Colonization of Mars

T. A. Gardner said:
This isn't "overrated." On Mars the thin atmosphere offers nearly zero protection from solar radiation. You get fried by radioactive particles in nothing flat. Without a magnetosphere, the atmosphere can't easily thicken, which it would with one to the tune of being about equal to Earth's at roughly 15,000 feet, 5000 meters, in about a decade. That's a huge change. It eliminates alpha radiation entirely. It reduces bombardment by ionized atoms of various sorts. It especially takes care of free protons and neutrons that will kill you dead in nothing flat.
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If you have amateurs designing your colony you’ll be fried rapidly, I agree. But it’s well within the state of the art to design habitation that fully protects colonists from radiation without a magnetosphere. Colonists can thicken the atmosphere and keep it replenished without a magnetosphere as well. That doesn’t mean a magnetosphere won’t be desirable or useful, but it can be a side project.
 
Josh_TN said:
That said, I think the Mars crowd is hopelessly jumping the gun as well. I don’t really see anything recommending it, outside what may be a fairly healthy amount of water.
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Favourible chemistry of the planet itself comes to mind. Between atmospheric CO2, water deposits and Fe2O3, you can cover not only rocket fuel for Earth-Mars communication, but also have access for abundant construction&tooling material - steel, provided you have sufficient energy production. That would cover most of colony needs in terms of weight, and greatly reduce required logistics of it all. And 0.4 G worth of gravity, which, hopefully, would be enough to prevent speciation. And some atmosphere to block radiation, which would roughly correspond to LEO levels of exposure.
Overall, Mars is very compelling, only rivaled by the Moon by the virtue of it's proximity in terms of travel time to and from Earth.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
If you have amateurs designing your colony you’ll be fried rapidly, I agree. But it’s well within the state of the art to design habitation that fully protects colonists from radiation without a magnetosphere. Colonists can thicken the atmosphere and keep it replenished without a magnetosphere as well. That doesn’t mean a magnetosphere won’t be desirable or useful, but it can be a side project.
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Doing the magnetosphere makes everything else easier. That's the point of doing it. If you have one in place, then you don't have to shield structures from masses of radiation. If you have it in place, the atmosphere thickens on its own considerably and you don't have to constantly replenish it. That in turn makes going outside easier as you need less spacesuit because there is more atmospheric pressure and less radiation.

One solution to many problems and that solution is both obtainable and within reasonable cost. You can also do it ahead of people arriving by remote control so it's in place when humans arrive.
 
Making a planetary magnetosphere is easy? I’ve heard some of the ideas; they seem energy and resource intensive.
 
Ahriman said:
Favourible chemistry of the planet itself comes to mind. Between atmospheric CO2, water deposits and Fe2O3, you can cover not only rocket fuel for Earth-Mars communication, but also have access for abundant construction&tooling material - steel, provided you have sufficient energy production. That would cover most of colony needs in terms of weight, and greatly reduce required logistics of it all. And 0.4 G worth of gravity, which, hopefully, would be enough to prevent speciation. And some atmosphere to block radiation, which would roughly correspond to LEO levels of exposure.
Overall, Mars is very compelling, only rivaled by the Moon by the virtue of it's proximity in terms of travel time to and from Earth.
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If 0.4 g is enough, I think there’s a strong case. Otherwise the moon seems like a far better bet, or even an asteroid/planetoid. Think of all stuff you could build out of psyche 16.
 
There's no way getting around resource intensive or generations of people's lives to accomplish.
Considering our current build for consumerism level of reliablity for most everything and tons of more cost for what's best yet still far short from desireable. I think it's best to get probes, sats and robots up first to do the preparatory work. It doesn't have to be complete or final. As long as it easy later work it's fine.
For use humans it might be better to build some kind of orbital colony first. Get the tech matured whille doing so. And eventually sling shot it to its destination. It doesn't have to be fast. What matters is its capacity and capability it brings... like a full fledged colony ship with all the whistles.
This is more or less the same goal as my asteroid orbital transport system.
 
Seragina said:
There's no way getting around resource intensive or generations of people's lives to accomplish.
Considering our current build for consumerism level of reliablity for most everything and tons of more cost for what's best yet still far short from desireable. I think it's best to get probes, sats and robots up first to do the preparatory work. It doesn't have to be complete or final. As long as it easy later work it's fine.
For use humans it might be better to build some kind of orbital colony first. Get the tech matured whille doing so. And eventually sling shot it to its destination. It doesn't have to be fast. What matters is its capacity and capability it brings... like a full fledged colony ship with all the whistles.
This is more or less the same goal as my asteroid orbital transport system.
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I see it more like how the discovery of the New World (the Americas) went. Multiple colonies were sent in varying strength along with explorers. The Spanish, for example, released horses, cows, chickens, and pigs into the wild when they arrived. That had a major effect on the existing ecosystem.

Some of the colonies failed and failed entirely. Others succeeded, often barely doing so but they succeeded. I think it's wrong that we should be taking a risk adverse approach to this. We should accept more risk and be willing to deal with potential failure. Sure, send robots and such first. Find living stuff on Earth that can live on Mars (or at least has a good chance of it) as it is and start getting life going there in some form or another.

If we're going to colonize Mars don't be so concerned about what might have been there millions of years ago. Focus on colonization and the success of that colony.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
I see it more like how the discovery of the New World (the Americas) went. Multiple colonies were sent in varying strength along with explorers. The Spanish, for example, released horses, cows, chickens, and pigs into the wild when they arrived. That had a major effect on the existing ecosystem.

