4 ms·
It probably isn't with current technology, but it has the potential to become substantially less risky in the near future. It has no earthquakes, no volcanoes,
by gpm 6y ago
It probably isn't with current technology, but it has the potential to become substantially less risky in the near future.
It has no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no floods, no forest fires, and so on. It has exactly two types of natural disasters - meteor strikes, and dust storms. The former are very rare. The latter can be mitigated much more thoroughly than natural disasters on earth.
Humans have to live indoors, which mean that it has no shared ecosystem. We can control the spread of pathogens by isolating populations perfectly. We don't have to worry about the atmosphere at large becoming poisonous because we are already managing the local atmosphere as a distinct entity.
It has no large groups of people who do not have the technology to survive in hostile environments who can come try and steal (and in effect destroy) your technology.
- haram_masala 6y agoIt has pretty intense radiation at the surface, though. Humans would have to dwell well underground to approach a normal lifespan.
- pantaloony 6y agoLiving on Mars is like living in a bunker on Earth while a global catastrophe is underway. Except it’s always like that.
- gpm 6y agoExcept you had time to plan for the exact conditions of the "catastrophe", and no one is shooting at you or bombing you, and there is no chance of further catastrophes like an earthquake. Also - why is this a response to the person you responded to?
- paulryanrogers 6y agoOnce the Martian population reaches any significant number there will be violent crimes.
- gpm 6y agoViolent crimes? Yes. People starving to death because the sky has been choked out who want to break into your habitat kill you and steal all your food? No. It's the latter that a large scale catastrophe on earth causes.
- chongli 6y agoIt also has a type of natural disaster that we don’t have: solar flares. Mars has no dynamo within its core the way Earth does. Mars therefore has a much weaker magnetic field and so is far more susceptible to charged particles from the sun. Solar flares present a huge problem for people living on Mars unless they’re underground. They destroy any technology that isn’t well-shielded. They also represent a major obstacle to a project to terraform Mars because the charged particles will strip away the atmosphere you’re trying to build.
- EGreg 6y agoHow do they strip it away though
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bhickey 6y agoThe solar wind hits molecules in the atmosphere and knocks them into space. This is how Venus lost most of its hydrogen. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee...
- wahern 6y agoA prerequisite was that Venus lost its solid and liquid water. As the temperature rose water couldn't precipitate, leaving it all exposed in the upper atmosphere. Oxygen and hydrogen would photo-dissociate and the lower mass hydrogen would get kicked out into space at a higher rate. I don't think you need solar wind-magnitude energies for Venus to have lost it's hydrogen, it just sped up the process. Venus is pretty big, but it's also really hot. Venus' gravity to temperature ratio permit significant amounts of free hydrogen to be lost thermally without any solar wind sweeping it away. I think it's possible that Venus lost most of its hydrogen to thermal escape, particularly hydrodynamic escape, though today it's no longer the predominate mechanism for what little hydrogen remains.