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Mars and Off Planet Colonization

Discussion in 'SpaceX' started by claytorj, Nov 26, 2013.

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  1. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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  2. ecarfan

    ecarfan Well-Known Member

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    For sure. Human feces on Mars will be a very useful commodity when it comes to growing food. Earth plants need nitrogen!
     
  3. Ulmo

    Ulmo Active Member

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    Before we move to Mars, we need a sun amplifier. This is depressing. (Left Earth, right Mars.) Make it bigger, hotter, brighter. I don't care how as long as humans love it. Maybe a local sun moon. (Dyson-like collection, beam to moon to make molten, reflective, whatever works. Could store battery or something in moon even.)
    mars sun.jpeg
     
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  4. Ulmo

    Ulmo Active Member

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    Interesting thought of yours. I immediately think "no way!!!", what a band-aid, and he doesn't go for band-aids unless they are the obvious best step (which he's done before, to good avail).

    So who knows!

    I think we need to get solar panels & batteries (or if we have a better energy source available, that, for instance, I think Mars is a good candidate for early nuclear power types of energy unless we can move Mars closer to Sun or put up a partial-Dyson-sphere-powered molten moon around Mars that acts as a second sun after proper UV protection of course), global circumnavigation conductors that can induce magnetic fields to induce an ionosphere on Mars to keep in atmosphere, a bunch of air and air hunters (that may be trapped under surface or in other chemicals), ways to get good habitation above and below ground (many layers and/or levels of membrane containers for air (concentric is my favorite idea (concentric atmosphere bubbles with most or all connected to ground at some point; a leak in one is ok since it just goes into the next level, and then you patch it, and everything is fine; you do want to eventually export atmosphere into the concentric levels anyway as you make it*); tunnel boring and shoring systems; air, sewer, earthquake, and root containment structures and membranes around every underground habitation to land transition membrane (probably use my concentric idea partially by just doing every land-habitat wall with a map of what is exposed the most and what to what), food sources (I am thinking grass for cattle inside the above-ground air containers, so need to have soil makers, basically rock grinders that grind up soilable rock and land material to grass growing consistency, and of course water sources, and of course, water source miners, probably some plumbing from mine fields to growing fields until they can heat up the water enough to make it precipitate, but I think they'd need water-strong membranes over every water mine field before starting to maintain the hydrology inside the planet's atmosphere), then of course when that's going, keep a steady stream of cattle going up there (clean cattle, good biomes, and in secret, since every communist will be trying to build a utopia without cattle, but I just don't think we can do it; ruminants (grazing animals) are the best way to spread foliage seeds around a planet if you spread them all far and wide). I think all of that should be done as soon as possible. The sooner and faster the better. My only exception to that is if we are going to land some asteroids or smaller planets onto or joined to Mars, or have dangerous moon-placement projects without 100% chance of success, which could interfere with the cost-benefit analysis of doing any step ASAP. If we assume that we won't be moon-placing, or asteroid-delivering, or that if we do so that we do so very carefully so as not to disturb existing valuables (infrastructure and eventually valuable life as soon as it is present), then that can be this year that we launch materials for that, provided we have good plans with backups to get those materials in stage for the planet planet-side.

    That goes for any eventually habitable planet that we're targeting now. I presume Mars. I am not prejudice if there are additional/better targets. For instance, I'm agnostic about Earth moon vs. large planet moons vs. Mars as long as we do the low hanging fruit firstish and early. I want more farming and rural living real estate with forests on Earth's moon, so I'm for that, but since moon is so close to Earth, we need redundancy at Mars-magnitude distances, so I'd be OK if we do both or either fast as long as we do, say, Mars ASAP; generally speaking, and in practical terms, that means I agree with Elon, that we need to do Mars ASAP. The next close pass would be my favorite pick for first time, and ramp up fast, ASAP.

    I don't see a necessary need to include humans on any of those first missions to Mars. Earth moon is more variable; that can take fine-grained timing and fine-grained fast response since it's so close, getting materials up fast, and as soon as the moon is habitable by early best-outcome high use pioneers where it would be beneficial to get them up soon, to do so. I could see that using your band-aid measure if the timing happens to consider that the optimum route, but only in that case.

