New Mars Forums

So, we just got lucky.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sci … spartandhp
1.3 times the mass of Earth, so, not too much more gravity? And better chances for a Magnetic field, Atmosphere and Volcanism, and perhaps water, I would think.  But, you get a year older every 11 days.

And with a larger than Earth presumed gravitation, shallower wider spread oceans and seas perhaps, if there is water.

I would be still happier if they suggested that it had a companion further out in that stellar system, but it sounds like they kept the suspected information about Proxima b quiet since 2013.  So, it wasn't hokey science after all.

Woopie!  I was wrong.
Quote:

I presume that that signal is weaker, and harder to prove, so it either is a smaller planet further in, or a sizable planet further out or a false positive.

I'm pulling for another terrestrial further out.  In fact, since it can't be a gas giant, ice giant, or super Earth (Prior searches have ruled those possibilities out, I believe), it almost has to be of terrestrial mass, because I don't think they could detect object much smaller than Mars anywhere.  (But maybe I'm wrong about that).

If it exists, then perhaps a resonance regardless if it is inside or outside the orbit of Proxima b.  Of course too much of a good thing that way could have a bad influence for habitabilty, as well as possibly a good influence. 

An ideal setup that way could foster a world which could be persistently habitable well through parts of Proxima Centauri's estimated very long lifetime.

I believe that the thinking is that RSL get their moisture from the atmosphere most likely, and I am wondering if an electrical ion flow driven by wind blown dust, and fog precipitation could be involved.

Further, I would like to exploit it if it does indeed concentrate moisture out of the atmosphere.

As for the cleaning on the probes sent, it reminds me of electrical methods proposed to keep solar panels clean.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/4205 … ar-panels/

So, this is another possible clue, which might fit in with a future theory of electrical processes in the Martian atmosphere.

I guess that is plenty of speculation for you to hammer away on, I will learn something I am guessing.  Might not like it, but I am ready.

I Hi Josh,

I have read that the atmosphere of Mars is about 100 times as conductive as the Earths atmosphere.  I presume they mean near the surface of both atmospheres.  So, I would expect that any discharges on Mars would be relatively gentile, as they would not have to generate such a hot plasma in order to facilitate equalization of charge.

But, I am speculating, not enough proven facts to state that what I say is true, it in part might be close.  I also am gravitating towards a notion of electrical discharges occurring on the surface in special locations, and possibly also involving other potential conductive materials of the surface in conjunction with the atmospheres greater ability to conduct electricity.  And I will not preclude the possibility of electrical flow through the ground.  That in fact has to happen at some magnitude.

I am going to try to speculate that elevation differences may be important as well, and temperature of the ground.  I am going to even try to associate RSL with the speculation.

I am not very interested in harnessing the possible electric potential, I think that would not work out very well for any effort expended.  However, I am interested in just possibly exploiting the travel of moisture, and the hope that the process concentrates it to flow along certain pathways in association with the surface, perhaps areas where there are large elevation differences.

But I am speculating, to say otherwise, makes it hard to continue.  But I will continue.  I will also think about the "Cleaning" events that have happened to the probes sent to Mars.

An artificial Plasenta, with nano-blood storage a thing to desire.

An organ to want.  Many have already accepted the notion of artificial limbs, heart, and think that brain implants can bring us towards cyborghood.  So, why not An artificial Plasenta, with nano-blood storage.

Ray Kurzweil (May want me to get off his idea).  No, actually believes that nano-blood will allow a person with a non beating heart, to calmly go to the hospital for treatment because of the nano-blood.  (Or I recall that).

I have mentioned him, because it will be harder for you to just rudely dismiss my post.  Anyway, I do not specifically require nano-blood for the idea, but I think a new artificial organ which does this would be swell.  It might function like a placenta, or maybe more of a blood reservoir.

Something to want in space, or underwater.  The capacity to hold your breath for hours. (Maybe)

It is possible that this could be fitted in somewhere in the human body.  For Homo Galactus, (Of the type I described in the previous post, perhaps a digestive system would be missing anyway, so lots of room until he/she gets a digestive system.  (You wouldn't want baby pooping in the pouch would you?).

Be nice or I will hang around.

I like to explore multiple possibilities.   Efficiency does not matter as much if you have expanded capabilities, but sure, I will run with that.  Sort of.

