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#1 2005-03-22 12:57:24

avhsstudent
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From: Apple Valley, Mn
Registered: 2005-03-22
Posts: 1

Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

i am doing a project on mars and how to land and live on mars, i have been assigned to find a way to create gravity or compenaste for the low gravity. does anyone way have any ideas i could use. thanks, please send them to jimmybehiking@yahoo.com, thanks

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#2 2005-04-02 17:38:24

John Creighton
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From: Nova Scotia, Canada
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

Weighted chutes, pills, excessive, centrifuges, roller coasters, driving really crazy. Now the question remains, do you need to compensate for lower gravity?


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#3 2005-04-02 19:33:59

dicktice
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From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

How do we know Mars's gravity won't be benificial to longevity. I say test by simulation in LEO before becoming too concerned. While we at it, do the same for the Moon's gravity. Both represent where we can go to live off-Earth, not either/or, so spinning satellites in LEO may be the way to go after all.

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#4 2005-04-09 12:47:27

Planet@lien
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From: Duluth, MN
Registered: 2005-04-07
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

the low gravity would help the food grow easier than on earth


There are old astronauts, and there are bold astronauts, but there are no old bold astronauts
                                        Quote - Ben Bova

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#5 2005-04-09 15:30:05

Grypd
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From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

the low gravity would help the food grow easier than on earth

Why would it help food grow easier actually low gravity can be a real pain for plant growth. An example look at grain if under gravity it grows a lot longer stalks then not only will there be less grain produced but the stalks will be fragile.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

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#6 2005-04-18 11:46:52

Fledi
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

How lucky we are that genetic engineering is showing up in the meantime.

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#7 2005-04-18 14:16:20

RobertDyck
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Posts: 7,936
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

Seriously, the microgravity of an asteroid would be a problem, but not 38% gravity on Mars. The zero-G of orbit causes muscle atrophy due to lack of use, and bone decalcification due to lack of strain (also lack of use), and muscle tension on blood vessels in the legs that normally helps push blood back toward the heart causes a fluid shift from legs to upper body. Most of the fluid shift is undone after just a few days in orbit. Astronauts report food doesn't taste as strong, but that's due to molecules not moving quickly to receptor sites on taste buds. I believe settlers on Mars will be just fine. Their muscles and bones will adapt for whatever exercise they do regularly. They might be slimmer than normal on Earth but that's Ok. Mars gravity is enough for food to taste the same as on Earth. One reason to go to Mars is gravity; that's a benefit, not a problem.

Seriously though, I believe gravity is caused by a time dilation gradient. That is, time dilation is not caused by a gravity well, rather the other way around. I believe the large mass of a planet directly causes distortion in space-time, which causes the space distortion described by General Relativity as well as time dilation. Stable time dilation will not cause gravity or be noticed at all, but a gradient (strong low down and smoothly transitioning to weak above) will cause the effect we call gravity. Creating a time dilation gradient is very difficult; the only way we know is a massive object like the Earth. You won't be able to create an artificial gravity field like the "gravity plating" on Star Trek.

Einstein said there is no measurable difference between acceleration and gravity, and anything for which you cannot measure a difference is not different. You could build a house as a giant centrifuge, but the practical problems are how to get in or out, and the energy necessary to spin it. The diameter has to be very large to avoid dizziness. A rollercoaster does provide a couple seconds of higher acceleration, but an equal amount of lower acceleration at the top.

The big question is "why". Going to Mars is supposed to be different. We need things to let people live on Mars, and an economy to make stuff like homes, spacesuits, food, dishes, etc. We don't need to make Mars look like Earth.

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#8 2005-04-19 09:31:30

reddragon
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

That is, time dilation is not caused by a gravity well, rather the other way around.

I'd say that both gravity wells and time dilation are effects of mass warping space time; neither causes the other. Acceleration also causes gravity and time dilation, though. That seems to make acceleration the same as mass, which it is not, so maybe I'm missing something here.

I believe the large mass of a planet directly causes distortion in space-time, which causes the space distortion described by General Relativity as well as time dilation. Stable time dilation will not cause gravity or be noticed at all, but a gradient (strong low down and smoothly transitioning to weak above) will cause the effect we call gravity.

This theory doesn't really seem different from Einstein's general relativity.

As for artificial gravity, do we know why mass warps spacetime? If so can this effect be created in any other way?


Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

             -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
              by Douglas Adams

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#9 2005-04-19 15:06:06

RobertDyck
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

Einstein's theory of General Relativity was first proven by Einstein himself. He plotted the orbit of Mercury around the Sun assuming it followed the straightest path possible through curved space-time. Notice it follows the straightest path so there is no actual force; General Relativity implies gravity is an effect rather than a force. I came to the same conclusion when thinking what would happen to something (like a ball) moving through a time dilation gradient: stronger time dilation on the bottom than the top of the object. Velocity is measured by distance divided by time (metres/seconds) but if you reduce the passage of time on the bottom then you decrease the denominator of the fraction, increasing its velocity. As the ball moves down it falls deeper down the time dilation gradient so the time denominator gets smaller, making velocity faster. This is how things fall down a gravity well.

Mass is a funny thing, it causes distortion of all 4 dimensions of space-time. It's not made of solid particles, but rather cohesive energy packets. Electromagnetic wave packets (photons) are compression waves in the dimension of space-time. Some people claim they're waves in the 5th dimension, but I don't think a 5th dimension is necessary, just add take into account the effects of a compression wave in time. If the energy packet is intense enough it will cause a distortion (wave) in higher dimensions. There 1 dimension of time, 3 of space, a couple more for 5 dimensions over which weak nuclear forces work, and a couple more for a 7 over which strong nuclear forces work.

Light expands in 3 dimensions so the surface of a sphere has 2 dimensions, area of which light spreads will increase as the square of radius so light intensity decreases as the inverse square. Weak nuclear force expands in 5 dimensions (my theory) so the surface of the hypersphere has 4 dimensions; it's intensity decreases as the inverse 4th power. Strong nuclear force expands in 7 dimensions so the surface has 6 dimensions; it's intensity decreases as the inverse 6th power. That's why weak nuclear force only reaches a short distance outside the nucleus, not even to the edge of the atom's electron cloud. Strong nuclear force reaches adjacent subatomic particles within a nucleus, it doesn't even reach across the whole nucleus.

The intense waves in space-time of which subatomic particles consist are so intense they distort all dimensions. Distortions in the 6th and 7th dimensions don't go very far, but they are sharp enough that the very waves themselves are reflected back upon themselves. Within a baryon (proton or neutron) waves are constantly reflecting and curving between dimensions, causing exchange of energy between electro-magnetic, magnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. The waves are literally surfing on one another and the time dilation effects within the baryon are extreme. The source of all these waves was the Big Bang; since then the waves have spread out, fragmented, dispersed to lower energy states (waves in lower dimensions). We call that process increasing enthalpy.

It's my assertion that dimensions are prime numbers for a reason, they're stable harmonics. Just as electron orbitals are 1S, 3P, 5D, 7F, etc. the very dimensions themselves are prime numbers. However, they don't have to be, that's just the stable ones. Dimensions are not integers, they can be fractional. In fact they are continuous and flexible. Movement through space over time will affect dimensions. Relativity says a theoretical spaceship approaching the speed of light will become shorter in the dimension of travel, at exactly the speed of light it would have zero length. I believe this is due to the dimension of travel collapsing. You should get some very weird effects close to the speed of light, because the space ship would be a 3 and a fraction dimension object in our 4 dimensional space-time universe. That factional dimension will cause random effects described by fractal mathematics. In fact, an electron is an object that travels close to the speed of light and it does have random movements. No one can measure an electron's exact position in 3 dimensional space and its velocity; you can measure any 3 but not all 4 at once. I believe this is because an electron doesn't have all 4 dimensions of space time, its high speed has partially collapsed one of its dimensions. Attempts to measure all for dimensions at once are just trying to measure something that isn't there.

So this leads to another question: how do you create a distortion in time without distorting any of the other dimensions? Distorting space over short distance would consume a lot of power and be quite destructive. Distorting dimensions responsible for the weak or strong nuclear forces would consume a huge amount of power, and probably result in cohesive energy packets of self-reflecting/refracting waves in all dimensions; in other words matter. It isn't necessary to create a large displacement in time, just a gradient. How do you do that? Practical application would require a gradient steep enough to create 1G of gravity, but contained to just your ship. You don't want to waste power to create gravity over a volume of space as large as Earth. But how do you do any of that?

The only way I know to exchange forms of energy like that is within a baryon. You make an electron-positron pair by colliding an electron a photon. The energy of an electron at rest 0.511MeV so if the total of the electron's kinetic energy plus the photon add up to 1.022MeV it will spontaneously split into an electron-positron pair in addition to the original electron. The total charge must equal what you started with, so you must have the original electron plus a positive and negative particle. Static electricity will pull the electron and positron back together, and they'll annihilate each other if they collide so you need enough extra energy for them to fly apart. You could collide two photons in space to form enough energy, but the only way to convert energy into mass or vice versa is inside a subatomic particle.

So how do you convert electromagnetic energy into time dilation?

