Mars colony is a bad idea---Callisto's better

[Philip]

The "eaton center" is a great shopping center in Toronto Canada.

It's an artificial center closed by walls glass.

I think the glass blowing on Mercury that is without air....can be handy

seeing in a science fiction film a spacebase within a great glass cap.

[Stargazer]

A Mars colony is most certainly not a bad idea, it's an excellent idea. Complement it with a mining operation, industries and a space dock on and near Phobos, and we have a great platform to go even further out, to reach the asteroid belt to make use of the resources there, and to go further to the outer planets. A colony on Callisto would be great to see as well, but how it would be done is another question. That it can be done, I have no doubt, but how is another matter...

[RawThinkTank]

Any kinda colony except space colony is a bad idea due to economics. When future companies start building colonies at a mass production scale then it would be cheaper to build space colonies that would orbit any thing with gravity. This will also solve problems associated with different G on different planets etc, as we will use centrifuge based artifical G. It would go like we have planes today with different versions. Experience in building anything is important.

[2004einstein]

 

the moon's of jupiter have plenty of water ice

and they have great scenery because jupiter is big in the sky and

very beautiful

 

and because of the gravity assist the delta-vee cost of

getting there is not all that great

 

like the galileo spacecraft did' date=' you can do a close flyby of J

and then slingshot with the other moons and arrive

at Callisto with almost no fuel burned

 

(after the main burn at earth for transfer orbit)

 

mars is dry and does not have these advantages

 

 

people on Callisto could use nuclear power to melt tunnels

into the ice and create under-ice habitats

and extract chemicals and stuff

 

the jovian moons are a nice system--eventually a good place to live

 

Bush was a turkey to say go to the moon and mars

[/quote']

 

 

 

I think you've got to walk before you can run so you've really got to start with the moon. It has good evidence for water in the polar regions and other manufactuable resourses, the lunar soil contains a mojority percentage of oxygen. Think of the kind of payload you would need to take to initiate a colony its got to be atleast hundred fold the apollo missions and we couldnt/cant even afford to repeat that for the moment. theres not a chance in hell we're goinging to get that kind of haulage to mars's moons or beyond in any forseeable future, is there?.

[Ophiolite]

The moon may have water.

Mars does have water.

 

Lunar soil is devoid of in any reasonable quanitity of elements appropriate for agriculture.

Martian soil has a suitable compostion to make an excellent starting point.

 

A simple transparent plastic dome on the moon would experience wholly undesirable and inhospitable temperature fluctuations during the course of the lunar 'day'.

The same dome on Mars would, with no additional heating, deliver comfortable temperatures internally in Mars 24hrs and a bit day.

 

Absence of an atmosphere renders the lunar surface a hostile place form the standpoint of solar and cosmic radiation.

The Martian atmosphere, though thin, provides adequate protection.

 

The atmosphere on Mars provides a source of fuel, oxygen, and chemical feedstocks.

The moon....

 

The list goes on: Mars should be the goal, not the moon.

[2004einstein]

The moon may have water.

Mars does have water.

 

You must be the only person who knows there's present water on mars then because so far there has only been found proof of past water.

And I suppose you can just magic all the mining/ construction equipment, building materials initial food supply, personnel >150x the distance of the moon?. We are not talking probes 50x lighter than manned missions we are talking mega-weight here and the fuel requirements go up disproportionately on an ever steepening curb everytime you multiply the payload.

[Martin]

You must be the only person who knows there's present water on mars then because so far there has only been found proof of past water.

.

 

Hi 2004' date=' you must be one of the few people here at SFN who doesnt know that water has been detected, in the form of ice, at the mars polar icecaps.

 

Much of the ice at the poles is CO2 ice, but in addition a substantial amount of it is known to be H2O

 

Also you may be one of the few who havent learned yet that Ophi is rather good on his facts. You can generally rely on what he says.

 

If you would like to know how a satellite orbiting Mars can tell the difference between CO2 ice and water ice (even tho they'r both white) then ask, and someone will probably tell you.

 

 

the fuel requirements go up disproportionately on an ever steepening curb everytime you multiply the payload.

 

I must stress that personally I'm not arguing that putting meat-bags on the moon would be good for the country, or for science,

or that Mars would be much better (it might be, but I'm not arguing for it)

 

but just as a point of engineering I think you are mistaken here

 

for a fixed delta-vee, the propellant requirement is roughly proportional to the payload.

if you double the payload to be delivered, then you double the fuel requirement

 

so, contrary to your statement, the fuel requirement does NOT go up disproportionately "on an ever steepening curb"

[2004einstein]

Hi 2004' date=' you must be one of the few people here at SFN who doesnt know that water has been detected, in the form of ice, at the mars polar icecaps.

 

Much of the ice at the poles is CO2 ice, but in addition a substantial amount of it is known to be H2O

 

Also you may be one of the few who havent learned yet that Ophi is rather good on his facts. You can generally rely on what he says.

 

If you would like to know how a satellite orbiting Mars can tell the difference between CO2 ice and water ice (even tho they'r both white) then ask, and someone will probably tell you.[/quote']Hey Marti,

Of course you are right sorry Oph.*slaps head* As for determining water ice well I would guess the fact that C02 sublimates at nearly -100oC while water needs +100o(to vaporize) and chemical emissions would give mars's polar ice composition away.

 

 

but just as a point of engineering I think you are mistaken here

 

for a fixed delta-vee' date=' the propellant requirement is roughly proportional to the payload.

if you double the payload to be delivered, then you double the fuel requirement

 

so, contrary to your statement, the fuel requirement does NOT go up disproportionately "on an ever steepening curb"[/quote']No I'm not mistaken because I was talking of manned space flight(and in a colonization project you are going to have to do a lot of meat transportation back and forth, yes?.), You cant use delta-v space craft tech' to do this the only option is hydrogen/oxygen rocket fuel which DOES go up disproportionately because everytime you add fuel you have to add some more to haul the fuel you just added. I suspect it could be a problem to haul anything with substantial weight with probe technology aswell, but hey if you only take a tent trowel and junior chemistry set...................

[Martin]

what I mean by delta-vee is a term in the conventional rocket equation

 

this applies to missions using chemical rockets where you do a burn for a limited time to achieve a certain delta-vee or change in velocity

 

 

conventionally the total delta-vee requirement for a mission is added up

and then the rocket equation gives the first estimate of the fuel-to-payload ratio

 

ideally, to discuss and compare, we need an estimate of the delta-vee for a mars mission and also for some other missions----like sample lunar and jovian ones.

 

it is not hard to get. the standard CRC handbook of chemistry and physics lists delta-vee for various Hohmann transfer ellipses to and from various planets. If you are not familiar with this kind of calculation you might want to look it up either there or on the web

 

there is one subtle aspect however: gravity assist (slingshot maneuver) can be used to reduce the delta-vee requirement of some missions----that is not included in the standard transfer-ellipse tables.