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#26 2005-03-21 09:24:20

Dook
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From: USA
Registered: 2004-01-09
Posts: 1,409

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

What if you used explosives to create the crater?  Dig a hole, drop in some C4, then stand back.

Also, I think we are way off topic.

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#27 2005-03-21 21:57:53

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Dook:-

What if you used explosives to create the crater?  Dig a hole, drop in some C4, then stand back.

    Yes, I agree.
    If it can be done that way, it would certainly save a lot of time and effort. We'd still need bulldozers, of course.

    And yes, we're sort of off topic. But creating a thick atmosphere, either in a dome or out of it, is a practical alternative to 'magnetizing Mars'. So, are we that far off?  ???   smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#28 2005-03-22 04:37:19

chat
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From: Ontario Canada
Registered: 2003-10-23
Posts: 371

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

The surface of mars seems to be a lot of iron rust.

I wonder how difficult it would be to use the surface as a magnet, at least as a local magnetic field.

Charged iron dust might make an excellent magnetic field.

Maybe a planetary magnetic field is beyond current tech, but a local one not to difficult.


The universe isn't being pushed apart faster.
It is being pulled faster towards the clumpy edge.

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#29 2005-03-22 04:48:04

chat
Member
From: Ontario Canada
Registered: 2003-10-23
Posts: 371

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

c4 wont work on mars, oxygen. smile
c4 with an oxygen container will though. smile


It's to bad mars didn't have a semi decent sized moon.
An orbit change on a moon say 10x as big as Deimos and you could introduce tidal flexing to mars.

With the added tidal heat you get a magnetic field and a thicker atmosphere.


The universe isn't being pushed apart faster.
It is being pulled faster towards the clumpy edge.

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#30 2005-03-22 07:39:15

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Chat:-

I wonder how difficult it would be to use the surface as a magnet, at least as a local magnetic field.

    There are already numerous localized magnetic fields on Mars - some of them quite large and some up to 1/10th as strong as Earth's global field. These are crustal fields and are believed to represent the 'fossil' remnants of Mars' earlier global magnetic field.   
   [See http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthd … 4.htm]THIS SITE.]
    We've already discussed establishing settlements in the shelter of these localized fields in another thread here at New Mars somewhere.  smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#31 2005-03-22 08:20:47

srmeaney
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Even in the shadow of an existing magnetic field, there will still be problems. Free Fe will be attracted to the region during storms possibly picking up free Oxygen and as a consequence, altering the penetrating radiation frequencies to those being blocked by Oxygen.

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#32 2005-03-23 14:30:05

chat
Member
From: Ontario Canada
Registered: 2003-10-23
Posts: 371

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

srmeaney,

location location location. smile

Probably some of the local magnetic fields deep in canyons will be the ideal place to setup home on mars.

As you point out though magnetic fields can be more harmful than good if they are not consistent.

Magnetic fields can make very efficient charged particle delivery systems as well as being umbrellas.


The universe isn't being pushed apart faster.
It is being pulled faster towards the clumpy edge.

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#33 2005-03-23 19:50:57

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Chat:-

As you point out though magnetic fields can be more harmful than good if they are not consistent.

Magnetic fields can make very efficient charged particle delivery systems as well as being umbrellas.

    Yes, these points were mentioned in the original debate about this.
    The crustal magnetic fields are surprisingly strong (much stronger than terrestrial crustal fields apparently) and entirely consistent - they must be, they've been in existence continually for some 4 billion years. They're not going anywhere!  big_smile
    And yes, the point was raised that the peripheries of the localized magnetic 'umbrellas' may actually be channeling charged particles down into the surface. These places on Mars would in fact be more dangerous, radiation-wise, than the average place and should be avoided when choosing settlement sites.
    But the magnetically shielded regions should be very much better as far as ionizing radiation is concerned. And some of them are very large  smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#34 2015-11-22 21:44:27

SpaceNut
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Posts: 28,747

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Finally got to reading the links from knightdepaix so another shifting topic is fixed as it relates to building a megasphere for Mars.

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#35 2016-03-17 19:14:02

A.B.Bell
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Registered: 2016-03-15
Posts: 1

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

I’m not an engineer or scientist, but if I were asked to terraform Mars, my two main concerns would be the lack of a planetary-wide magnetic-field and nitrogen.

