Life signatures with unexpected levels of methane in the Martian atmosphere, which may even be a biosignature for life on Mars, if Mars were to manufacture its own products and spacecraft and build rockets and build ion drives Magnetoplasmadynamic can use argon and nitrogen from the air as propellant. Mars even has Water vapor as a trace gas, Methane can be used as fuel, Moxie experiments have shown Mars can produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing.
Mars has an active changing surface, it might not be as active as Europa or Titan but it is far more active than Earth's Moon. The only time the Moon truly gets active is if someone crashes a rocket into it or it gets struck by a small meteorite. Mars sand and air and rock has movement from the detection of quakes detection of large-scale electric discharge events. Geologists and Planetary Scientists are far more interested in Mars we already have tons and tons of rock originating from Earth's Moon, take to Earth by the USA in the NASA Apollo program and by robots in the Russian Soviet Luna program, from these rocks we have been able to discover other rocks when originated from the Moon during impacts and landed on Earth, Moon rocks have known compositions Plagioclase, Granophyres, Anorthosite, Norite, Pyroxene, Tranquillityite, Lunar mare basalts showing negative europium anomaly, glass-rich Breccia, Troctolite and Armalcolite named after 3 astronuats. NASA has also loaned boxes of rocks to University and College and to schools across Europe and Asia and Latin America to study rocks from the Moon. China independently confirmed the findings of United States and Russian scientists with Chang'e lunar exploration and sample return mission. We might have meteorites from Mars, called meteorite ALH84001 but the findings are controversial, there is still no sample taken directly from Mars to study on Earth, Moon rocks said to be 'priceless' but in truth are so common that NASA shows a bare minimum concern when rocks having been stolen or lost, Mars rocks and dust returned to Earth will be a treasure of information just as Apollo Missions expanded science during the 1969.
Mankind already knows how to make Spacesuits, going to the Moon again spending all this time, energy and money will not make us build a better space suit for Mars. There might be private sector innovation such as the Space-X type "Starman suit" innovations on mics that are 3D-printed a new suit offering protection against cabin depressurization that apply to a Mars mission. However most suit design is a known, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, and China already know how to make suits for Extravehicular activity EVA, other EVA feats have been performed by Canada, the European Space Agency, the ISS has allowed Japan, Europe and Canada and people from Private Space Companies to explore designs. NASA has already explored making suits for the Moon and these will not be the same as a suit on Mars, going to the Moon will not offer you a design for a Mars Biosuit a bulky heavy garment worn to keep a human alive on the Moon or outside a Space Station is not the same as the garment worn by humans who may walk on Mars. Studies on self-contained oxygen supply and environmental control system we already know from past missions. If NASA develops something like the AX-5 high pressure hard shell suit for the Moon it could share more in common with colonization of Callisto or Mercury not Mars, on Earth a suit with Earth balloon flight or a suit for high-altitude reconnaissance flight on Earth can share more in common with a Mars design and Mars in a ways might teach people on the Moon how to build a better suit, since we already know how to build EVA suits and this knowledge is already known a suit on the Moon can not truly build a better Mars suit.
Although there are many discussions with different ideas on spacesuits
'Spacesuits - personal spaceship'
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2121
Terraforming is a controversial fringe idea since it is more the realm of scifi than true science but most agree that in some future timeline Mars can be Terraformed, we are Terraforming our planet Earth into a new unknown climate every time we pollute, Mars, perhaps offers to become a possible new home for us if terraformed, most people in the scientific field do not agree with that proposal that the Lunar Surface will be Terraformed but instead perhaps one day have people living inside small stations if at all possible.
There are often comparisons drawn between going to Mars and colonization of North America, the old European Imperial power arriving in their ships, the age of exploration in the Americas. I made the comparison of using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars to the Norway renting out an island, the Soviet/Russian investment on a remote island in the far North of Norway and if the Europeans instead of going to America decided to stay at this rock and try to build a working city on this 'Svalbard' the perfect Soveit Russian community with no profits from coal and wasting so many decades on an impossible task, imagine Europeans decided they would stay stuck upon a rock like this North of Norway before ever setting sail to the Americas.
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-13 15:21:51)
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