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But how to keep water on Mars? The way I understand Mars can't keep an atmosphere because it lacks a magnetic field and probably lost a lot of water this way.
by legulere 9y ago
But how to keep water on Mars? The way I understand Mars can't keep an atmosphere because it lacks a magnetic field and probably lost a lot of water this way.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoI'd assume we'd do it the same way we do it on the space station, except on a larger scale. We tightly control water consumption and what leaves the life support systems.
- rbanffy 9y agoAlso, the water doesn't need to be exposed to the Martian atmosphere - it can be stored in tanks until needed. Farms wouldn't be in open air anyway. At a later point, it may prove feasible to reduce the incidence of solar winds using one or more deflectors at the Sun-Mars L1 point. A cool idea would be to slow down instead of deflecting so the particles would land on Mars and become part of the atmosphere instead of blowing it away. But this is way past the science-fiction line for now.
- sigstoat 9y agomars has an atmosphere even now. the processes stripping it off work on geological (or longer) timescales. if you can import (or free) enough water to make a difference in the first place, then keeping up with the losses should be pretty easy.
- Symmetry 9y agoAlso, giving Mars an artificial magnetic field to stop the stripping isn't easy but it's a lot easier than importing that much water.
- senectus1 9y agothrow a bunch of big wet heavy ice rocks on the surface (before we decide to set up base there) and you'll have a good kick start to an atmosphere. Also, sounds fun...
- dajomu 9y agoA way to protect the atmosphere of Mars with a magnetic field has been suggested https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo...