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Inflatable, radiation shielding, light emitting? How. Edit: Plants and non-human animals wouldn’t appreciate Martian rads either.
by QAPereo 9y ago
Inflatable, radiation shielding, light emitting? How.
Edit: Plants and non-human animals wouldn’t appreciate Martian rads either.
- aetherson 9y agoThey don't really need to be radiation shielding or light emitting. People don't need to live there, just plants and animals. And insolation on Mars is sufficient for light.
- marrone12 9y agoExcessive radiation can also kill plants and animals
- QAPereo 9y agoEven before it kills them, it definitely ruins their reproductive capacity, which is going to be critical offworld.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoWe could have a breeding population in an expensive shielded environment, and take most of their young to grow in a cheap, more radioactive environment.
- QAPereo 9y agoNow that’s a really interesting idea! Add in a bank of shielded frozen embryos and sperm and yes, I can see your point.
- adrianN 9y agoIs the radiation on Mars excessive? Quick googling suggests 10-20 rem per year, or about half that of the ISS. As far as I know plants do grow on the ISS.
- gozur88 9y agoPlants are pretty tolerant of solar radiation. Far more so than humans. In any event, what you'd probably do is use reflected light to filter out high energy particles.
- aetherson 9y agoBackground radiation in Mars is way lower than would be necessary to kill plants and, like, it might increase cancer rates in animals, but the kind of animals we'd want to breed there have short lifespans and we don't care if they get a few tumors.
- adrianN 9y agoUnderground, LEDs, hydroponics?
- QAPereo 9y agoSure, but now you’re spending the Dv to get all of that to Mars.
- ethbro 9y agoStill much cheaper than shipping dirt to Mars.
- vkou 9y agoIt's even cheaper to construct and use all that stuff on Earth.
- ethbro 9y agoNot risk adjusted.
- QAPereo 9y agoCompared to the risk of Mars? I take your point, but let’s be realistic about our odds on Mars without Earth backing it all up.
- ethbro 9y agoGranted. And initially, sure, but aiming long term for a single-planetary culture that took 3.8 billion years to develop seems shortsighted. The risk of that life snuffing out may be small, but the time cost of replacement should that happen is huge.
- adrianN 9y agoThat doesn't help a establish a Mars colony, which pretty much rules out that option if you want to establish a Mars colony.