Lets say you have three slushy machines comprised of:
-Basin and piping with process control machinery.
-A transparent dome over that (RobertD..k could advise), as a solar collector.

The slushy machines connected in serial fashion.  When you melt the slush from #1, you port it to #2, and from #2 to #3.

Then when you have completed your cycles, you have gone through 3 improvement steps.  So, you have a supply of improved water.

During parts of those processes you will have condensation on the inside of the domes.  Frost in the night, and if the pressure is high enough, liquid water during parts of the day.  That could flow down to a gutter for collection.

If you have surplus electrical power you may also force condensation from the "Atmosphere" of the dome with a compressor.

So you would have 3 types of improved water from the 3 slushy machines, and 2 types from natural condensation/forced condensation.

I would think that for primary wash water you do not need all that fresh of a water.  If you have flush toilets, not requiring that good of a water.  Showering, not that good of a water, but you would want a clean rinse at the end.  For drinking, perhaps you would use a mixture of #3, and natural condensation water.  For chemistry, perhaps in some cases you would want the forced condensation water.

And to top it all off, while you were generating fresher waste water, and dense brines, you would also have been creating a 24/7 energy source.  So the slushy machines would be solar energy collectors.

Watch out for peasants with pitchforks, tommy!

The Oort cloud is thought to go almost 25% of the way to Proxima Centauri, and is estimated to have around 2 Trillion objects in it.  So set up housekeeping on a selected suitable one as far out as you can go, and you then have a better starting point.  Of course getting laser propulsion to push you might be much harder, but of course to even think about setting up out there, you would have to have a plentiful power source at location anyway.  Plus, if you master the Oort cloud, out of the 2 Trillion objects of the Oort cloud, you would perhaps have .1% (Just a guess) that were worth also bothering with.  Starting at the edge of the Oort cloud may also reduce your chances of collisions with objects at a high speed with your starship.

If there is any descendent of humans that is partly organic in nature, it would likely be a cyborg.  I am a cyborg already.  I have fillings in my teeth!

But if we are talking about advanced cyborgs, we would also be talking about advanced cybernetic add-ons to the brain.  In that case, you can reduce the size of the organic brain (Perhaps).  If you do that you can reduce the size of the whole body, and still have it resemble homo saps.  That's short for homo sapiens.

There is a deeply rooted phobia against that, because in nature either a large creature kills and eats smaller ones, or a swarm of creatures (Which in some ways resembles a single large creature), kill and eat a singular large one.  This is similar to the way we usually prefer to choose larger bodied men as our primal (Primate) leader.  Although there have been exceptions to that.

The human race runs in a process control loop.  One solution is to have big bodied people, (Robust), another is to have smaller bodied people (Graceful, it would be hoped).

My opinion alone:  The female usually prefers a larger and more physically competitive (Robust) male. The male sometimes prefers a more graceful female, but not necessarily.  If you are a farmer with a lot of hard labor to do, you might very much see beauty in a strong female.
Starships if well designed should not require a lot of hard labor, however, and gracefulness offers a greater brain proportion to body size, so for that the budget should be able to afford small people with proportionally larger brains.

While we are playing Frankenstein, we can violate our genetic programming and cause longer life spans.  Our lifespans are set shorter, so that the species remains responsive to evolutionary pressure.  Something like how our individual cells are supposed to kill themselves if something is wrong with them.  And if going that far, perhaps you could borrow hibernation abilities from animals that can do so.  That would reduce the load.

And if you are going to slow down a starship, consider magnetic braking.

But none of this is really my problem.

Terraformer,

Quite an order.  I have worked on it.

First of all there is a moral issue, if this were formulated for Earth.  Cultural interference.  Giving a loaded gun to a unenlightened entity, and then expecting good results.  I really didn't formulate anything dangerous in that fashion for an Earth implementation anyway.

So, for Mars (Which is appropriate anyway).

I will include your "Wick", and salt water, heat, and differential pressure flow of gasses as I go along.

The first questions are: What is your salt water source?  Where on Mars are you going to do this?

Unless new discovery provides disappointment as to real ability, I choose, RSL (Natural, or created), Fossil Ice at low latitudes, mechanically moved ice from mid latitudes, and mechanically moved polar ice, in that order of implementation, as the sources to be investigated and perhaps implemented.   For location, I choose low latitudes for various reasons well known to the various people who frequent this place.