    I could see politics being a factor: since we must preserve humanity, we must launch early to plant the materials and humans as soon as possible in every case so that any anti-human-activists don't have their way with the leading Kings and Queens of Earth (using their lying excuse of being "preservationists" of anti-humanist religions, which for whatever reason, seem to hold heavy sway in the minds of the Kings and Queens and Dictators (China's Xi, Putin, etc.), perhaps as a tool to slow down the best of us while they feed their jealousies). The political side of this only means the same thing I said above: go faster.

    So, in balance, maybe it would be optimum to use such a band-aid as using Crew Dragon early and often. If so, and only if so, I'm all for it.

    But my gut reaction to using the current Crew Dragon is "no way"; they/SpaceX/humankind can use what they learn from Crew Dragon to get humans going within about 4 to 6 years in properly made interplanetary (poorly-named "Starships") and still be OK. But have as plan A or B what you said: to have Crew Dragon standing by for the most early and hardy of pioneers as appropriate; most likely, I'd say moon. They should be practicing all that (human-livable-"life-support" system) stuff in the "Starships" as they launch many to Mars to see if humans could make the trip; put in some good atmospheres and non-human human analogs that make waste and use air and have to recycle that, practice that on every trip, to really test it out, as they deliver more and more materials. By the same token, I like the idea of delivering pure air and UV-sterilized air in the early trips, so there may be consideration of treating and packaging up the tested air for any air that is considered non-poisonous, sterilizing it, and delivering it in containers for early settler use. Any failed tests that produce bad air would have to be sterilized and put into waste containers so it doesn't contaminate materials and the planet.

    ===

    * Unfortunately my concentric atmosphere membrane idea requires designated landing areas; the sooner the dust can be cleared from those designated landing areas, the better. The atmosphere membranes would edge to ground far enough from the landing zones to allow the landings to not disturb the atmosphere containers (surface-bound bubbles, if you didn't visualize this already). After a protective air-containing ionosphere gets going, it makes sense to allow the outermost layer of atmosphere concentric bubble to temporarily cover rocket landing zones, and then remove those layers from the landing zone for landing and take offs, letting that lightest of the atmospheres escape into the un-membraned planetary atmosphere layer. At some scale, it will be important to do fast atmosphere-making on Mars to turn it into human-breathable and plant-farmable as soon as possible.

    --

    P.S., anybody worried about disturbing life on Mars, we are life on Mars, net present value**. If that person slows us down or stops us, that person worried about disturbing life on Mars would be the culprit disturbing said life, and must be stopped and ignored at every turn. Since we know those religious anti-humanists exist, we should be strategic about it, and not really get them ante'd-up; kind of divert around them as much as possible until their voice has about as much use as the howl of wind around the aerodynamic sound inefficiencies and window leaks in a Tesla Model S: slightly annoying to some of us, trending to zero and no real effect on the goal.

    ** Net present value (NPV) used in a civil/social/human value/morals sense makes sense to us who studied Bitcoin value: money is a social system for exact value, as close as we can systemically make it. Every current definition you will easily find on the Internet for NPV will likely talk about cash and money, but that definition applies to human values and human kind as well, regardless of application of monetary system. And of course, that turns quickly into monetary value as the development and budgeting is calculated. If anybody knows a better word or term, I'd be open to it.
     
  5. Ulmo

    Ulmo Active Member

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    Apparently wrong(?):

    Could we terraform Mars by moving Ceres, Europa and Titan to its orbit forming Mars new moons and transporting water, gases and other matter by moon elevators? : Colonizemars

    "Gas escape on mars is primarily driven by two things: low gravity, and temperature of the upper atmosphere. A magnetosphere does not stop this. See Jeans Escape"
     
  6. mongo

    mongo Well-Known Member

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    • Like x 2
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  7. Buckminster

    Buckminster Active Member

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  8. ecarfan

    ecarfan Well-Known Member

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  9. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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  10. Ben W

    Ben W P85 #61, Roadster #108

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    #330 Ben W, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
    Hypothetical question: given the recent discovery of phosphine in the upper cloud layer of Venus (raising the faint possibility of microbial life there), do you think Starship might be theoretically capable of performing a sample-return dip from low-Venus-orbit to its upper atmosphere (~0.1 bar) and back again? It would probably have to aerobrake to near transonic, quickly obtain a sample, and have enough fuel left to boost back to LVO.