Just assuming I’ve got an open cheque-book to spend billions (100s of billions,) and again I’ll like to interate, I’m not a scientist and my ideas may simply not work.
I would start without even going to within 1,000,000 KM of Mars.  I would start at the Martian-Sun L1 point.   I would populate the L1 with hundreds of permanent magnets or electro-magnets, resembling the shafts of ships.   These magnets can be arranged, orbiting vertically in the shape of a circular shield, slightly wider than the diameter of Mars.  If this is at all workable, the combined magnetic-fields of these magnets might deflect the solar-wind, and protect the Martian atmosphere down-stream from L1.  You would hopefully be creating a “solar-wind shadow.”
 
This system may protect the planet from solar-wind and solar-flares, but not from cosmic-rays and other high energy particles originating from outside the solar-system.

These magnetic-field sources in the shape of rods or shafts would have to be massive enough so that they don’t get blown away by the solar-wind.  These shafts would have to be maybe a 100 metres long with wide diameters, because as you can image, if these shafts were light-weight, a surrounding magnetic-field bubble would act as a sail.

It might be possible to construct these giant magnet-field shafts using a 3-D printer.  One might envisage an orbiting industrial complex at L1, crushing iron and/or nickel derived from asteroids (and maybe an addition of rare-earth elements,) to be loaded into a specialised 3-D printer to print large magnets in space

If in decades from now we seriously want to terraform Mars, and work out a way of giving Mars some form of planet-wide magnetic-field, there’s probably to getting-away from the fact that it’ll involve some form of mega-structure.

I hope that humans will be around for a long time yet, and we don’t wipe ourselves out in some ghastly nuclear war or other calamity.  If humans are still here in centuries from now, and we do indeed start terraforming Mars, it would be ideal to have a planet Mars with some form of planetary-wide magnetic-field to ensure that Mars retains a new atmosphere over geological time.  If  humans do manage to survive over geological-time, such luck might be inter-related with the terraforming of Mars and becoming a dual planet specie – and an introduction of the Earth’s flora and fauna to another planet.
So long as progress, innovation, and scientific endeavour continues, and we don’t end up in a “Mad Max” type world; just think of the medical possibilities alone.  Besides the conquest of cancer, the Zita virus, AIDS, could we restore someone with severe, horrendous burns?  Restore someone severely deformed and rebuilding damaged DNA?  Restore someone severely brain damaged?  Could this be achieved in a century from now?  Two centuries from now?  Four centuries?

There is a problem though with an L1 lagrangian points.  It’s being deduced of late that they may not be as stable as once thought of.  This means that an object placed at L1 will require satellite “house keeping” unfortunately.  It might be possible equip satellites at L1 with an “EM Drive” or a “Cannae Drive” to maintain satellite orientation/attitude and also stop the satellite from drifting away from L1.  According to research done by NASA, these “EM Drives” or a “Cannae Drives” produce thrust without the use of propellant.  If we want to build a system that is to survive over geological-time, then it has to be as maintenance-free as possible!

As with nitrogen, there are probably significant deposits on nitrates on Mars, as there are in the Atacama Desert.  Again, assuming I’ve got an open cheque book to spend billions; I’ll start with the assumption that there aren’t any significant deposits.  I would build a fleet of Hybrid, nuclear-electric, solar-sail ships, not to go to Mars, but to search the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud for nitrogen-rich icy bodies.  On the out-bound trip to the Keiper Belt and beyond, the solar-sail can assist the spacecraft in gaining speed.  On the in-bound journey to the inner solar system (to Mars) the solar-sail can be used to shield a captured icy body from the Sun’s rays.

Last edited by A.B.Bell (2016-03-19 02:16:20)

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#36 2016-03-20 09:05:08

Tom Kalbfus
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Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

A.B.Bell wrote:

I’m not an engineer or scientist, but if I were asked to terraform Mars, my two main concerns would be the lack of a planetary-wide magnetic-field and nitrogen.

