Walking on Mars

The official story of the atmosphere on Mars is that there is only .13% oxygen and 95.32% nitrogen.

www.daviddarling.info...

It seems that this atmosphere is excellent growing conditions for plants but seriously deadly for humans.

All in all though I would think the space suits with the rebreathers that are commonly used in space walks would suffice.

Does anyone have any theories contradicitng the official story of the atmosphere?
Is there any other dangers that need to be addressed for humans to walk on Mars?
Would planting fast growing vegetation/landcover "fix" this atmosphere and how long could it take? (of course the lack of water problem would have to e solved for this bold plan to work)
Have they done any seismographing of the surface to detect water below ground? (that could be drilled for)

Your thoughts are welcomed

I'm not an expert in this subject, here's my 2 cents...



95.32% of carbon dioxyde, you mean.



Well, it's not that simple. Don't forget that most plants still need oxygen to breath, in addition to need CO2 for photosynthesis. So I guess, in order to change Mars' atmosphere to support life, at first we would have to use organisms like primitive algae, before introducing more complex plants. I'm not biologist, but I guess those primitive organisms would still need liquid water...?

But there are several other variables to consider: I think, before anything else, we would need to increase dramatically the temperatures in Mars, possible with greenhouse effect. There's also the problem of solar radiation, which is much more intense in Mars. There's been debate on the sustentability and effects of life under intense radiation.



In principle, yes. Only problem I see with the suits is that the astronauts would be exposed to solar radiation during a lot more time than they have been currently. I don't really know if additional changes on the suits are being planned for a trip to Mars, but NASA is likely considering all this.



I don't, but a lot of people here might have.



I think the biggest challenge is the effects of a long term presence in the Mars environment, considering radiation, low gravity and low pressure. And these things are much more difficult and even impossible to change - even if the atmosphere is breathable.



As I said, I think at first we would need to increse surface temperature. And this could take a lot of time. It's difficult to predict with what we know (we don't even know for sure the effects of greenhouse in Earth itself, hehe), but I'd guess at least tens of thousans of years?



I know there's been studies on this, but as far as I know, "earhquakes" detected on Mars haven't revealed water. But considering things like sensibility and less sismic activity in Mars, I'm not sure we would find water, if there's any, with the seismographs we sent there so far.

reply to post by borek

---

Correct, it is Co2, I was typing two lines behind what I was thinking.
thank you for catching that. I guess the best way would be to establish a dome type of base and then begin excavating for an underground base.
seems like alot of effort and for what? Why colonize Mars? I keep asking myself but can't seem to come up with anything, except for a second home in case this one starts to go downhill. But it would have to go a long way downhill just to get where Mars is now.

To terra-form Mars, the theory of how the Earth got it's water would have to be re-done on Mars. It is believed that the Earth was pelted for millions of years by "wateriods" or ice meteors untill water built up to what it is today. These wtaroids can still be seen pelting the atmosphere today. What is needed is to find an ice asteroid many hundred miles across. Move it to a low Mars orbit and allow for Martian gravity to rip it to shreds where it will descend doward into the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere it will condense into rain and create lakes and aceans, and it will insulate and thicken the atmosphere. Once this happens, heat will be trapped and the planet will warm. The Carbodioxide will also add to the warming. Then plant life needs to be added that quickly consumes carbondioxide and exhales oxygen. It should be a reletively short period of time to terra-form Mars.

Another possibility is to bring a large planetoid into Mars orbit where gravitational forces will heat up the core to a liquid and cause subterranian water pools to be expelled back out onto the surface and then terra-form with plant life.

I think the large and multiple "ice asteroid" method works better as we are not able presently to move a planetoid body.

When you say "short" what are we talking about? 50, 60 years?
and maybe there is a gas that we can transport there that when mixed with Co2 creates water? Or somekind of additive we can release?
Just thinking of how to utilize all that Co2...

Looking at examples of what hapens on the Earth when spring arrives in the artic is a good example. But I would say that it would take more time to lacate and move reletively large "waterroids" to mars orbit and allow them to decay into the atmosphere. But once water is present and the tempature is at the artic-spring threshold, I would say that treea-forming would take off rapidly. In about ten years time, a breathable (but chilly) atmosphere should be attainable. In the solar system it's a hit and miss probablility so that's why millions of years took place to terra-form Earth. But intravention, that is, by moving "wateroids" into Martian orbit would be diliberate and therefore very quick by time standards.

reply to post by Fromabove

---

On the gas thing, yes there are other small body "roids" that contain enormous amounts of liquid oxygen that could be transprted there and aloowed to enter the Martain atmosphere. See, I don't believe that Mars had a severe trajedy or that it "lost" it's atmosphere. I believe it is mostly condensed and absorbed into the crust due to the core cooling down. Or quite possibly, it didn't colect enough from the solar systen itself. So it could be done intentionally I would think.

could you post a link to these wateroids so I can read up on them I wanna do some research so I can maybe think of a possible solution to post for a reply on this topic. its very interesting to me.

reply to post by Ben Miller

---

Just have the USAF release some chemtrails and cause the rain as they are such good weather makers.LOL