Current Work in Planetary Engineering

John Creighton · 2001-09-04 10:38:39

Here I will present my personal work in planetary engineering. I am also very interested to hear about the work of others.

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John Creighton · 2001-09-04 13:14:40

It is my opinion that in order to properly understand how a mix of gasses contribute to the warming of the planet, it is important to look at the spectra.

Consequently, I created a spectra extrapolator which I hope to eventually use for terreforming application.

You can play with it as an applet,

download it as an applications

or view a brief explanation of how it works.

Shortly I will be improving the user interface to make it possible to zoom in and out with mouse operations. The applet, application and source are all packed in the same jar file, so if you download the jar file you?ve got everything.

GOM · 2001-09-08 15:29:02

You are in big big trouble John!

MEPA will be all over you within 48 hours.

(That's the Mars Environmental Protection Agency....)

Auqakah · 2002-07-13 12:23:40

I'm afraid I didn't take a look at the links. I was just wondering something.... whats the point of working on such things before 1) its even decided whether or not we will even colonize Mars, let alone terraform it, and 2) when there is currently no fair way to test your "spectra extrapolater" ?

No offense intended, I was just curious

Phobos · 2002-07-13 17:03:10

I'm afraid I didn't take a look at the links. I was just wondering something.... whats the point of working on such things before 1) its even decided whether or not we will even colonize Mars, let alone terraform it, and 2) when there is currently no fair way to test your "spectra extrapolater" ?
No offense intended, I was just curious

I think it's healthy to speculate on the possibilities for the future. If we had to always think on the here and now we'd always be stuck in the here and now.

Auqakah · 2002-07-15 13:59:35

Very true - as I said, I was just curious... It's my one weakness - other than modesty :0 lol

Shaun Barrett · 2002-07-15 23:51:23

You sound like Muhammad Ali (the boxer) who spoke of his only fault: Not realising how great he really was!!

Auqakah · 2002-07-16 12:28:47

Yes, thats exactly my point. (:p)

John Creighton · 2002-08-07 21:18:51

I'm afraid I didn't take a look at the links. I was just wondering something.... whats the point of working on such things before 1) its even decided whether or not we will even colonize Mars, let alone terraform it, and 2) when there is currently no fair way to test your "spectra extrapolater" ?
No offense intended, I was just curious

The more knowledge we have about controlling the Martian environment the more likely we are to go to mars. Personally mars colonization now bores me but mathematics does not. When I was young I enjoyed thinking of all the great wonders the future might hold. But I realized I just enjoyed problem solving. It is wonderful to contribute to mankind but knowledge is empty besides ones happiness. I don't think people will be happy inside a bubble. I look at a show like star track and I wonder the psychological effects of living in an inclosed environments decorated with plain metal walls. Sure they have a computer but will staring at a computer screen all day really make someone happy. I want to go to a mars where I can breath the air and look at the sun.

With regard to testing the absorption of light in a gas: my extrapolation agrees well with the data from the NASA student project on supper greenhouse gasses and is well founded in principles of physics. What is more challenging is to apply this to a model of the Martian climate.

clark · 2002-08-09 10:38:16

Without a stable open environment on Mars, i.e. a protective and self regulating ecosystem that requires little to no human intervention in it's maintenance, there will be no purpose in colonizing Mars.

If all you do is live in a bubble in vacum, you effectively live in a self-made prison, and a very fragile one at that. An open environment allows for freedom, an enclosed environemnt will only lead to restrictions of personal liberty and freedom.

If Mars is not terraformed, humanity on Mars will forever be dependant upon a machine just to exsist. It would be like living on a respirator for an entire city- not exactly the most stable situation.

John Creighton · 2002-08-09 18:37:10

Without a stable open environment on Mars, i.e. a protective and self regulating ecosystem that requires little to no human intervention in it's maintenance, there will be no purpose in colonizing Mars.
If all you do is live in a bubble in vacum, you effectively live in a self-made prison, and a very fragile one at that. An open environment allows for freedom, an enclosed environemnt will only lead to restrictions of personal liberty and freedom.
If Mars is not terraformed, humanity on Mars will forever be dependant upon a machine just to exsist. It would be like living on a respirator for an entire city- not exactly the most stable situation.

I wonder, are there people that would like the Martian life. There are many people that are really excited about the possibility of humans going to mars. Do any of these people understand what life would be like on mars. Or how about the poor, the starving and the persecuted, would any of these people appreciate the possibility of a new life on mars.

Can we choose people that are psychologically predisposed to living in this kind of environment. I recommend we don't send people that have a history of depression in there fammily. I recommend we send people that like to work and live indoors. I recommend that we send people that don't mind having little privacy and little personal freedoms.

Phobos · 2002-08-09 19:45:36

I wonder, are there people that would like the Martian life. There are many people that are really excited about the possibility of humans going to mars. Do any of these people understand what life would be like on mars. Or how about the poor, the starving and the persecuted, would any of these people appreciate the possibility of a new life on mars.