Just assuming I’ve got an open cheque-book to spend billions (100s of billions,) and again I’ll like to interate, I’m not a scientist and my ideas may simply not work.
I would start without even going to within 1,000,000 KM of Mars.  I would start at the Martian-Sun L1 point.   I would populate the L1 with hundreds of permanent magnets or electro-magnets, resembling the shafts of ships.   These magnets can be arranged, orbiting vertically in the shape of a circular shield, slightly wider than the diameter of Mars.  If this is at all workable, the combined magnetic-fields of these magnets might deflect the solar-wind, and protect the Martian atmosphere down-stream from L1.  You would hopefully be creating a “solar-wind shadow.”

 
And congratulations! You just created a magsail! The Solar wind will push your contraption toward Mars, and it gets closer towards Mars, the gravitational field will add to the push of the Solar Wind and it will crash! You probably want to balance off the Solar wind with Solar gravity that pulls in the opposite direction. The pull of Solar gravity is proportional to the mass times the strength of the solar gravity minus the strength of the Martian gravity at this distance from Mars.

This system may protect the planet from solar-wind and solar-flares, but not from cosmic-rays and other high energy particles originating from outside the solar-system.

The Earth's magnetic field doesn't do that either. Cosmic rays end up being stopped by Earth's atmosphere.

These magnetic-field sources in the shape of rods or shafts would have to be massive enough so that they don’t get blown away by the solar-wind.  These shafts would have to be maybe a 100 metres long with wide diameters, because as you can image, if these shafts were light-weight, a surrounding magnetic-field bubble would act as a sail.

It might be possible to construct these giant magnet-field shafts using a 3-D printer.  One might envisage an orbiting industrial complex at L1, crushing iron and/or nickel derived from asteroids (and maybe an addition of rare-earth elements,) to be loaded into a specialised 3-D printer to print large magnets in space

If in decades from now we seriously want to terraform Mars, and work out a way of giving Mars some form of planet-wide magnetic-field, there’s probably to getting-away from the fact that it’ll involve some form of mega-structure.

I hope that humans will be around for a long time yet, and we don’t wipe ourselves out in some ghastly nuclear war or other calamity.  If humans are still here in centuries from now, and we do indeed start terraforming Mars, it would be ideal to have a planet Mars with some form of planetary-wide magnetic-field to ensure that Mars retains a new atmosphere over geological time.  If  humans do manage to survive over geological-time, such luck might be inter-related with the terraforming of Mars and becoming a dual planet specie – and an introduction of the Earth’s flora and fauna to another planet.
So long as progress, innovation, and scientific endeavour continues, and we don’t end up in a “Mad Max” type world; just think of the medical possibilities alone.  Besides the conquest of cancer, the Zita virus, AIDS, could we restore someone with severe, horrendous burns?  Restore someone severely deformed and rebuilding damaged DNA?  Restore someone severely brain damaged?  Could this be achieved in a century from now?  Two centuries from now?  Four centuries?

There is a problem though with an L1 lagrangian points.  It’s being deduced of late that they may not be as stable as once thought of.  This means that an object placed at L1 will require satellite “house keeping” unfortunately.  It might be possible equip satellites at L1 with an “EM Drive” or a “Cannae Drive” to maintain satellite orientation/attitude and also stop the satellite from drifting away from L1.  According to research done by NASA, these “EM Drives” or a “Cannae Drives” produce thrust without the use of propellant.  If we want to build a system that is to survive over geological-time, then it has to be as maintenance-free as possible!

As with nitrogen, there are probably significant deposits on nitrates on Mars, as there are in the Atacama Desert.  Again, assuming I’ve got an open cheque book to spend billions; I’ll start with the assumption that there aren’t any significant deposits.  I would build a fleet of Hybrid, nuclear-electric, solar-sail ships, not to go to Mars, but to search the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud for nitrogen-rich icy bodies.  On the out-bound trip to the Keiper Belt and beyond, the solar-sail can assist the spacecraft in gaining speed.  On the in-bound journey to the inner solar system (to Mars) the solar-sail can be used to shield a captured icy body from the Sun’s rays.

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#37 2016-03-20 18:51:59

SpaceNut
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Posts: 28,747

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Putting anything that far away from mars will not give mars any help with radiation or for losing its atmosphere.

To make mars have a bigger megasphere will require orbiting satelites that all there respective job is to create magnetic lines of flux around mars to begin the plasma field build up that is being currently stripped away by the suns solar wind...we may need more than one ring around mars to make the field go pole to pole....

