New Mars Forums

Getting back to topic, stem cell work, where cells missing are replaced is another of the seven categories of damage that can be addressed.

Going beyond that and presuming the Mars might have a pressurized but still toxic atmosphere at some point, I might speculate on a placenta type implant perhaps having biological and mechanical characteristics to store Oxygen in your body.

Crocodile blood?  Or nano storage chemicals.  Put the new organ in your abdomen somewhere, and maybe able to hold your breath for 10-15 minutes?

That's good information, but I would make the point that there is a significant energy source in visible light.

But I wonder if a life form that likes to grow in UV only could be found?  If something likes very hard radiation then why not UV?

Another concern is how adapted is an organism to Mars conditions as far as moisture availibility and also temperature ranges.

Some Antarctic lichens, can motabolize down to -20 degrees C, and can absorb water vapor into themselves from ice, frost and snow therefore perhaps not even requiring liquid water phase external to them.

Still and open mind should be kept on this.

I have watched some of the video.  It's also good.  It's getting late though.  Maybe another day for the rest of it.

All of this could also relate to space activities, since a improved breathing system could make the habitation of Mars, eventually more probable.

Of the seven items that the Sens foundation has helped to speak about as being the classes of damage that cause aging, one is cells that don't die when we would want them to.  Some cases are cancer, some are just old cells that sit around being toxic.

I did think about using viruses to attack cancer a couple of days ago, and sure enough it looks like a lot of research like that is happening in Canada.  You can look for it yourself if you care to.  I choose not to mention the political entity that did a lot of research on giving bacterial infections a viral infection, but it does not exist now.  Please no politics here.  With radiation a hazard in space, then treating cancer with viruses has to be of interest.

I am thinking about this some more and thinking in fact what if you could give a human cell with a viral infection a second viral infection.
If as in the case of viruses selectively attacking cancer cells, you could get a second infection to attack cells already infected another disease, such as HIV or a more contagious illness, then the second infection could either kill the cells incubating the first virus, or render it's reproductive activity damaged, or attract the humans immune system to attack the double infected cells,

Where the first infection might burn slow, so as not to quickly kill it's host materials, so that it can spread it's genome.  The second human created infection could be like wild fire, designed to find it's host cells and kill them as fast as it could.

It would not be polite for me to not reply, so I must.

I will leave the issue of personal indulgence for the high masters to settle, with some apology for the trouble it might cause.

My post was to indicate that unless the inheritors become something other than human, they will fall prey to the same social errors.
For many, it seems this is not an issue, anymore than charging your personal line of credit to a point where your life style is forced to change.  Most things are beyond my pay grade, or if I am wise I say "I don't know".

OK, I confess, that did not quite make it, as it implied that the trolly car could somehow complete the circuit through the ground.

The trolly cars would have to have two conductors, one a main of either polarity, and a lesser one to power the trolly car.  The ground would serve to conduct power to towns located at a place of a resource such as a mineral.

I am trying to minimize the use of copper or aluminum, while serving your desire to heat the ground.

That all I have at this time.

Just a wicked guess

In an idle society with plenty, a surplus of persons who can produce must be present.  (Persons or robots, and robot servants)

In the case of humans stone age motivations are still drivers for motivations.

Breeding practices would be altered.  I speculate that in a harsh situation, I male may prefer a robust woman who can help with hard labors (Old farm life for instance).

Otherwise the males on average may prefer smaller, more child like females (Larger head to body ratio, less hair, smaller size, graceful, etc.) with secondary sexual features present.

For the female in a technological society where material goods are abundant, and therefore technological capable males a surplus, will most likely prefer a type A male with larger body, so that she can obtain additional material goods from a male that is good at obtaining material goods from other producing persons.

If a society is male dominated, then the offspring will be more like space aliens that we fantasize about.

However if males continue to have their instinct to mate, and females as is usual have a great deal of say about who their mate is then type A's with physically dominating bodies, and socially manipulative person skills, will grow in numbers.  The domination process will require that technological males put their efforts towards military skills to be competitive in procuring material goods, to attract a female.

In terms of social organisms that help foster this process is some religions where a large attending population of females who are naturally gifted at the manipulation of people.  One manipulation is who may mate and how.  Adding some frustration can be helpful   Then determining or influencing which males are allowed to occupy apparent positions of power.

Business has not been like that but we do now have in our business process an increase of religion like regulation in business to make it possible to integrate a greater proportion of females into business.  It is a lesser effect.  However, business has been changing from manufacturing oriented processes to distributive processes, where technical skills on average are valued less (Unless they are very good), and people manipulation is honored more.

When the population exceeds the material goods, then there will be war and the slaughter house, often type A males killing each other off.

Then a time constant is established where periodically there are too many stone age type winners, and another war will happen as soon as a spark sets off the fuel of excess aggressors.

Familiar?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic … -at-night/

That and either Liquid/Solid C02, or Liquid Air (On Mars, mostly the gasses that are not CO2).

