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samkent
So lets create a welfare state on Mars.
They will forever be dependant on us for new hardware and special food stuffs.
Have the prospectives thought about what happens when people down here decide it's they don't want to spend their money on a resupply mission?
We have short attention spans. We will get bored quickly.
lostbook
"One way trips to Mars..Take one....Action.." The colonization of Mars will be a televised event with cameras rolling as colonists travel to the Red planet in pairs of 2's starting around 2023.
Mars One officials have said in the past that they plan to broadcast a reality TV show to track the astronauts' selection and training process (and raise funds for the missions). Lansdorp said Monday that the group is still in negotiations with media companies over the rights to televise Mars One's activities.
CaticusMaximus
lostbook
"One way trips to Mars..Take one....Action.." The colonization of Mars will be a televised event with cameras rolling as colonists travel to the Red planet in pairs of 2's starting around 2023.
Mars One officials have said in the past that they plan to broadcast a reality TV show to track the astronauts' selection and training process (and raise funds for the missions). Lansdorp said Monday that the group is still in negotiations with media companies over the rights to televise Mars One's activities.
So going to Mars is now going to be a reality TV show.
What a #ing joke humanity has become.
JadeStar
We've got to get there some way.
Abstract Spacecraft exploration of Mars has shown that the essential resources necessary for life support are present on the martian surface. The key life-support compounds O2, N2, and H2O are available on Mars. The soil could be used as radiation shielding and could provide many useful industrial and construction materials. Compounds with high chemical energy, such as rocket fuels, can be manufactured in-situ on Mars. Solar power, and possibly wind power, are available and practical on Mars. Preliminary engineering studies indicate that fairly autonomous processes can be designed to extract and stockpile Martian consumables. The ability to utilize these materials in support of a human exploration effort allows missions that are more robust and economical than would otherwise be possible.
The carbon dioxide (CO2) that makes up 95 percent of the atmosphere of Mars can be a valuable starting material for the manufacture of critical products. Unlike lunar resources, CO2 can be had by merely compressing the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide itself can be used to support plant growth at an advanced outpost. Both carbon and oxygen are important elements which have many possible uses at an outpost. There are several well understood chemical reactions that we can use to produce oxygen, methane, water, and perhaps other materials.
Oxygen can be produced by passing CO2 through a zirconia electrolysis cell at 800 to 1000deg C. Twenty to thirty percent of the CO2 dissociates into oxygen and carbon monoxide. Separation is accomplished by electrochemical transport of oxide ion through a membrane. A prototype reactor using this chemistry has been run for over 1000 hours. Using such a scheme, we could bring a small unit to the surface of Mars which would then continuously make oxygen for life support, propellant use, or further processing. The only additional item we would need to supply is the power to run it: a 12kW unit would produce about one metric ton of oxygen per month.
But there is one commercial resource that is known to exist ubiquitously on Mars in large amount — deuterium. Deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen, occurs as 166 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Earth, but comprises 833 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Mars. Deuterium is the key fuel not only for both first and second generation fusion reactors, but it is also an essential material needed by the nuclear power industry today. Even with cheap power, deuterium is very expensive; its current market value on Earth is about $10,000 per kilogram, roughly fifty times as valuable as silver or 70% as valuable as gold. This is in today's pre-fusion economy. Once fusion reactors go into widespread use deuterium prices will increase. All the in-situ chemical processes required to produce the fuel, oxygen, and plastics necessary to run a Mars settlement require water electrolysis as an intermediate step. As a by product of these operations, millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of deuterium will be produced.
A chemical reaction which converts CO2 into methane (CH4) was discovered in 1899. This is known as the Sabatier reaction. Along with the CO2, hydrogen is passed over a finely divided metal catalyst at an elevated temperature. Methane and water vapor are produced. By taking this water vapor and splitting it to obtain oxygen and hydrogen (which is recycled), we can completely convert the imported material into 4 times its mass of fuel. We also get the oxygen we need to burn this fuel in a rocket engine, fuel cell, or internal combustion engine. When combined with the production of additional oxygen via the zirconia process described above, only 4 kilograms of hydrogen can be converted into 72 kilograms of a rocket propellant mixture.
It has for some time been accepted by the scientific community that a group of meteorites came from Mars. As such, they represent actual samples of the planet and have been analyzed on Earth by the best equipment available. In these meteorites, called SNCs, many valuable elements have been detected. Magnesium, Aluminium, Titanium, Iron, and Chromium are relatively common in them. In addition, lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold have been found in trace amounts. It is quite possible that in some places these materials may be concentrated enough to be mined.[29] The Mars landers Viking I, Viking II, Pathfinder, Opportunity Rover, and Spirit Rover identified aluminium, iron, magnesium, and titanium in the Martian soil.[30] Opportunity found small structures, named "blueberries" which were found to be rich in hematite, a major ore of iron.[31] These blueberries could easy be gathered up and reduced to metallic iron that could be used to make steel. "Blueberries" (hematite spheres) on a rocky outcrop at Eagle Crater. Note the merged triplet in the upper left. In addition,both Spirit and Opportunity Rovers found nickel-iron meteorites sitting on the surface of Mars.[32][33] These could also be used to produce steel.[34]
Other well known reactions have been practiced for decades which can also accomplish similar conversions. Fischer-Tropsch chemistry is practiced in the petrochemical industry in a variety of ways. It converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into methane and water. The Bosch reaction can convert CO2 and hydrogen into carbon and water. The carbon could, perhaps, be used for advanced material production at an outpost once fabrication facilities are available.
Eventually, we will obtain water from the environment of Mars. We would then not need to make water from imported hydrogen. Indeed, we could turn the situation around and use this water as a source of hydrogen, thus continuing to utilize the chemical processing capabilities we have developed. For instance, it would be even more favorable to produce methane from the atmospheric CO2 and water derived hydrogen. This would require the production of much less water than if we switched the space transportation system to a hydrogen-oxygen propellant system. It is also much easier to liquefy methane than hydrogen.
With a large amount of hydrogen available, and a ready supply of CO2, we may consider going the next step and developing the ability to produce a large variety of products. If ethylene were produced from hydrogen and a carbon source, polyethylene can be made using technology available today. This material, or other carbon-based polymers, can then be extruded or molded to form habitats, furniture, pipes, and a variety of useful items. The petrochemical and natural gas industries can contribute a great deal of expertise in this area.
CaticusMaximus
JadeStar
We've got to get there some way.
Bull#. What "we" have "got" to do is mature, a lot, before even thinking of leaving the polluted and ecologically collapsing planet we are on now, before thinking about anything else.
You are right, money goes to either entertainment, or violence. And until that changes, and until there is a shift in the fundamental nature of the human towards a more compassionate thought paradigm, I think it would be best if humanity remained contained, and not spreading its corruption of the heart to any other planets, even if they be barren planets, or even little more than floating rocks.
There are much more pressing issues than going to mars. Much more.
samkent
So lets create a welfare state on Mars.
They will forever be dependant on us for new hardware and special food stuffs.
Have the prospectives thought about what happens when people down here decide it's they don't want to spend their money on a resupply mission?
We have short attention spans. We will get bored quickly.