Lots of links on this page Space Craft shielding

Plasma shield, Researchers find that Earth’s “plasmaspheric hiss” protects against a harmful radiation belt.

Earth's Magnetized Plasma Shield & Earth-Sun Connection

Shielding Space Explorers From Cosmic Rays

Simulations of Magnetic Shields for Spacecraft

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#38 2016-03-21 08:20:53

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

One interesting idea is to create a magnetic ramscoop around Mars similar to the one you'd build for an Bussard Interstellar Ramjet, that way you'd focus the Solar Wind onto Mars and deionize all those protons into hydrogen for making water. As for other elements, how about ionizing nitrogen atoms from Titan, accelerating those toward Mars with a particle accelerator, and the magnetic field around Mars would collect them and focus them onto Mars's atmosphere, thus bulking it up.

Actually Pluto might be a better source of Nitrogen, as its atmosphere freezes out as it moves further away from the Sun, that same atmosphere then won't get in the way of the particle accelerator that we'd then aim at Mars. We'd accelerate the nitrogen ions fast enough so they don't have time to diverge  much before hitting the artificial magnetic field around Mars. All we'd have to do to obtain the nitrogen is scoop it up off of Pluto's surface.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-03-21 08:27:00)

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#39 2016-03-21 12:25:30

RobertDyck
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Interesting. For years I posted about creating a magnetic field on Mars and Venus. One idea was to use the magnetic field of Venus to collect hydrogen from solar wind. That would combine with oxygen in the upper atmosphere of Venus. On Mars I just wanted to stop atmosphere and water loss. Magnetic ramscoop around Mars? Hmm...

But I wouldn't worry so much about nitrogen. My argument: first scientists claimed the atmosphere of Mars escaped into space. Then we discover there's enough dry ice that if sublimated, it would form 300 millibar pressure on the surface. That would be 30% of Earth's pressure, but enough to allow a person to go outside without a pressure suit. It would be CO2, so you would still need an oxygen mask, but no a spacesuit. Then scientists told us the water of Mars escaped into space. But Mars Odyssey found there's massive subsurface water on Mars, especially at the south pole. Then Mars Express measured that, found the south pole has an ice cap that's so pure it isn't permafrost, it's a polar ice cap covered in a thin skiff if wind-blown dirt. And it's 3.7km thick, extending to 60° latitude! If melted, the south polar ice cap alone has enough water to cover the entire planet 11 metres deep. But of course it wouldn't cover the planet evenly, tops of mountains would stay dry while low areas would fill deeper. And that doesn't include the north polar ice cap, glaciers they found in craters, or permafrost that was discovered by neutron/gamma-ray spectrometer and confirmed by ground penetrating radar.

So first they tell is atmosphere escaped into space, then we find it's still there, just frozen. Then they say water escaped into space, they we find it's still there, just frozen. So now those same scientists are trying to tell us nitrogen escaped into space. There's old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." They already fooled us twice, now they trying to fool us a third time. I don't believe it. It has to be there somewhere. Mars isn't cold enough to freeze nitrogen, only Pluto is cold enough, so where is it?

It must be nitrates. Geologists have looked for nitrates on Mars, but haven't found any. I have also posted my believe that nitrates decompose when they're exposed on Mars surface today. The low pressure, temperature, current atmosphere, and intense UV light causes nitrates to de-oxidize to nitride. When sunlight melts salty permafrost on a warm day, the liquid water will interact with alkali metal nitride. That will react vigorously, causing it to fizz. What's left will be alkali metal oxide and ammonia gas. Mars Express found traces of ammonia, and there's lots of alkali metal oxide in Mars soil. There's other ways to form metal oxides, but not ammonia.

Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. Venus has 6 times the mass of nitrogen as Earth's atmosphere; it's swamped in CO2, but there's actually a lot of nitrogen. Life converted converted much of Earth's nitrogen into protein and DNA, and lightning combines nitrogen with oxygen to form nitrates that fall with rain. Mars today has 0.7% the pressure of Earth, and only 2.7% nitrogen. Mars should have started with as much nitrogen as Earth. Where did it go? I think it's still there, just buried.

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#40 2016-03-21 21:34:28

SpaceNut
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Not much written but the maps are colorful...

