Thoughts on Colonization

Here's what I wonder about Mars, and how it could effect terraforming. Where did Mars' water and oxygen atmosphere go? If we start pouring resources into re-creating Mars' ancient atmosphere, is there a drain waiting somewhere that will make it futile? The most likely candidate is Mars' lack of a magnetosphere, which means Mars' atmosphere has been bombarded with charged particles since its core went solid a billion or more years ago. This, and Mars' lower gravity, likely stripped the hydrogen from Mars' atmosphere, and even its surface water, causing the surface to hyper-oxydize (Mars' surface strata are loaded with oxides and peroxides). Can a terraforming process stay ahead of that drain?

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
From: bhn1700@...
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:58:05 +0000
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Thoughts on Colonization

> From: brooksn

> > But in the case of Mars for example some minor tweaking could open the surface to plant life

> > (agriculture) in a relatively short period of time, say 1 to 2 hundred years. In 500 to 1,000

> > years humans might be on the surface with minor protection.

>

> Yes, but where would High Frontier-type technologies be in 1 to 2 hundred year? In 500 to 1,000? An important point is that people investing their efforts in orbital habitats rather than Mars terraforming could, within the span of their own lifetimes, begin personally enjoying a home beyond Earth with conditions far more Earthlike than what even a terraformed Mars could offer only at the very end of the effort (at least 500 years by your own estimate).

I agree that a large investment in terraforming Mars would be difficult to produce 'useable' results in the lifetime of that investor. But if someone is already on the surface or in orbit for that matter, the dream of making a planet liveable and the small investments that can be tried with today's technology I would consider too tempting not to try.

Before any serious colonization of the surface occurs, comets/iceteroid collisions can be done with very little investment, mirrors, halocarbons, and black soot for the caps can be experimented with for minor investment, but to seriously use them would take more substantive funding. If the results are promising, who knows, researchers at NASA have grown plants in conditions very close to Mars's current atmospheric conditions, if genetic engineering and some minor decades long modifications of the environment make plant life possible I can see it as a very reasonable avenue to persue.

As a side not, I already agree that orbital habitats are the first step man should take, it is the lowest fruit to pick for colonization and the one that we should be working toward. My only point is after we are substantively established off planet, Mars has potential that should not be ignored. I would personally see 50 people in orbit first, mining meteroids for habitat expansion and sale of rare metals to Earth, SSP, satellite refuel, plus expanding the current science and tourism already occuring in orbit. Then a lunar orbiting tourism habitat, a lunar outpost for science and tourism on the ground. Once the LEO (or GEO) habitat is far more sulf sustaining, needing less and less supplies from Earth, food, water, tools, equipment, fuel, centripetal force in sections to reduce crew turn around times and health problems, etc. Then it can begin to 'divide' and half can move out of Earth orbit to Mars orbit, studying the planet, mining nearby asteroids, supplementing an eventual ground pre colony. Both the orbiting and ground colonies can begin experimenting with terraforming to see what benefits are possible. But again this would be after a couple of hundred people were already in space.

> > Considering the surface area of the Mars to be gained vs. the costs of some minor fiddling

> > with the planet I would say the benefits outweight the costs of 'testing' what can be done

> > with terraforming Mars.

>

> You not only need to demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the costs. You also need to establish that another route wouldn't provide better returns more quickly.

>

> In one of my articles (http://writings.mike-combs.com/case_spc.htm#Room_To_Grow) I assumed the first orbital habitat could be completed 50 years after the start of the project (NASA said 22 years). I assumed a doubling time of 5 years (NASA said 2). I also assumed only the near-term Stanford Torus design, ignoring the efficiencies which could be later achieved with larger Island-3 scale designs. In 190 years, we could still have built enough habitats to equal the entire surface area of Mars.

>

> Regards,

>

> Mike Combs

190 years to equal the entire surface area of Mars, which is nearly the entire land area of the Earth seems very optimistic, considering 10,000 years of human expansion still doesn't have us occupying all of Earth's land areas.

Investment is not always about 'better' returns, if it were then 99% of companies and only the top 1% would recieve all the investment money. People 'believe' that one investment will do well and not be too risky for them whether that be commodities, stocks, bonds, venture capital, real estate, or starting their own business. I'm sure some will 'believe' experimenting with terraforming Mars will lead to a return they will invest in.

Brooks