In the initial stages of human exploration Mars would indeed be a very restrictive prison that would make Antartica look like Hawaii. But I think there are people out there who could thrive in that kind of environment. There are numerous examples of people throughout history living in conditions of extreme depravation and challenge that came through just fine. Heck there were polar explorers in the early days who not only took their often year plus treks into polar hell but went back for punishment a second time! As for restriction of movement, I don't like the idea of being in the same basic locale for the entire mission, I like the early Russian idea of having a train of vehicles land at one of the poles and then spend a year driving toward the opposite pole taking observations and samples along the way. I think staying in movement might ease some of the psychological problems for early explorers even though they would technically still be very restricted to their habs.

Anyways, I think once we are capable of doing massive engineering projects on Mars we could make a Mars base a relatively comfortable and welcoming place. We could construct things like huge gardens that would be something akin to large city parks and create giant residential areas that would have the living space of entire towns. Sure, people would essentially have to stay in the same "town" for the duration of their stay on Mars, but it's not uncommon in the world for people to spend their entire lives only within a few square kilometers of their birth places. This was especially true before motorized transportation existed on a large scale. So I think ultimately that Mars colonies could eventually become thriving realities.

RobS · 2002-08-13 18:51:55

I wonder how much life on Mars would seem like confinement. In January in Chicago, I stay in the house all day, or I split time between house and office. I live in a relatively small area most of the time. Driving outside is nice, but one could do that on Mars in a rover. A walk outside the house is nice, but one could do that on Mars as well, just in a spacesuit.

I think confinement in a space ship for months would bother me. There is no place to "go"; outside is a boring, uniform vacuum, with no landmarks. But in previous centuries a typical European sailing ship confined 100 or so men to a space 100 feet long and 25 feet wide for months at a time. Men slept cheek and jowl in hammocks. Ceilings were barely 5 feet high; many men could not stand up below deck. Go tour the USS Constitution in Boston harbor some time to get a sense of what people have been doing to themselves for thousands of years. It's quite remarkable what people can do together and not just survive, but work together. And the crews of those ships were not screen psychologically; on the contrary, they were often the dregs of society!

I think I could manage fairly well on Mars in a hab, a greenhouse, and a pressurized rover, if I could go outside for a walk once a week or so. Oh, and I'd need my computer. Some people would need a television, and the Mars crews would probably have that, and the web and internet.

-- RobS

turbo · 2002-08-14 08:37:38

Rob, even in this century sailors are confined in ships for months on end. I've done three Med deployments myself. Many people in a confined space living together is called a berthing compartment by the Navy. On a carrier, lots of space to move around. On a destroyer, the space has to be found to move around.

The hab BunCCs I find amusing, Uncle Sam wanted to do something like that on ships. Instead of USS Constitution, tour a Spruance-class destroyer, especially one decommissioned that still has the old "racks". No room to sit up, thin padding, only curtains to make a tiny private space with. The wardroom table in the Devon Island hab is larger than the table in the berthing compartment I had on my last ship, and more than twenty of us shared that and a compartment about the size of the hab's second floor. It's not the amount of space one has, but what one does with that space that counts. Modern submarine crews can stay in a windowless, amine-smelling cramped tube for months on end, promise me I won't have to "hot rack" and I'll go to Mars and build you a city.

Whoa, lack of oxygen on this soapbox, I'm getting down.
Be well folks!
turbo, who would rather go to Mars than get on a ship designed to sink.

Phobos · 2002-08-14 22:19:11

It's quite remarkable what people can do together and not just survive, but work together. And the crews of those ships were not screen psychologically; on the contrary, they were often the dregs of society!
I think I could manage fairly well on Mars in a hab, a greenhouse, and a pressurized rover, if I could go outside for a walk once a week or so. Oh, and I'd need my computer. Some people would need a television, and the Mars crews would probably have that, and the web and internet.

Yeah, the people on Mars will have it good compared to a lot of others in the early days of ships and perhaps today as well. Even though the isolation will be extreme I'm beginning to think that Mars might in some ways be better on the psyche than Antartica being that on Mars you can choose landing areas with 24 hour day cycles. A lot of the problems in Antartica are related to the long seasons of darkness and the fact that you can't really get out of the buildings much during that season.

The hab BunCCs I find amusing, Uncle Sam wanted to do something like that on ships. Instead of USS Constitution, tour a Spruance-class destroyer, especially one decommissioned that still has the old "racks". No room to sit up, thin padding, only curtains to make a tiny private space with. The wardroom table in the Devon Island hab is larger than the table in the berthing compartment I had on my last ship, and more than twenty of us shared that and a compartment about the size of the hab's second floor. It's not the amount of space one has, but what one does with that space that counts. Modern submarine crews can stay in a windowless, amine-smelling cramped tube for months on end, promise me I won't have to "hot rack" and I'll go to Mars and build you a city.

I think I've just been convinced once and for all that people can survive the conditions imposed by Mars. Even though it seems obvious now, I never realized how similiar the conditions on Naval ships and those that will go to Mars would be.

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#1 2001-09-04 10:38:39

Re: Current Work in Planetary Engineering

#2 2001-09-04 13:14:40

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#3 2001-09-08 15:29:02

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#4 2002-07-13 12:23:40

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#6 2002-07-15 13:59:35

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#8 2002-07-16 12:28:47

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#10 2002-08-09 10:38:16

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