An alternate and much less desired location, would be mid latitudes where a high probability of a substantial buried glacier exists.

Scope:  I anticipate that prior to this attempt at implementation, scouting by whatever method has supplied sufficient "Ground Truth' per G. W. Johnsons prior expressed cautions.  I also intend that this would be the first substantial base/settlement.  And I use the notion of an ice covered body of water presumably created artificially.  It is highly unlikely that any such "Lake/Pond" could be found as natural.  I also presume that any issues of bio-contamination from Earth to Mars or vice versa, have been properly addressed.  Although I choose to include a ice covered body of water, it is not strictly required for the method(s), so the proposal can have broader potential implementation, and this allows for unknown innovations to be included later.

Your specific reference appears to describe an active system where air is forced through a wick to produce a vapor, and that process also creates a cooled wick.  You want to involve the coolness of the wick to facilitate condensation of a substantially improved water for use.

elderchild has mentioned the hope of using thermal variances to act on a freezing process to produce a substantially improved water for use.  Although as mentioned it appears to be a relatively passive method, it actually would also require a fair amount of activity to produce the improved water.  In fairness to elderchild, perhaps I should more correctly describe what I think he said.  I think he indicated that he hopes to find a already processed buried mass of frozen brine, where the top layers are already suitable for extraction.  That is good, since waiting around for multiple Martian years to produce suitable water, would be a long wait.

I intend to include variations of both methods in a greater process, which I hope will expose humans to a minimized danger to health and life, and perhaps produce good results at the same time.

Taking another break.

One reason I prefer low latitudes, is that barring a dust storm, you will have multiple freeze thaw opportunities, in each Martian year.  Several hundred perhaps.  That will be hard to use, if the idea was to project the cold of the nights through a layer of ice.  The ice is insulating after all, and the thickness of the ice is likely to be substantial.  And then there is the partner question, "How do you get heat into the lake?".

To make some level of the lake comfortable for human habitats you would want a brine layer of at least room temperatures, with a water column pressure of at least 1/3 bar, and preferably an average of 1 bar.  That would require a combination of Martian air pressure (~6mb), and ice layer, and brine layers, where the water and ice would be about 100 feet (American thinking), somewhere in the lake.  Not a small lake.

In order to use day/night + Solar energy, I suggest containers be built over the surface of the ice or on the "Shore" of the lake.  These are to provide the energy to create brine layer separations.  They will have to be able to handle variations in pressure, up to at least 70 mb, I think.  They may incorporate solar energy with a typical thermal solar collection method, or use heliostats, or they could perhaps use both.
They would also serve as radiators at night.

Two things to avoid in these containers would be solid salt, and slabs of ice, because the later could damage the equipment, and the former would require mechanical removal.

Your system would be active, and also any method to use slab ice would also require an active method as well.

So, I want to form slush at night in these containers, from brine.  Think washing machine cycles.  You would pump brine into the containers, and then allow them to radiate the heat off.  You would drain the remnant brine off before the whole mass froze into a slab, and before salts precipitated out of the solution.  The slush mix would still contain a substantial salt remnant, so it would thaw at a relatively low temperature as the sun warmed up the containers during the day.  Lets say, the temperature of the melted solution would be several degrees below the melting point of fresh water.  You would then drain that solution, into the upper layers of the lake just under the ice.

You would then fill the container with your colder denser brine layers and allow the containers/solar collectors to heat the solution to room temperature and above.  This will of course require solar heating methods which I previously mentioned.  When this has reached it's maximum result for the day, then that solution would be drained to the lower layers of the lake.

So, if this first process were implemented, the lake would be primed for extraction of electrical energy by way of the salt methods, where differential saltiness can produce electrical energy.  The process for that would be built in enclosures in the warm brine layer, adjacent and connected to human habitat in the same layer.  This does not forbid the use of other methods to extract electrical energy from say solar panels of that type.

On towards your issue Terraformer.

Your method reminds me of a forced distillation process that is used in industry.  They compress steam from an evaporator until water condenses, and the recycle the heat produced to the evaporator.  And cold from the vacuum used in the evaporator is directed to the condensation process as well.