Heat from the environment + Stored hight temperature Solar Molten Salt Heat + Steam Power

If you have a "Steam Jacket" surrounding your molten salt you reduce heat loss to the universe, and also it can be noted that the ambient thermal conditions on Mars will usually add heat to CO2, and will almost always add heat to  Liquid Air (On Mars, mostly the gasses that are not CO2).

Of course water could be the working fluid as well, but is precious in many locations on Mars.  You might want to be able to recapture some of it after it condenses, but that would reduce power most likely.

So, can we catch comets by putting salt on their tails?

I have been thinking about the fact that you have reasonably accepted salts as propulsion mass, in association with the ion thrusters referenced in
this thread.

I always hope for a way to procure mass from non-Earth objects in such a way to be helpful to the cause.

Moon dust being the most easily obtained portion of Lunar resources, and many salts apparently being partially composed of metals, I see a
potential.

This also could be done from the moons of Mars, and of course Mars itself has salt pans, and salty soils.

Don't know if these thrusters can use NaCl, but I do know that there is Sodium and Chlorine on the Moon.  I don't know if much Sodium is in the dust,
and I don't expect much Chlorine in the dust, but I do believe that there are other metals that could be used to in part create salts.

I would have to suppose that the Chlorine would have to come from Earth, and possibly Mars, or a substitute for Chlorine which would also make
usable salts.  I am sure getting Chlorine or Fluorine into orbit would be a have some danger involved.

There are also Iron Salts (Which I don't know are or are not usable)

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/materials-s … e=19295340

Magnesium Sulfate looks interesting since it has less dangerous components, but I of course do not know if it is suitable for this propulsion
system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_sulfate

Anyway, if it is a good propulsion system for some aspects of space travel, then perhaps some components of the salts can be obtained off planet,
at a reasonable cost very soon, and then of course with a more advanced space industry (If ever), perhaps all the components could be obtained, from
the Moon, and then other locations.

Of course Mercury, Europa, and Enceladous likely have those, but that would be very very advanced space industry.

I will do some follow-up conversation on Lichens. and micro-organisms.
I begin by using you best case value of 11 degC as the upper limit for useful moisture, and that applies as you have said to the lowest surface of Mars, Hellas Basin as you have said.  So I agree to the statement that about ½  of Mars can support surface life with liquid moisture as is, with no terraforming.
That article I referenced however, adds that -20 degC is the lower limit for some hardy lichens from Antarctica.
Tests done by Europeans, Germans I think, indicate that some of those Lichens and also Cyanobacteria, have a rough time making it out in the open, but in cracks in dirt or cracks in rocks, conditions seem to be good enough for them to make it.  They said that it would be because of protection from radiation, and I believe that is likely a factor.  I would imagine the spectrum of light at the surface can be divided into three factors:
1) Warming (They must all serve to warm). 
2) Photo generative non-damaging. (Some of the visible light). 
3) Damaging (UV).
Perhaps Lichen and Cyano have a saturation level for 2) Photo generative non-damaging light.  If so, being in a crack would attenuate all wavelengths of light in most cases.  However if some is reflected light, perhaps being in a crack would also change the amount of particular wavelengths, since some wavelengths would be absorbed and some reflected.  At any rate if a photo organism had already gotten as much useful light as it needed, not going above that level, would also limit the amount of harmful wavelengths.
Salt: Lichen would not benefit from having salt in the crack.  It is typically not very salt tolerant I have read.  Cyano bacteria might benefit from salt, which would help retain moisture, and would keep moisture liquid at lower temperatures.  So Lichen can deal with temperatures down to -20 and still metabolize, but Cyano bacteria would more likely dominate salty areas.
The thermal characteristics of cracks might be important as well.  Cracks in rocks or soil may have a higher thermal inertia, and perhaps have a lesser temperature swing than other locations.  If the variation is primarily between -20 degC and 11 degC, (In Hellas) then that would be optimal for a moisturized situation supporting metabolism.  That I presume would occur at some time during the day, and not be likely during the night.  However the night may be helpful to drop the temperature in the cracks below -20 degC, and make it possible for condensation to occur in the crack primarily after the lowest temperature is achieved.  I would expect that as the open areas begin to warm up, unless sunlight is directly shining at that time into the crack, the crack would be of a lower temperature, and would receive donations of moisture from the open areas, which would be loosing moisture.

The experiments conducted, trying to simulate the current ambient conditions, suggest that in protected areas the most hardy lichen can do OK, and it can be supposed that if you could get such lichens, and perhaps also Cyano bacteria started in those protected areas, they might eventually tune with evolution to be even better adapted.  But without interventions I cannot speculate how long that would take.  It would actually be wise to have a chamber on Earth where that evolution can be stimulated, different strains of the Fungi, Cyano Bacteria, and perhaps Algae provided, the survival of the fittest.  But perhaps a bit of genetic engineering could be used as well.

