Life on Mars

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  • vfnmoody
    vfnmoody Posts: 271 Member
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    gone in a heartbeat


    .It's never going to happen unless the oil companies can make money from it.
    It always amazes me what we can do with a large application of cash or political will.
    If the rover finds oil we will be there faster than if it finds oxygen or water.
  • ChrisRS87
    ChrisRS87 Posts: 781 Member
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    I wouldn't, there are long term effects of lower gravity. For you and me, after growing up here we'd be fine. But our kids and kids' kids would be much weaker in terms of muscle mass and bone density, and they would also be taller.

    Relative to each other it would feel like comparing between two people on earth, but comparing someone who grew up on mars to someone from earth, the person from mars would be fragile and weak.
  • drmerc
    drmerc Posts: 2,603 Member
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    I didn't put on my tin foil hat before coming in this thread.
    Someone should have warned me
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
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    I didn't put on my tin foil hat before coming in this thread.
    Someone should have warned me

    I can't share my hat with everyone, silly!
  • Xstitcher74
    Xstitcher74 Posts: 124 Member
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    Based on the pictures so far, Life on Mars appears to be Nevada pre Las Vegas


    :laugh:
  • vfnmoody
    vfnmoody Posts: 271 Member
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    I wouldn't, there are long term effects of lower gravity. For you and me, after growing up here we'd be fine. But our kids and kids' kids would be much weaker in terms of muscle mass and bone density, and they would also be taller.

    Relative to each other it would feel like comparing between two people on earth, but comparing someone who grew up on mars to someone from earth, the person from mars would be fragile and weak.

    unless they workout
  • TheRealParisLove
    TheRealParisLove Posts: 1,907 Member
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    Humans will have to go to other planets, and probably soon, to survive as a species. This one will be giving out soon and won't be able to support us for much longer. We have maybe 10 more generations left, out the outside.

    Having said that, no I would not go to Mars. I'm too old and uneducated. We need young folks who can have lots babies to emigrate.
  • dmpizza
    dmpizza Posts: 3,321 Member
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    The pioneer lifestyle is very tempting, but please undersand that Mars is a planet with an atmospheric pressure 1/100th of what we have on Earth. "Getting" oxygen to Mars or even creating it in sufficient quantities requires technology a century or more beyond what we are capable of at this time.

    Any space colonization in ours or or children and grand children's lifetime would be like living in an apartment building with no windows.
    A valient effort, but walking around in a space suit will be a rare event and walking around without a space suit will be simply impossible.
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    Humans will have to go to other planets, and probably soon, to survive as a species. This one will be giving out soon and won't be able to support us for much longer. We have maybe 10 more generations left, out the outside.

    Having said that, no I would not go to Mars. I'm too old and uneducated. We need young folks who can have lots babies to emigrate.

    i agree with you in the long term but there is nothing to indicate that we only have 10 generations left on Earth.

    why do you say that?
  • xarge
    xarge Posts: 484 Member
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    Humans will have to go to other planets, and probably soon, to survive as a species. This one will be giving out soon and won't be able to support us for much longer. We have maybe 10 more generations left, out the outside.

    Having said that, no I would not go to Mars. I'm too old and uneducated. We need young folks who can have lots babies to emigrate.

    We won't have a reliable space drive to colonize on time. Solar system is the short straw when it comes to habitable planets and with our current technology, colonization of Mars will take a **** load of time. Tons of material to terraform and colonize. Not to mention our Earthen materials are far from good to use on Mars surface with the extreme cold. As it takes months or years for us to build a station on Antarctica... A colony on Mars is just a warm and fuzzy dream.

    We're more suited as species to discuss whether humans are herbivores or omnivores.
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
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    Humans will have to go to other planets, and probably soon, to survive as a species. This one will be giving out soon and won't be able to support us for much longer. We have maybe 10 more generations left, out the outside.

    Having said that, no I would not go to Mars. I'm too old and uneducated. We need young folks who can have lots babies to emigrate.

    We won't have a reliable space drive to colonize on time. Solar system is the short straw when it comes to habitable planets and with our current technology, colonization of Mars will take a **** load of time. Tons of material to terraform and colonize. Not to mention our Earthen materials are far from good to use on Mars surface with the extreme cold. As it takes months or years for us to build a station on Antarctica... A colony on Mars is just a warm and fuzzy dream.

    We're more suited as species to discuss whether humans are herbivores or omnivores.

