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So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously co
by sgentle 10y ago
So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way.
I'm not convinced.
- eganist 10y agoYup. Frankly, if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Martian gravity is also closer to Earth's, so Mars still seems like the better fit in the immediate term.
- IndianAstronaut 10y agoA penny sized hole in a space suit on Mars could mean a quick death. The lack of an atmosphere on Mars would make it exceedingly difficult to set up a colony there.
- Eerie 10y ago>A penny sized hole in a space suit on Mars could mean a quick death. Also true for Titan (surface temperature -179 degrees Celsius).
- jonahrd 10y agothermodynamics isn't instant like that, and you'd be dressing in layers. It's much different than a hole in a pressurized suit
- rocky1138 10y agoMars has an atmosphere, it's just not breathable by any life form from Earth.
- sliken 10y agoMars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere), which makes solar much easier. So equipment, supplies, and solar could be on the surface, and the radiation sensitive humans could be a few meters underground. As you mine for water you could dump the useless stuff on the surface and use the emptied space for living quarters. Question is why live somewhere that's tougher than the top of MT Everest or either pole? Guess a population big enough to repopulate earth in case of an extinction level event would be a reasonable safeguard.
- iskander 10y ago>Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere) Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars. (Mars is further from the sun and gets ~60% of our sunlight)
- maxerickson 10y agoMars vs Titan.
- iskander 10y agoAh, sorry, misunderstood.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- c22 10y agoBut if you're only doing it to safeguard against extinction level events why not just set up multiple contingency populations underground here on this planet? They won't have to travel as far after the event.
- samstave 10y agoI think the idea is to seed the extra planets BEFORE the ELE... If an ELE hits, few would be around to make even that short trip to the bunker.
- falcolas 10y ago> if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Not necessarily, if the solution involves "go faster to reduce exposure". Going faster seems a lot more feasible than creating the appropriate protection.
- eganist 10y agoEven if we find a way to go faster by a decent multiple, your looking at over a year of radiation exposure known to cause substantial brain damage. The shielding tech will still need to be researched... so might as well just stick to Mars
- kobeya 10y agoHere's how you solve the cosmic ray problem on Mars: put sandbags on the roof. Done.
- ape4 10y agoHopefully we can develop some light materials for radiation protection. So we can have radiation-proof domes and suits on Mars.
- bazzargh 10y agoI have to wonder if the recently discovered ice deposits on mars would do the job https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mars-ice-deposit-holds-as-much-water-as-lake-superior https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mars-ice-deposit-holds-as-m... If this really is just a metre down and 80% water it's got to be an attractive target - relatively easy to mine (once surface is cleared, just use heat) and a hollowed out underground structure with 1m of ice above would be an effective radiation shield: http://space.stackexchange.com/a/1826 http://space.stackexchange.com/a/1826 ... and once you're there, water is water, plus water can be used to make fuel.
- some1else 10y agoI'm wondering how contaminated are raw materials on planets without a solid magnetosphere. Could it be that most of the water out there is too radio-active for consumption?
- dreistdreist 10y agoThings get contaminated by radioactive material, not by radiation exposure [0]. And of course obligatory xkcd [1]. [0] https://www.mirion.com/introduction-to-radiation-safety/radiation-vs-contamination/ https://www.mirion.com/introduction-to-radiation-safety/radi... [1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
- Roboprog 10y agoSo, your biggest problem in a reactor cooling pool is "lead poisoning", eh? :-) Anyway, worth pointing out that cosmic rays are little groups of neutrons (and adjoining protons). I don't know about the half life of the resulting products, though, or how often a heavy nucleus collides with another nucleus, vs simply bashing through electron bonds.
- codingdave 10y agoIt wasn't a proposal -- it was a thought experiment.
- jsnathan 10y agoLet's do X is not a proposal?
- criddell 10y agoNo, that's the headline or title. The final paragraph makes it pretty clear that it's really encouraging the readers to think about how precious our home planet is: > There is no quick way to move off the Earth. We will have to solve our problems here.
- Shivetya 10y agoStill trying to figure out why under the moon surface isn't an open topic for these guys. From there you could go to anywhere else. Other than travel time, the risks of Titan and Mars voyages should be the same, yes? Neither one has a realistic rescue option for the stay or duration of trip
- kitsunesoba 10y agoThe surface of the moon is dramatically more hostile than the surface of Mars by every metric, and it's almost as hard to get to the moon as it is to get to Mars. Building a long term permanent colony on the moon would be far more difficult than doing so on Mars. As long as you can manage the travel, Mars is by far the more desirable target for colonization, both short term and long term. Elon Musk believes that his ITS can cut travel time down to 2-3 months, which seems reasonable, even if your craft's shielding isn't the greatest.
- pilom 10y agoCan you give some examples for how the moon is more hostile? I've always thought that for both you need a pressure suit but that the temps and radiation numbers were similar? Sure it's 21 days of hot then 21 days of cold instead of 24.5 hours but that seems much easier to deal with than the communications delay and travel times?
- kitsunesoba 10y agoThe long days + nights pose problems beyond just temperatures. It means having to store a lot of energy to deal with the long nights, meaning either big batteries (heavy and hard to get out of Earth's gravity well) or nuclear reactors (riddled with political issues). The 24.5 hour days on Mars can easily be handled with small batteries, or if need be power generated by fuel extracted on Mars. Gravity on the moon is also a big issue for long term habitation. It's only 16.7% of Earth's gravity, which is a far cry from Mars' 40% and is much more likely to cause physiological issues with the human body. 40% gravity may be enough for negative effects to be mostly offset by exercise, but 16.7% is much more doubtful. Crews would likely need to be regularly cycled, making it impossible for anybody to live on the moon permanently. The surface of the moon is exposed to much higher levels of radiation by two counts: first, it's closer to the sun, and two, it has no atmosphere. Mars' surface radiation is a good deal lower thanks to extra distance and its atmosphere, as thin as it is, cuts down on that number significantly. Furthermore, with 24.5 hour days there are frequent breaks from exposure to solar radiation whereas moon colonists would be faced with 21 days of high exposure followed by 21 days of low exposure. There's also the matter of resources. Raw material is both far more plentiful and more accessible on Mars; there's an atmosphere to pull gases from for oxygen and fuel and entire lakes of frozen water on Mars, whereas moon settlers would need to use expensive, complicated, and failure-prone machinery to process regolith. There are craters with some frozen water on the moon, but relying on those greatly limits the number of prospective colonization sites and will eventually be exhausted if population counts rise from outpost numbers to something more closely resembling a permanent colony. There are other factors as well, but these four are some of the largest.
- tbarbugli 10y agoI would imagine that shielding a ship be easier than shielding an entire colony (unless of course one accepts the underground colony approach)
- beefman 10y agoAlso, the rad dose-rate on Mars is utterly harmless.