Terraform, explore, ignore. Questions that have plauged everyone interested in colonizing Mars. So what should we do? I believe that it should be of the utmost importance that we the people's of the United States of America pledge to send a team of men and women to the surface of Mars to explore the Red Planet by 2025, a reasonable time. After an inital exploration perminate colonies should be erected, and gradually expanded as time goes on. To the subject of terraforming. We all know that it can be done in different forms, but the main problem is that it will take a long time to sufficently warm the planet with super-greenhouse gasses, or colosol solar mirrors. I have a better, quicker idea. The stuff of many books and Hollywood blockbusters, the idea of using nuclear bombs to deflect or destroy large asteroids or comets has been around for years and is commonly known. I propose that we find the biggest comet preferably, because it is traveling fast, and that we attach a large bomb to it. We detonate the bomb, changing the path of the comet and then run it into Mars. Yes, we purposly impact Mars with a huge comet. If large enough, and all the math is done right, we should in theory, be able to push Mars into a slightly closer orbit to the sun. The closer the warmer, with respect to Earth. This would cut down on travel time, and more importantly make the planet recieve a lot more light which would aid in terraforming. Sound like an idea?
I agree with the need to have a plan...something besides lets shoot another at it. A mapped out, generalized timetable to get us there. As much as the government plans stuff I am sure that NASA has something. The question is what? And how realistic? Both in terms of money (which is always out of porportion in the plan vs realism) and to the need to be flexiable as you can expect the unknown. To play cosmic billards with a planet won't work well. It just messes it up real bad. Your talking about sending a moon sized object at a planet. (For the biggest sizes ones) And there are not that many around of that size. Maybe we can hook a tow truck to it. Actually we will need to change the orbital velocity of the planet to move it. Some such happen to the earth in it's early days. That why we have a moon and a tilted axis. But we are still in the same orbit.
Unanticipated consequences: Two things always stand in the way of exploration (as much today as in 1492). Political will and money. (And if you have the will you can generally find the money). On the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing - July 20, 1989 - President George Bush (senior) stood in front of the Smithsonian next to the Apollo 11 crew. He announced his thirty-year plan for human exploration of space: a space station by 1999; a Moon landing by 2009; a Mars landing by 2019. The program was to be called SEI, the Space Exploration Initiative. The cost: $450 billion. Because of that figure, Congress made sure that NO funds were appropriated towards any research for Mars missions (an action that continues to this day), and the visionary Space Exploration Initiative died a quick death. Fast forward to 2001 and G.doubleU.B. Jr. Although he murmured his pro-NASA inclinations prior to the election, it's my feeling that the only thing that will convince the current administration of the importance of Mars exploration is the discovery of oil on Mars. (And the scientists better be able to present their case in 10 minutes or less - with lotsa colored pictures and graphs).Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sorry about the bile venting but... Ah, that felt good. I suppose the short version of what I'm trying to say is... don't expect anthing happening real soon. Re: terraforming with comets On a more technical note, Wet1 is right about playing cosmic billard balls with comets, asteroids, and planets. Definitely a bozo-nono. Anything capable of 'nudgeing' a planet has to be BIG - 300-600 km. Assumming you could alter the orbit of one of the larger asteroids (which would require several 1000 gigatons of nuclear explosives - more than the worlds current total arsenal), it's collision with Mars would set off a cascade of events. Remember how one of the smaller (5 km) fragments of Shoemaker-Levy was able to produce a 3000 mile wide fireball on Jupiter. An asteroid of 600 km would crack the martian crust to the core, and heat the surface rock to incandescence - in the process, flash vaporizing both polar ice caps. Sub-surface sulfur and iron-sulfide deposits would be vaporized and integrated into the new atmosphere creating sulfuric acid clouds - similar to Venus. The atmosphere would balloon out due to the sudden release of carbon dioxide and water vapor and act to aero-brake Phobos and Deimos, causing both to de-orbit. They would produce some pretty spectacular impacts on their own. Needless to say, there would also be a lot of lava flowing for a long time to come. Meanwhile, about 20% of the mass of the asteroid would be ejected into orbit (or beyond) to form a Saturn-like ring that would drop bus-sized boulder from time to time over the next 100,000 years. Also, since Mars' rotational axis is not stabilized by a large moon, there is a fair chance that it will start to tumble until it reaches a new equilibrium. This might translate into martian days equaling half a martian year. On the bright side, the ring might condense into a moon. So now we have Mars rolling down the gravity well towards the sun. Since a mass in motion will continue in motion until acted on by another force, we will need a second asteroid collision to perform a "course correction" to nudge Mars back into a stable orbit. With all this banging about I don't think the surface of Mars would be usable for several 100,000 years. I wont go into the effect that changing Mars' orbit will have on all those asteroids that are in harmonic orbits with Mars and Jupiter. Think 1000 loose cannons.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! However, you don't really need to move Mars closer to the sun. It's already in the habitable zone - water will remain liquid on the surface as long as the atmosphere is dense enough, and there is sufficient light to allow photosythesis to occur. What if you took a small comet (less than 1 km) and slammed it into the south polar ice cap (which is mostly CO2). This would increase atmospheric density several fold. It would release tons of greenhouse gas which, in turn, would melt the northern ice cap (which is mostly H2O). Now you have a dense atmosphere and an ocean. All you need are a few plants and several 1000 years (and a way to prevent the martian soil from acting as an oxygen sink) and you have a terraformed planet Anyway, thats my 2centsPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Thanks guys. It was just a flight of fancy, I like explosions. Oh well. Yes, a comprehensive plan is needed. The reason Bush Senior's plan didn't suceede is because the NASA plan was much too large and overblown. NO ONE WOULD JUSTIFY SPENDING A HALF TRILLION DOLLARS ON A MARS SHOT. If the costs had been like the estimates for today, between 15-25 billion dollars (From what I've read) or less than I think we'd be going sooner. But we do have the spacestation, not by '99 but it'll be done in a few more years. I have a feeling that with a old-type Republican such as W, and the increasingly nationalistic, pro-missile defense situation. There may be a better chance at a realistic plan to put people on Mars. Would it really take twenty years to plan and exicute it? I think we can do it a bit quicker, but just as safely.