I would also like to see an experiment where 11 mb was employed and also 22 mb.  If the average of Mars was elevated to 11 mb, then perhaps Hellas in it’s best case would be 22 mb (A gestimate).
I would also like to see how the organisms respond to dry snow accumulation in the cracks from simulated snow falls and wind, and how they would deal with dust and also salts.
Antarctica’s Lichens environmental preferences have been defined well enough.
I know you don’t require this, but maybe some other readers do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
Salts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20618868

You have expanded the information, and in reality we have pretty much the same tools.  I decided to plan on the basis of a value for CO2 ice in the South pole that would actually move the average from ~5 mb to ~11 mb.  I agree with your moisture analysis.
You will notice that I left open the option to import Nitrogen (Ammonia) and such.
I would make the point that while we can speculate on tools to put in the tool box, it will be human motivation, and practicality that color the sequence and magnitude of the use of tools.
Economics will be one of the motivate humans, technical difficulties would on the other hand limit from a practical view what could be tried.
Actual hardware, and human culture, what people are motivated to do, what seems intelligent, or not worth it can change by the time these things are implemented.
A more certain inventory of resources available would color the decisions on how to do the teraforming.
Beginning with Lichen, I would say that it is likely that humans will be roughing it on Mars in small numbers at the time that Lichen would also be taking hold.  Other than providing for their survival and comforts, if they have extra energy, they could begin releasing greenhouse gasses, and that if combined with a possible dumping of dust on the CO2 deposites on the south pole, just could be enough for an initial teraform to perhaps at least 11 mb.
Back to moisture.  I have read that at 11 mb, the Mars climate could provide for true water snows, and I presume ice frosts across an expanded area.  This is important for Lichen, because they do not need water in liquid form, but can do some amazing things just from moisture, snow, and ice.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-anta … ts/lichens
Lichens have a number of adaptations that enable them to survive in Antarctica. They are able to exhibit net photosynthesis while frozen at temperatures as low as -20°C. They can absorb water from a saturated atmosphere when covered by snow. Additionally, snow cover affords protection from the elements and most growth appears to occur when they are buried beneath at least a thin protective layer of snow. They can survive long unfavorable periods of drought in a dry and inactive state. In continental Antarctica, many lichens are able to absorb water vapor from snow and ice.
So getting them covered with snow, and also prolonging the period of time they are surrounded by a water vapor saturated atmosphere, could only help them.
Further I hope that snow may be able to scrub the Chlorine out of the atmosphere, and so perhaps permit an accumulation of Ozone, also helping the Lichens.
Where it will likely turn out that there could be 100-1000 mb eventually available for atmosphere eventually, that is not certain, and also it may take quite some time to warm up the deep sub-surface to release it.
Specifically targeting the CO2 in the south pole while also releasing greenhouse gasses, is possibly the best way to move Mars to a condition where temporary water can run.
It is said that at 11 mb temporary streams could form from snow melts.  In the best conditions, humans could then build infrastructure to capture those snow melts in some cases.
Then if they built up their capabilities they could build mirrors of the types we have suggested, or distribute dust to more than the South Pole, make it blackened dust if they could.  They could intercept comets, or otherwise import Ammonia or whatever was in their capabilities.
I brought up the water splitting option because apparently it happened early in the history of Mars, and also it is a producer of Oxygen.  Here again, if you wait for Lichens to provide Oxygen, then you have a long wait.  But as this idea is saleable to some degree, it is possible that it will provide help earlier.
If somehow the CO2 expected was not actually available then their is an option.  If it works very well, then maybe you don't want to prohibit condensation of CO2 at the poles, but store it there and release to the biosphere in a controlled manner, at a rate the biosphere can convert to O2.
Even if you opt for a 100-1000 mb atmosphere of dominantly CO2, (If the CO2 is availible), you might want to sweeten the atmosphere with Oxygen for plants early, because many plants use Oxygen at night.
But my main argument is that if you have tools, and I have tools they can be considered, and it it seems that they might have a use then they should go into a set of options, a tool box.
What tools are used and when and what sequence will depend upon a very large set of variables.
Nice Maps.

Ok, I see your points.  Low tech would be to have a swimming pool, and be able to do a lot of your work with voice commands to computers.  Also a wheel chair to get around the house a lot of the time.  Then as suggested machines to reduce the load on your body when you did serious walking. 

Also if you were already a cyborg, perhaps you would just change out your legs to suit the task.  But you would need some pretty good surface to orbit lifting method to get off the planet.

It also could be like Venus, or like Venus with a Hydrogen additive floating at the top of the Atmosphere, or if it does not have a sufficient magentic field, it's atmosphere could have been stripped away, since Red Dwafs tend to do that to their planet in the habitible zone (It is thought).

I see that the orbit is eliptical.  To me that means it could be resonating with another planet.  If if is the gas giant already mentioned, then their may be no other planets.  If another planet is inside the habitible zone, then that third planet would be unfavored for terraforming.

However if their is a planet of reasonable size outside of the habitible zone, but between the gas giant and the super earth found, then perhaps if it is of reasonable size, it might have potential.

Resonation (Tidal heating) could make it more attractive.  If it has retained a thicker atmosphere than 1 bar, (but not too thick), it might be suitable for liquid water, or at least possible to warm up.

But I guess there is some chance the super Earth identified might be "Habitible" so I will add this link which speaks of super  Earths and continents.

http://www.space.com/26330-super-earth- … nents.html

I wonder what the gravity would be like on that world if it does have solid ground?