Some of the colonies failed and failed entirely. Others succeeded, often barely doing so but they succeeded. I think it's wrong that we should be taking a risk adverse approach to this. We should accept more risk and be willing to deal with potential failure. Sure, send robots and such first. Find living stuff on Earth that can live on Mars (or at least has a good chance of it) as it is and start getting life going there in some form or another.

If we're going to colonize Mars don't be so concerned about what might have been there millions of years ago. Focus on colonization and the success of that colony.
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What you called "risk adverse" is me reducing the odds by about 100 trillions of parts and material that are needed and could fail, another 100 million of short comings in reliability factor (the level of tech reliability we actually need), and all this before getting on the way or facing space hazards and whatever risk awaits from there or on Mars. This barely reduces anything from the starting point if at all.
 
Josh_TN said:
Making a planetary magnetosphere is easy? I’ve heard some of the ideas; they seem energy and resource intensive.
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I gave links earlier. Essentially you have one satellite at the L1 position. It produces whatever the necessary level of gauss is, and it isn't that much, and is powered by solar panels that are protected from the solar wind by the magnetic field. Stick a second satellite there as a backup eventually, maybe a third. That's it. One and done in the short term. We already can build such a satellite so it's not that big an issue.
 
Seragina said:
What you called "risk adverse" is me reducing the odds by about 100 trillions of parts and material that are needed and could fail, another 100 million of short comings in reliability factor (the level of tech reliability we actually need), and all this before getting on the way or facing space hazards and whatever risk awaits from there or on Mars. This barely reduces anything from the starting point if at all.
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It isn't just about getting there. It's about staying there. We could take some chances with that part of it for sure.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Doing the magnetosphere makes everything else easier. That's the point of doing it. If you have one in place, then you don't have to shield structures from masses of radiation. If you have it in place, the atmosphere thickens on its own considerably and you don't have to constantly replenish it. That in turn makes going outside easier as you need less spacesuit because there is more atmospheric pressure and less radiation.

One solution to many problems and that solution is both obtainable and within reasonable cost. You can also do it ahead of people arriving by remote control so it's in place when humans arrive.
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It does, yes, but you’re optimistic about how easy it is for us to build one. Based on our present knowledge a compact satellite may be insufficient, a 10-kilometer diameter loop weighing trillions of tons would be required. [1] At least one study thinks it would require tens of gigawatts of power. [2] Your second link says a realistic estimate of when we could create such a shield would be in the 22nd Century. The first references Jim Green, but as in my second link, he admits that it would take at least thousands of years to thicken the atmosphere with only a magnetosphere. So we’re still going to need to protect colonists with shielded structures, and we’ll still need to thicken the atmosphere using some other method. It would be great if one small satellite was all that we needed, but that appears false.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.05546

[2] https://primordialscoop.org/2022/11/14/the-mars-magnetic-shield-would-not-work/
 
T. A. Gardner said:
This isn't "overrated." On Mars the thin atmosphere offers nearly zero protection from solar radiation. You get fried by radioactive particles in nothing flat. Without a magnetosphere, the atmosphere can't easily thicken, which it would with one to the tune of being about equal to Earth's at roughly 15,000 feet, 5000 meters, in about a decade. That's a huge change. It eliminates alpha radiation entirely. It reduces bombardment by ionized atoms of various sorts. It especially takes care of free protons and neutrons that will kill you dead in nothing flat.
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Magnetospheres aren't that important for a planet.

Magnetic fields mainly prevent water/atmosphere loss due to charged particles (solar wind) but it doesn't seem to be as important as having a thick atmosphere in the first place. The only reason people assumed magnetic fields matter is because neither Mars nor Venus have one, yet Earth does, but it turns out Mars and Venus are just slightly outside the habitable zone I guess? It just doesn't seem like lack of a magnetic field is going to be putting a damper on things when the thickest atmosphere in the system is held by the reigning champ of "not having an internal dynamo".

The main problem with Mars is that it's too small to support human skeletons and might not be able to support a 1 bar atmosphere. All that aside, radiation is fake anyway, since you can just dig underground or live surrounded by water tanks or borated polyethylene. That'll be the main way people live on Mars for many generations. Possibly forever, in all honesty.

Once you have a stable, habitable atmosphere in place you can start talking about building a magnetic field but it's not a hugely pressing concern. Atmospheric stripping takes a long time. Something the Strait of Hormuz being closed due to continental drift is more concerning.

Josh_TN said:
If 0.4 g is enough, I think there’s a strong case. Otherwise the moon seems like a far better bet, or even an asteroid/planetoid. Think of all stuff you could build out of psyche 16.
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Hollow out Phobos and Deimos to turn into space elevator and centrifugal station, pump tons of CO2 and nitrogen into Mars with robotic factories, get the Valles Marineris floor into a temperate boreal forest and the Olympus Mons into the edge of space. Build habitats into the cliff walls. "Sea level" on Mars means respirators and compression suits but has a lot of robotic machinery and surface access points for underground habitats.

Most radical and extreme environmental destination in the System baybeee.

Also it would give a new meaning to the term "green belt" and a wild ecology based on verticality rather than insolation at latitude. Too bad Mars wobbles like a top over millions of years, maybe we can move one or two of Saturn's sillier moons to stabilize it, since we'll need Hyperion or Enceladus for Venus anyway.
 
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T. A. Gardner said:
I gave links earlier. Essentially you have one satellite at the L1 position. It produces whatever the necessary level of gauss is, and it isn't that much, and is powered by solar panels that are protected from the solar wind by the magnetic field. Stick a second satellite there as a backup eventually, maybe a third. That's it. One and done in the short term. We already can build such a satellite so it's not that big an issue.
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Has someone handed those studies to Elon yet?

Because I suspect that if it is relatively as simple as you're presenting that will be high on his list of things to do.
 

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