Map Of Mars' Gravity Illuminates Planet's Interior

mars_grav_tharsis_custom-3096a6d5856785c8b1f1902598d16fffb73cbb5d-s1100-c15.jpg

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#41 2016-03-31 10:24:08

knightdepaix
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Posts: 239

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

I have an interesting question: can the efforts of making greenhouse gases and magnetization be combined ?

Can greenhouse gas(es) be ionized, chemically broken or nuclearly transformed by harmful-to-human solar and cosmic radiation into ions or another chemical elements and de-ionized by release of thermal, chemical and/or kinetic energy ? The temporary charged greenhouse gas(es) with or without new chemical elements accelerate in circulation of Mars by the created magnetosphere; therefore this charged sphere of gases help shielding Mars from further bombardment of cosmic rays ?

Making nitrogen shall be easier in effort once a sustainable source of helium-4 is found. Nuclear fusion of helium-4 into nitrogen-14 yield energy; therefore the fusion is a way of energy generation on mars and making nitrogen for human use.

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#42 2016-03-31 10:33:08

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Helium-4 is a helium atom with two protons and two neutrons just like most helium atoms are, this is the helium you fill your balloons with, it weighs twice as much as molecular hydrogen. I don't think there is a lot of helium on Mars. If your looking for Helium, probably the planet Uranus is your best bet, it is the closest one of the small gas giants. Barring that there is Saturn. I'm not sure what you want to do with the helium, but fusion hydrogen into helium yields more energy that fusing helium into carbon.

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#43 2016-03-31 19:37:54

SpaceNut
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

knightdepaix any energized gas will tend to escape the weak gravity of mars so we would need to stock pile it in great quantity in order to great a long lasting atmosphere for mars but its going to take more than nitrogen.....

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#44 2016-04-02 19:31:15

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

I think creating the atmosphere is the first priority. Probably generating a planetary wide magnetic field would be the easier thing to do. It would be helpful if we had room temperature superconductors, and laid them out under the surface of Mars.

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#45 2016-04-02 20:34:42

SpaceNut
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

SolarstormhittingMars.jpg?mw=600

With the atmospheric loss rate being estimated to be around 100 tons per day, that seems to be a huge amount to replace and to create more in order to have something to build it up with....

http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/ … rtian-air/

Gallery_Image_8175.jpg

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/11/m … heric-loss

Modeling Atmospheric distribution and Jeans loss on Mars.

The way I see it we must stem the loss rate and that means building up a deflector or field barrier to keep the atmspher from being blown away.

Deflector shield envisioned for Mars mission

Sure the articles about radiation but the principle is still the same....

081119-tw-star-trek-02.grid-6x2.jpg

The Science of Deflector Shields Revolutionised By Discovery Of ‘Radiation Shelters’ On The Moon
Parts of the Moon’s surface have been shielded from radiation by extremely weak magnetic fields. Now researchers have worked out how and say their discovery could protect astronauts on long-duration space missions a weak magnetic fields of just a few hundred nanoTesla have created radiation shelters over relatively large areas of the Moon’s surface. (By comparison, the Earth’s magnetic field has an intensity of about 40,000 nanoTesla.)

1*6DoghdImxTLv2hR01wqPKg.png

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#46 2016-04-03 06:27:49

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

With atmospheric loss at around 100 tons a day, it seems, that what you'd have to do is increase the atmospheric mass at a rate greater than that. The Earth's atmospheric mass is about 5.15×10¹⁵ tons, so a loss of 100 tons of atmosphere is in comparison to that rather tiny, though that is 36,500 tons a year, still that is only 3.65×10⁴ tons, that is still 11 orders of magnitude less than what a terraformed Martian atmosphere would have to be. But building a planetary magnetic field should in comparison to terraforming Mars, be only a minor thing. So this vehicle you have pictured here:
1*6DoghdImxTLv2hR01wqPKg.png
Looks like a pair of spinning Orion spacecraft, one looks configured for landing on Mars, the other for return to Earth, and they both generate a magnetic field around their mutual center. Does this qualify as a magsail? A magsail would counter act the force of gravity towards the Sun with the Solar wind pushing it in the opposite direction. An object in orbit around the Sun which deploys its magsail would have its orbital path straightened out, and it would pull further and further away from the Sun, while losing less of its velocity than it normally would, thus towards Mars orbit if aimed right. One thing a mag sail isn't good for is getting back to Earth. A magsail, unlike a solar sail, cannot angle against the Solar Wind, so it can't tack against it and draw itself closer to the Sun, instead it would either have to deploy a solar sail or use rockets to slow down its orbit and fall towards the Sun.