    With a few tankers sent along with it, it should be possible to fuel it up as much as needed in LVO before the sample collection dip, and refuel it again to return the sample to Earth. But would the dip into the mid-level atmosphere (and back) be possible? What would the limiting factors be? Could KSP simulate this? What Starship modifications would be required? I don't have enough knowledge to answer the question myself, but I'm curious.
     
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  11. adiggs

    adiggs Active Member

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    I don't know about the dip into the Venusian atmosphere, but you might find this post / article / book by @KarenRei posted some time back (I had to go hunting to find this) interesting and informative. I know that I did when I first saw it.

    The short version being that colonizing Venus might be even easier than Mars, and is at least complementary (technologies for success on one apply to the other, and vice versa).

    Anyway, this version has turned into a book (couple hundred pages):
    https://s3.amazonaws.com/venuslabs-static-files/Rethinking+Our+Sister+Planet+(prepress).pdf


    Good stuff (MHO). It at least expanded my view of the necessary technologies and possibilities for colonizing other moons and planets.
     
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  12. dkemme

    dkemme Supporting Member

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    I recall reading portions of this when she first posted, here is a great summary on page 8

    VenusAdvantages.jpg
     
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  13. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    Venus is a curious planet (my undergrad senior project was a Venus lander mission, so I at least have some idea of the challenges and opportunities), but it is important to note for folks that aren't reading the details that discussions of human travel to and colonization of Venus explicitly require a persistent 'airborne' habitat in the atmosphere. The surface of Venus is still a hellscape with pressure the better part of 100x that on earth, and temps hot enough to melt some (maybe just a few) metals.

    I think we (as humans) can get there, but its also easy to imagine a significant effort going into developing some kind of floating habitat that's even more difficult than all the 'regular' effort of going off world, which is largely enhancing/improving existing technology rather than developing new technology. I see humans to Venus as a 30-50 year thing, whereas I actually believe we can be on Mars by the end of the deh-cade.
     
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  14. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney Well-Known Member

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    And then, even if we could eventually terraform Venus and make the planet habitable, the days are 116 days long, which would really mess with circadian rhythms.

    EDIT: just to be clear, I think we should totally try to terraform Venus, but Mars has to come first, if only because lower gravity is generally more fun than higher gravity.
     
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  15. ecarfan

    ecarfan Well-Known Member

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    Venusian gravity is about 90% of Earth, but it doesn’t really matter because as @bxr140 notes the surface is beyond uninhabitable; it’s hellish.

    If floating habitats could be developed than the long Venusian day wouldn’t matter, they could potentially move around to simulate an Earth day/night cycle.

    But I consider such habitats future fantasies compared to habitats that could conceivably be built on Mars using technologies that we could more realistically develop and implement.
     
  16. adiggs

    adiggs Active Member

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    You'll enjoy that (book) that @KarenRei wrote. She goes into a lot of detail about why Venus will be easier than Mars to colonize (as well as get back and forth from). Part of what makes it easier is that there's a good band in the Venusian atmosphere where you get nearly Earth normal atmosphere / pressure /temp. I don't know if that means we could have a balcony to walk out on to enjoy the sunset (with no particular protection from the atmosphere - I haven't gotten that far myself yet).

    The real point, MHO, isn't that Venus is actually the better starting colony - only that it's not even part of the normal conversation and there are some good reasons to at least consider it. One of them being that the Venusian atmosphere provides meaningful radiation protection that we'd get on Mars by living underground. Either one will have serious constraints for this reason.
     
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  17. mongo

    mongo Well-Known Member

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    What the everliving word vomit?
    The Space Station used electrolysis to make O2 from H2O,
    Sabatier makes CH4 (methane) from CO2 and H2. DpaceX will generate tjhe H2 from H2O (like the ISS), there is no electrolysis of CO2.

    The process is only 'one step' if you already have H2. You cannot make CH4 using only Zn and CO2...
     
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  18. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney Well-Known Member

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    If it's from June 2020
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.9b12111
    it uses a KHCO3 solution.
     
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  19. Electroman

    Electroman Supporting Member

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    You can get H2 from Ice, but where and how are you going to get the 'C' in Mars?
     

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