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Once again it seems necessary to remind people just how unsuitable Mars is for human colonization while the Moon is significantly better: 1. Lava tubes will be
by jmyeet 4y ago
Once again it seems necessary to remind people just how unsuitable Mars is for human colonization while the Moon is significantly better:
1. Lava tubes will be a cheap form of initial habitable space. Additionally, the Moon is geologically stable;
2. Gravity is too low in both places so you'll probably have to still live in spin gravity;
3. Mars has an atmosphere but it's basically a vacuum. It's just enough to cover all your stuff in dust;
4. Mars is poisonous. The surface is covered in many toxic substances (eg perchlorates);
5. People have a vision of living on the surface of Mars. That'll basically never happen. Radiation is still a problem. Living underground just makes way more sense. And any above ground structure (eg domes) can just as easily be built on the Moon;
6. Distance from Earth is a significant downside to Mars and a significant advantage for the Moon. You can still maintain real-time communication with Earth. And supplies are days not months away.
Mars really only has 2 advantages:
1. Day length. Mars day is almost Earth normal. The Moon is tidally locked so its day is ~28 Earth days long; and
2. Day-night temperature differential on the surface. It's really large on the Moon.
Why this matters is that even though you'd be living underground you still need power and solar power is really the best option. On the Moon this means your best options are the poles.
The standard retort is "terraforming". People who say this don't seem to comprehend what a massive undertaking this is. Example: the Earth loses (IIRC) ~1 million tons of atmosphere every year due to Jeans Escape Energy. That doesn't matter on Earth because the atmosphere is so much more massive.
So at actual atmosphere on Mars would have to be so large such that a similar loss would be insigifnicant.
- marsven_422 4y ago
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoReally good post thank you.
- ewjt 4y agoMars advantages continued: 3. Available water, required for any human/plant/animal life 4. 2.3 times the gravity of the moon 5. CO2 in atmosphere could be converted to O2 for breathing or methane for rocket fuel
- wolfram74 4y ago3* Water also appears to be present on the moon[0] 4* Is that enough? We don't know, we've yet to do any centrifuge habitat experiments with small mammals 5* oxygen is so common, CO2 has the advantage of being gasseous, but silicates, aluminum and iron ores are the rocks you can't throw a rock without hitting and has the advantage that you only need to process a millionth the volume to get an equivalent number of moles to martian CO2. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water
- narrator 4y agoZubrin does a good job of outlining why Mars is better in his book "The Case for Mars.". He's thinking underground structures on Mars with solar panels and some pressurized agriculture up top. Mars had much less harsh living conditions than the moon and having water and CO2 around makes living off the land, at least partially, a lot easier than on the moon. The delta-v to get to the moon vs. Mars isn't much different. Getting out of Earth's gravity well is the hard part.