Hope we get there soon You may be right - it worked during the Cold War (we got to the moon in less than 10 years). Then again, a recently released Kennedy tape suggests the reason we went to the moon was primarily political competition - science was secondary. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Oops...I bow to the fact that both Kennedy & Johnson were Democrats Twenty years does seem like a long time. I think the date (2019)was chosen because Earth and Mars are really close that year (also in 2012). This assumes 1990's rocket technology and tragectories. The link below is a real interesting method of propulsion that looks promising for travel to Mars. (Earth to Mars in weeks instead of months and it also solves the radiation problem). http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/m2p2_winglee_010621.html
Looks good for small probes sending out of solar system but may not work for large payloads. A superconducting magnet (since deep space is cold) may even work better.
There are basically two paths to Mars and back. The fast track and the slow one. The fast track uses a lot of fuel, and because of that either the payloads must be light or there must be a lot of fuel. The slow track is a year long journey with fuel consumption being of prime importance. Both depend on Mars being in optimal postion. It has long been the desire that if we send people to Mars then they ought to stay the year. Only that requires a lot of consumables and a lot of weight must be taken for supplies. We are yet to reach the point of everything beig recycable. So additional must be taken to keep all systems up to snuff. That is one of the problems to be solved and prevents us from leaving now even if we had a craft built.
we can start by making an organization that will raise funds and givie it to chna so it will compete with USA on who is gonna put a man on mars 1st. the only nation that canface USA is china and besides they are commies in china it wll cost lss to build stuff there the people will get the same wage if they plow the fields or build a rocket and a space ship.
Lets not ignore our friends in the european union or russia or japan. They each have something to offer in the field of space science. More properly, there are some 'commies' in China. There are also a lot of people there, who don't entirely buy into all that 'commie' stuff. Also, a rocket scientist there can make a little bit more than a farmer with a tractor. The real money is in tractor repairPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Let face it, whoever gets there first will be flying on a space ship loaded with tons of explosive fuel and built by the lowest bidderPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
If the PRC even TRIED to land someone on Mars, the US would be in another space race. And we'd probably win it. As for the first mission to Mars, I don't completely agree that this should be some sugary sci-fi multinational cooperative project. The US could go at it alone, with no problems. I think a more reasonable partnership would be with the Russians obviously, and maybe Japan. The EU scares me a little, and the Chinese won't go on my watch. Human rights violations are enough on Earth, they don't need to be spread to Mars.
Your not thinking of the consequences If someone is born and lives on mars then they will NOT be able to walk on earth or any other earth sized planet (a terraformed venus perhaps). They simply will not be able to handle 3x the gravity its like as if we "stepped" onto jupiter/saturn, we'd be squished. A person from mars may not nessesarily be squished on earth, they just wouldnt be able to move or do anything Of course with some sort of "anti grav" field you could ignore this Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Essentially any colonists arent coming back to earth unless some sort of way to re-adapt ourselfs can be found (maybe some sort of genetic engineering/modification of our bones ?) -pk
Welcome to Sciforums, Pkunk. You bring up valid points. I would think that any face to face type meetings that could not be covered by a videoconference would be rare. While anti-gravity is still a long ways from reality I would think something more immediate that would help any Martian visitor would be something like a combination of the cargo handler in Alien (was it)3 toned down abet on the power lift capabilities combined with an iron lung of sorts would be a more possible and doable piece of equipment that we could conceivably build today with a bit of engineering.