    This! Nice post. :)
  • ScatteredThoughts
    ScatteredThoughts Posts: 3,562 Member
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    Maybe they should be working on curing cancer or idiotism. Something useful.

    Yeah, let's get rid of all the useless things!

    Sports, music, art, and on and on and on.
  • Rhea30
    Rhea30 Posts: 625 Member
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    No I would not go. I believe we should stay here and feed and clothe and provide clean water for ever person on Earth first before venturing out into new worlds. Lets take care of our own first.

    But wouldn't the technology developed in the process of achieving this goal help to reach your goals? For example, we need clean water but so will a spacecraft traveling to Mars. We need to be able to feed everyone, so will a spacecraft traveling to Mars, etc.

    I think I am following your logic here and if so, I agree with you. I believe that if this living on Mars goal is attained it will in fact help the quality of life for the people on earth as well. You may have to look beyond the initial getting to that point process to see all the good that could/would come from it.

    The technology from the space program has done quite a bit to help humanity. Much of our medical equipment is a spinoff from the space program. Space provides some of the toughest challenges so it always gives us new technology in return.
  • wolfpack77
    wolfpack77 Posts: 655
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    Has everybody forgotten that Mars is insanely cold? Even if the air was breathable it would be so cold you couldn't go outside without some serious protection. Its colder there on a daily basis then any temperature ever recorded on earth. This cant be fixed no matter what you do to the atmosphere.

    So yeah, enjoy the sunset. In your quadruple layered arctic snow suit.
  • ChrisRS87
    ChrisRS87 Posts: 781 Member
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    I wouldn't, there are long term effects of lower gravity. For you and me, after growing up here we'd be fine. But our kids and kids' kids would be much weaker in terms of muscle mass and bone density, and they would also be taller.

    Relative to each other it would feel like comparing between two people on earth, but comparing someone who grew up on mars to someone from earth, the person from mars would be fragile and weak.

    unless they workout

    Working out won't matter, they'll still be fragile and weak compared to us. Same way if life lived on a larger planet, they'd be shorter and stronger.
  • xarge
    xarge Posts: 484 Member
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    Has everybody forgotten that Mars is insanely cold? Even if the air was breathable it would be so cold you couldn't go outside without some serious protection. Its colder there on a daily basis then any temperature ever recorded on earth. This cant be fixed no matter what you do to the atmosphere.

    So yeah, enjoy the sunset. In your quadruple layered arctic snow suit.

    The idea of colonization in a sci-fi flick is to build a dome to live in as long as the planet is non-hazardous and preferably without hostile alien life forms.
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    Has everybody forgotten that Mars is insanely cold? Even if the air was breathable it would be so cold you couldn't go outside without some serious protection. Its colder there on a daily basis then any temperature ever recorded on earth. This cant be fixed no matter what you do to the atmosphere.

    So yeah, enjoy the sunset. In your quadruple layered arctic snow suit.

    with terraforming as the atmosphere thickens it will begin to heat up. it wont always be that cold.
  • wolfpack77
    wolfpack77 Posts: 655
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    Has everybody forgotten that Mars is insanely cold? Even if the air was breathable it would be so cold you couldn't go outside without some serious protection. Its colder there on a daily basis then any temperature ever recorded on earth. This cant be fixed no matter what you do to the atmosphere.

    So yeah, enjoy the sunset. In your quadruple layered arctic snow suit.

    with terraforming as the atmosphere thickens it will begin to heat up. it wont always be that cold.

    Sorry it doesn't work that way. I

    Mars died. One of the reasons why Earth has is able to maintain a thick atmosphere is because it has a hot circulating iron core that creates a magnetic field around it. This field deflects solar radiation that would otherwise strip the atmosphere from the surface. Long ago, Mars also had a hot core and a magnetic field. It had a thick CO2 atmosphere which made it warm enough for liquid water to exist. But because its much smaller, its core cooled off a lot quicker and its magnetic field disappeared. This left no protection from the sun. Slowly over time, the atmosphere and surface water was stripped from the surface by solar radiation, leaving behind the cold desolate desert and barely any atmosphere (about 1% of Earth)

    So, you cant "add air" to Mars. Its core is dead. Even if you could, adding oxygen might make it breathable but not warmer. Its not a greenhouse gas. Mars needs a thick greenhouse gas environment of CO2 to be warm because of its distance from the sun.

    Yeah, geeky.