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#10 2005-04-19 16:12:56

reddragon
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

Thanks. That cleared up the stuff about gravity and time dilation anyway. I'd never thought of acceleration due to gravity as being caused by time dilation in the gravity well, but now that I think about it it makes sense. I'm afraid you lost me on some of the later stuff though, the more so as I got farther down. At any rate I had a few questions about that.

I'm not sure what you mean that mass is made of "cohesive energy packets." I thought that mass and energy are the same thing, but can you say mass is made of energy when it's in the mass state. The packets you're talking about are quanta right?

The bit about forces decreasing with the inverse powers of distances makes sense, except you didn't mention gravity. Doesn't gravity decrease with the inverse square? I thought gravity affected more than three dimensions.

I'm afraid I really don't understand stable harmonics and fractal mathematics so I can't say much about that. When you talked about trying to measure the position and velocity of the electron, however, it sounded like the uncertainty principle, but I thought that was due to the fact that the act of observing changes a thing.

I'm not sure if that last question is something i'm supposed to answer or not. The only way I can think of is to convert the energy into mass by colliding the photons with electrons as you describedd. This would create mass, and thus time dilation and gravity, but it would mean making your ship the size of Earth if you wanted 1G. I guess there's no chance for artificial gravity then.

I hope I'm not boring you with all these questions which may seem simple to you. Feel free not to answer if I am.


Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

             -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
              by Douglas Adams

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#11 2005-04-19 17:12:48

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,936
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Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

It's Ok, it's not boring. We might be boring other people though. Yes, the "cohesive energy packets" are quanta. I'm trying to imply why quanta stick together. However, I'm also saying that a subatomic particle is also a "cohesive energy packet". A photon is just a wave that moves at the speed of light and doesn't disperse itself because of time dilation. Since a photon moves at the speed of light and time stops at the speed of light, there is no time inside the photon. So the photon (a wave in dimensions of space) moves as a single thing rather than a ripple spreading out. A subatomic particle is also made of energy waves, but they're more complicated. The waves of a subatomic particle are also waves in dimensions of space but there are more than one, and they "surf" on each other. The waves are intense and create sharp distortions in dimensions of space. This means they can curve around (refract) as well as curving from one dimension to another. They could curve from the X dimension to the Y or Z dimension, but they could also curve to the time dimension. Or one of the dimensions of nuclear force. The interplay inside a proton or neutron is quite complicated.

The trick to converting energy to mass is to create a set of waves that are so intense they bend upon each other so the waves don't get out. That creates a packet.

Yes, gravity expands as the inverse square. That implies it acts in 3 dimensions. Nuclear forces have a limit. Traditional quantum mechanics says there is a finite limit but doesn't say why. The weak nuclear force acts farther than the strong one, but again I've never read any reason why. I'm trying to say it tapers off much more quickly, that's why.

Fractal mathematics is something I still have to study. I haven't found any text that describes fractal mathematics over a continuous domain, just integers. Integers can build pretty computer graphics, but it doesn't help with physics. One person described it like this:

Imagine a straight line. That line is a single dimension, any position is simply to one side or the other of a given point. That position can be represented by a single number, with the sign specifying which side of the reference point. Now think of a line that wiggles like string on a table top. That wiggle represents a fraction of a dimension. Now let the string wiggle ever deeper curves and let the curves get more complicated with small curves on them. That represents an increase in the fractional dimension. Let the string wiggle back and forth increasingly with ever more complicated sub-wiggles until the wigglyness is practically infinity. The string will be a solid mass that covers the table top; at that point it represents 2 dimensions. Then let the sheet on the table start wiggling up and down. That represents another fractional dimension above 2. Let the sheet get ever more wiggly with every deeper curves and ever more complicated sub-wiggles until the sheet fills the room (or a cube above the table). When it fills the room it has become 3 dimensions. That's what fractional dimensions are all about. Fractional dimensions are fractal mathematics.

The question of how to exchange energy between electromagnetic and time dilation was rhetorical. If you could answer that you would have completed the Unified Field Theory.

The question about position and velocity is an alternative take on the uncertainty principle. Einstein never accepted it; his famous quote was "God doesn't play dice". He believed everything must have a reason. I'm giving a reason. You still can't measure all 4 things at once, but there's a reason why. This reason is one step toward unification. I'm using a principle of General Relativity to explain a phenomenon of Quantum Mechanics.

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#12 2005-04-19 18:24:53

reddragon
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Registered: 2005-01-24
Posts: 193

Re: I am doing a project - mars colonation

Thanks. I think that answered several of my questions. I get what you mean by fractal dimensionsnow; the string analogy makes sense. I'm still not completely sure how a subatomic particle is made of waves that "surf" on each other. I know there's a lot of complicated mathematics behind theoretical physics, and one of my problems in understanding it is that I don't have the math and wouldn't understand most of it anyway.


Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

             -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
              by Douglas Adams

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