Well admittedly upon further reflection, I admit their is a way back towards Earth, using the magsail alone, what this would involve would be letting the Solar Wind push this space vehicle further away from the Sun, and towards Jupiter, and as the vehicle approaches Jupiter, it would diminish its mag sail, and use Jupiter's gravity to fling it back towards Earth - I'm not sure NASA or the astronauts would want to do that however!

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-03 06:33:05)

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#47 2016-04-03 20:41:23

SpaceNut
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Posted under image in orion the other topic to make use of this same shielding concept....

The main thing about the image is that the barrier needs to be large enough to not only steer the solar winds around the planet but also to make the barrier thick enough to keep it from passing through the shield.

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#48 2016-04-05 00:30:00

Spaniard
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

A terraformed Mars would have a oxygenated atmosphere. In this postterraforming atmosphere, hydrogen would bind with oxygen to form water, and water will have a frozen trap in high altitude, so I think that hydrogen will be lost very slowly.

A lot of oxygen exists in the surface with other minerals, so I think that to replesh oxygen won't be a problem. Some hydrogen will be lost in any case. Even with the cold trap, there is always water vapor that will reach higher altitude where the temperature inversion take place.
So I would have a benefit if the artificial magnetosphere is not a simple shield like on Earth but a more complex and sophisticated shaped that trap solar wind rather than deflect it. So it could be that the net effect of the solar wind could be positive instead of negative in hydrogen terms.

The only problem would be nitrogen. The artificial magnetosphere will lower the escape but periodic imports will be necessary. Ammonia comets would be probably the easiest way to import more nitrogen.

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#49 2016-04-05 07:01:13

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

Spaniard wrote:

A terraformed Mars would have a oxygenated atmosphere. In this postterraforming atmosphere, hydrogen would bind with oxygen to form water, and water will have a frozen trap in high altitude, so I think that hydrogen will be lost very slowly.

A lot of oxygen exists in the surface with other minerals, so I think that to replesh oxygen won't be a problem. Some hydrogen will be lost in any case. Even with the cold trap, there is always water vapor that will reach higher altitude where the temperature inversion take place.
So I would have a benefit if the artificial magnetosphere is not a simple shield like on Earth but a more complex and sophisticated shaped that trap solar wind rather than deflect it. So it could be that the net effect of the solar wind could be positive instead of negative in hydrogen terms.

The only problem would be nitrogen. The artificial magnetosphere will lower the escape but periodic imports will be necessary. Ammonia comets would be probably the easiest way to import more nitrogen.

There is nitrogen snow and ice on Pluto.
pluto.png
Pluto is pulling further and further away from the Sun in its orbit. By the time we may be ready to terraform Mars, Pluto will be way out their in its orbit, its atmosphere may be completely frozen as a snowy crust on its surface, so all we have to do is build a surface installation, scoop up the frozen gases, which include nitrogen, ionize them and accelerate them towards Mars using a particle accelerator. We could create an artificial "solar wind" of Nitrogen ions. Aim another beam of electrons at it to neutralize those ions, and in the atmosphere of Mars they will form molecular nitrogen, and make sure we bombard Mars with this nitrogen beam at a rate greater than 100 tons a day, so we can build up its atmosphere So to shove lets say 200 tons of nitrogen ice and snow into the particle accelerator would require that we scoop up 1.16 tons of nitrogen ice a second. the beam would have to be fast enough so that the particles don't disperse before reaching Mars.
At the speed of light, a beam would take from 6.74 hours to 7.2 hours to reach Mars from Pluto At half the speed of light it would take 14.4 hours to reach Mars from Pluto. So would the ion beam disperse to greater than the diameter of Mars before it got there? Maybe a magnetic scoop would be helpful in funneling this beam towards Mars, and building up its atmosphere.

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#50 2016-04-05 18:32:38

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Magnetizing Mars - Creation of a Martian Magnetosphere

No need to import or to go anywhere to get it as all that Mars is lacking is what Earth was able to store in energy for 3 plus billion years in fuels and oxygen.

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