    I am not a planetary scientist. lol
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    Sorry it doesn't work that way. I

    Mars died. One of the reasons why Earth has is able to maintain a thick atmosphere is because it has a hot circulating iron core that creates a magnetic field around it. This field deflects solar radiation that would otherwise strip the atmosphere from the surface. Long ago, Mars also had a hot core and a magnetic field. It had a thick CO2 atmosphere which made it warm enough for liquid water to exist. But because its much smaller, its core cooled off a lot quicker and its magnetic field disappeared. This left no protection from the sun. Slowly over time, the atmosphere and surface water was stripped from the surface by solar radiation, leaving behind the cold desolate desert and barely any atmosphere (about 1% of Earth)

    So, you cant "add air" to Mars. Its core is dead. Even if you could, adding oxygen might make it breathable but not warmer. Its not a greenhouse gas. Mars needs a thick greenhouse gas environment of CO2 to be warm because of its distance from the sun.

    Yeah, geeky.

    I am not a planetary scientist. lol

    actually that is the way terraforming works...

    grabbed one of the first searches i found and there are countless others discussing how to make Mars livable. nobody is suggesting oxygen alone will do the trick.

    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast09feb_1/

    "That depends," says Marinova, "on how fast we make the gases." According to rough calculations, "if you had 100 factories, each having the energy of a nuclear reactor, working for 100 years, you could warm Mars six to eight degrees." At that rate, to increase the average Martian temperature to the melting point of water -- it's about minus 55 degrees Celsius now -- would take about eight centuries. Actually, it wouldn't take quite that long, Marinova points out, because her calculation doesn't include the feedback effect of the CO2 that would be released as Mars got steadily warmer. "Devising more efficient artificial super-greenhouse gases will also make it faster," Marinova adds

    The planet Venus, for instance, has a chokingly thick atmosphere, but no magnetic field to protect it against the wind from the nearby Sun. Every planetary atmosphere is a balance between "sources and sinks." If some process (like volcanism) pumps gas into the atmosphere at a rate that substantially exceeds solar wind loses, the atmosphere will persist. The equilibrium on Venus happens to favor a thick atmosphere."
  • wolfpack77
    wolfpack77 Posts: 655
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    Sorry it doesn't work that way. I

    Mars died. One of the reasons why Earth has is able to maintain a thick atmosphere is because it has a hot circulating iron core that creates a magnetic field around it. This field deflects solar radiation that would otherwise strip the atmosphere from the surface. Long ago, Mars also had a hot core and a magnetic field. It had a thick CO2 atmosphere which made it warm enough for liquid water to exist. But because its much smaller, its core cooled off a lot quicker and its magnetic field disappeared. This left no protection from the sun. Slowly over time, the atmosphere and surface water was stripped from the surface by solar radiation, leaving behind the cold desolate desert and barely any atmosphere (about 1% of Earth)

    So, you cant "add air" to Mars. Its core is dead. Even if you could, adding oxygen might make it breathable but not warmer. Its not a greenhouse gas. Mars needs a thick greenhouse gas environment of CO2 to be warm because of its distance from the sun.

    Yeah, geeky.

    I am not a planetary scientist. lol

    actually that is the way terraforming works...

    grabbed one of the first searches i found and there are countless others discussing how to make Mars livable. nobody is suggesting oxygen alone will do the trick.

    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast09feb_1/

    "That depends," says Marinova, "on how fast we make the gases." According to rough calculations, "if you had 100 factories, each having the energy of a nuclear reactor, working for 100 years, you could warm Mars six to eight degrees." At that rate, to increase the average Martian temperature to the melting point of water -- it's about minus 55 degrees Celsius now -- would take about eight centuries. Actually, it wouldn't take quite that long, Marinova points out, because her calculation doesn't include the feedback effect of the CO2 that would be released as Mars got steadily warmer. "Devising more efficient artificial super-greenhouse gases will also make it faster," Marinova adds

    The planet Venus, for instance, has a chokingly thick atmosphere, but no magnetic field to protect it against the wind from the nearby Sun. Every planetary atmosphere is a balance between "sources and sinks." If some process (like volcanism) pumps gas into the atmosphere at a rate that substantially exceeds solar wind loses, the atmosphere will persist. The equilibrium on Venus happens to favor a thick atmosphere."

    But whats the point of making it warm if you cant make the air breathable? Also its not self sustaining. At least if it were powered by vulcanism we wouldnt need to maintain it. Take away the factories or run out of energy, and the planet dies again. Doesnt seem worth the costs.

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