So if your wick were a bubble, you could have your warm salty solution inside of that bubble, and pull a vacuum on the outside of that wick.
The cooled brine produced could be used to assist the pressurized condensation process.  Your brine source could be the upper layer of less salty water which would be cold, but you could preheat it with a heat exchanger in the warmer, more salty layer further down in the lake.

The machinery for this could be in the 1/3 to 1 bar + layer of the water, along with other equipment and habitats, so this would be a relatively sheltered environment where humans would have relative protection from the normal Martian environment.

........

I will describe a variance of the above which may make it more practical.  I presume actually that Martians will actually create and use electrical solar panels to provide electrical energy during daytime.

This could reduce the rigors on the solar/radiator containers I have described for creating slush and warm brine.  Instead of having to generate warm brine, they would create a warm steam during the daytime, and solar panels could provide the electrical energy to compress that steam into a hot liquid during the day.  Then those containers would not need to hold a differential pressure of ~70 mb plus, but could be more reasonably near the Martian ambient pressure, allowing thinner walls.

The use of salt layers to generate electricity then would be as a battery type back-up for the daytime electric system.

That's it.  I know that most of you want to think about earlier methods for scouting and settlement, but without a comprehensive long term plan, which might provide a strong method to support the lives of a large population later, I am not sure the bother to inhabit Mars would be worth it.

If someone comes up with something better for the purpose, then good on them.

I would have to think that if you warmed the temperatures to 50 degF, at a pressure of about 6 mb, the evaporation rate would be high.  Surely higher temperatures could be achieved by having it in the sunlight, and with a reflective foil on the ground in front of it.

Actually for the removal of the condensate, I expect to disconnect the connected condenser, and move it into the habitat, perhaps at night to thaw out overnight.  Probably a good idea to put a pinch of sugar into it to hope to neutralize Hexavalent Chromium, if any is present in the condensate.

Dealing with toxins will be important for any scheme for utilizing water on Mars.  Just possibly the buried water at the mid latitudes might be extracted without much of a toxin content, but I would not count on it.

But again, I urge you continue with your idea(s), one thing about this board that irritates me is when members have a hard time entertaining multiple options when there are multiple situations.

Glad you showed up Tom.

I took a bit of time to do additional reading, and pulled old memories out of my head also.

Your best bet for a good energy source on a tidal locked red dwarf planet with an atmosphere would be wind power, on most parts of the planets surface.

After that geothermal.  Particularly if the planet is in resonance with another planet.

After that, other possibilities are hydroelectric power, since without flowing rivers, it has written that such a planet cannot regulate a upper bound for it's atmospheric pressure.

Red Dwarf planets will be interesting, because a typical view is that they will have a hard time even holding an atmosphere.  However I have recently read a contradiction, which indicates that due to the slow heating up of a red dwarf star, Terrestrial planets will be wrapped in a thick dense atmosphere of Hydrogen and Helium.  (Why that would not then be stripped away by the solar wind, I do not understand).

It appears from the writings currently available, being on the inner edge of the "Habitable" zone of a Red Dwarf would be particularly hazardous, as even the Earths magnetic field would not protect it in that case.  But I do ask the question, "If this is so, how does Venus have a very thick atmosphere?".

So, referencing our solar system but in the mind warping it into a red dwarf system, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Ceres, each speculated on as instead, having an Earth like planet in place of the real planets, what might be the results?

The Earth as Venus, would be in presumed great danger of loosing it's atmosphere.

The Earth as Earth, might still be in presumed great danger of loosing it's atmosphere.

The Earth as Mars, would be colder than our Earth, but might be protected well enough by Earths magnetic field.  I believe I have read that even at the Mars orbit, Earth would manage to have some open ocean water.

The Earth at the orbit of Ceres (And incidentally outside of the "Habitable" zone), would have a very hard time generating any liquid water under 1 bar atmospheric conditions.

How for the Mars and Ceres situations, it is thought possible that the feedback situation would cause the buildup of additional atmospheric pressure, and at those locations a Earth style magnetic field might be more assured as being sufficient to protect the atmosphere.

Such an atmosphere as I recall could build up to up to 10 bars, before clouds, and dust would begin to cause an "Anti-Greenhouse" effect.

Standard humans would have a hard time dealing with more than 6 bars due to Nitrogen narcosis, probably that is to high, but I am going to presume that atmospheres from 1-4 bars might be OK for standard humans.

Earth at Mars would probably try to regulate to 2 bars, and Earth at Ceres might be hoped to have a pressure of somewhere around 4 bars of atmosphere, presuming a Nitrogen dominated atmosphere.

This might be very nice, as a thicker atmosphere would offer more protection from radiation problems, and more wind power, and interesting aspects for aircraft flight.  Such a thicker atmosphere also might distribute heat much better from the day side to the night side, and also protect the night side from the chilling effects of the universe.

On the negative side, a thick fast wind would tend to blow down your buildings, and be a hazard to human health.  You might get blown away.

However the further out the orbit, the less likelihood of tidal locking of the planet.

The feedback I have talked about is the incorporation of atmosphere in rock.  If a planet is not warm enough for liquid water rivers, then much less of this will happen, therefore the atmospheric pressure is supposed to build up until liquid water rivers occur.  The liquid water rivers are supposed to limit any further build up of atmospheric pressure.

Done.

I lied.

Even if such a world existed, and the sunward side were hard to inhabit due to radiation risks, the dark side would be more protected I presume, and you could certainly make it a more happy place with artificial lighting most likely powered by wind power.  I have often presumed that in this situation the light would shine in direct proportion to the intensity of the winds, so if you lived on a river, lake, or sea shore and had a farm field, a wind gust would light things, up, and then during a calm everything would go dark and you could see the stars in the sky.  Lets imagine that cycle might last minutes.  That would be really cool, I think.  Of course if you were in a city, there would be constant lighting and light pollution.

But with a denser atmosphere, and ocean circulation, it is possible that the night side might not be too cold, at least not in some parts.

Now I am done.  Maybe

Well whoever is in charge will likely do what they want with Titan.  Maybe what you want.

I won't force anyone to ask me to get off their side, but so far I am in agreement with all that I have discovered in others postings.

I will add to what I think was said and indicate that I don't think that existing theories about how star systems are formed are sufficiently complete.  (Let alone the many ways that planets can become a variation of multiple sub-types.

First of all the weird TNO's.  Objects with elliptical, retrograde, and inclined orbits, or variations of such.  I do listen to the experts, and they have suggestions/theories as to how they got that way, and I am sure that what they say is the case often.  However,
the stories told, for the most part do not seem to factor in rogue objects, or the nature of a stellar nursery, or I am not able to understand how they do yet.

First of all, what happens to a stellar nursery that has not yet formed it's first star, when a rogue object enters it?  Specifically, can a pre-conception stellar nursery capture such objects?  If so the methods of capture might include gravitation, magnetic field drag, and accretion.  A combination of these effects and others could cause a rogue object to be captured into an orbit of the stellar nursery, where at least part of the orbit would place it inside the nursery.  Over time with each orbit dip the object would dwell deeper and deeper inside the nursery, spiraling through it towards the center of gravitation of the nursery.

If this can be true, then the first formed star(s) in that situation could result from that process, where a captured object would be a point of nucleation of the first star(s).

Those first stars might form disks and planets, ejecting numerous objects during the process.  In fact it would not be entirely ejection, because other less mature concentrations of gas/dust would help some of the objects to leave a forming star system, sucking them in.  And so first stars would fling out objects into the nursery, perhaps "Conceiving" younger stars, and so the process would continue until the nursery ran out of food to make new stars.

Objects transferred from older siblings to still to be born younger siblings would not necessarily conform the to spin and plane of the spin of the still to be born younger siblings.

So, before a star system ever formed its own "Native" objects, it would adopt objects from older siblings.  Those adopted objects would have a fair amount of randomness as to conformity with the spin and plane of the adopting pre-born star.

But over time the local spin would try to make them more conformed.

The further out they were, and especially if they only impinged on the forming disk twice in a orbit, they might not alter orbit or surface character too fast.

So, some retrograde and inclined objects might persist for a long time.  Some non-conformist objects would be destroyed by the disk, and some non-conformist objects would be caused to conform and circularize their orbit.

So, could reformed non-conformist objects that had their orbits circularized by dragging through a forming stars, gas/dust cloud, become the seed(s) for planets?  Maybe.

If any of this could be found to be true, the variations in formation of planets would be very large, so it will be very hard to know what to expect when planets are actually characterized.