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Mars loses atmosphere due to solar winds over the course of billions of years. It's not hard to outrun that. If you could give mars an atmosphere tomorrow the

Mars loses atmosphere due to solar winds over the course of billions of years. It's not hard to outrun that. If you could give mars an atmosphere tomorrow the loss of atmosphere won't be a problem on human civilization timescales.

gessha 3y ago
Isn’t it a little wasteful though? The materials for the atmosphere need to come from somewhere, otherwise you’re just throwing out Mars materials. If you import atmospheric material from somewhere else, it feels like other worlds like Jupyter/Saturn moons might be a better call for settlement? Also, Mars doesn’t have a (strong) magnetic field so going outside would be dangerous because you will be bombarded by radiation.
- freedomben 3y ago
  If solar energy is powering the devices, the lower amount of sunlight reaching the outer moons might be a big problem.
- adastra22 3y ago
  Atmosphere blocks radiation, and atmosphere can be made from the rocks themselves. There is an effectively endless supply.
  - someplaceguy 3y ago
    > atmosphere can be made from the rocks themselves. There is an effectively endless supply. Do Martian rocks have significant amounts of nitrogen?
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Why would you need nitrogen in your atmosphere?
      - just_boost_it 3y ago
        Presumably for whatever reason it worked well for us to develop as we did down here? Stops everything from exploding, dissolves all the other gases quite nicely? What other gas would you use?
        adastra22 3y ago
        Nitrogen does absolutely nothing on Earth. It is inert.
        just_boost_it 3y ago
        Like, without that inert gas there would have to be something else. Being in a pure oxygen environment for a prolonged period has health impacts to many animals including us. Anything even remotely flammable, like paper, wood, sugar, would burn uncontrollably with the slightest spark. If you didn't have nitrogen you would need another inert gas to make up 80% (or whatever) of the atmosphere you were going to make.
        adastra22 3y ago
        For the most part, partial pressure is what matters, not absolute pressures. The only contribution inert nitrogen has to life is raising the boiling point of water. But on a frigid planet like Mars that’s not going to be an issue. Being in a pure oxygen environment does not have a long term impact on animals… if the pure O2 environment is 0.21 atm oxygen. There’s a long history of biological experimentation done by space agencies on this, and the Apollo missions operated on a 0.2 atm pressure for the duration of their missions. Apollo 1 famously had trouble not because it was pure O2, but because it was 1.2atm O2. There is no reason you need backfill inert gasses to have 1.0 atmospheres.
        abdullahkhalids 3y ago
        The Nitrogen cycle [1] is a critical component of many ecological systems. Critical compounds in plants have nitrogen, and the nitrogen for these is absorbed from the soil, where it is fixed by bacteria. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle
- ben_w 3y ago
  A synthetic magnetic field is easy compared to adding an atmosphere. Big wire with current, very big by wire standards (one square meter cross section isn't close to enough for reasonable input values if it's on or close to the ground, but it doesn't really need to be) but still small compared to the mass involved in making a dent even compared to the thin Martian atmosphere.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Compared to Mars the moons of the gas giants have at least three major hurdles for long-term human habitation: their distance, with the trip there being around 6 years, the incredibly harsh planetary radiation belts the moons weave through, and ineffectiveness of solar energy that far away from the sun. I think we should try to overcome these hurdles, but getting humans out there is a much taller order than establishing a human presence on Mars.

gessha 3y ago

Isn’t it a little wasteful though? The materials for the atmosphere need to come from somewhere, otherwise you’re just throwing out Mars materials. If you import atmospheric material from somewhere else, it feels like other worlds like Jupyter/Saturn moons might be a better call for settlement? Also, Mars doesn’t have a (strong) magnetic field so going outside would be dangerous because you will be bombarded by radiation.

freedomben 3y ago
If solar energy is powering the devices, the lower amount of sunlight reaching the outer moons might be a big problem.
adastra22 3y ago
Atmosphere blocks radiation, and atmosphere can be made from the rocks themselves. There is an effectively endless supply.
- someplaceguy 3y ago
  > atmosphere can be made from the rocks themselves. There is an effectively endless supply. Do Martian rocks have significant amounts of nitrogen?
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Why would you need nitrogen in your atmosphere?
    - just_boost_it 3y ago
      Presumably for whatever reason it worked well for us to develop as we did down here? Stops everything from exploding, dissolves all the other gases quite nicely? What other gas would you use?
      - adastra22 3y ago
        Nitrogen does absolutely nothing on Earth. It is inert.
        just_boost_it 3y ago
        Like, without that inert gas there would have to be something else. Being in a pure oxygen environment for a prolonged period has health impacts to many animals including us. Anything even remotely flammable, like paper, wood, sugar, would burn uncontrollably with the slightest spark. If you didn't have nitrogen you would need another inert gas to make up 80% (or whatever) of the atmosphere you were going to make.
        adastra22 3y ago
        For the most part, partial pressure is what matters, not absolute pressures. The only contribution inert nitrogen has to life is raising the boiling point of water. But on a frigid planet like Mars that’s not going to be an issue. Being in a pure oxygen environment does not have a long term impact on animals… if the pure O2 environment is 0.21 atm oxygen. There’s a long history of biological experimentation done by space agencies on this, and the Apollo missions operated on a 0.2 atm pressure for the duration of their missions. Apollo 1 famously had trouble not because it was pure O2, but because it was 1.2atm O2. There is no reason you need backfill inert gasses to have 1.0 atmospheres.
        abdullahkhalids 3y ago
        The Nitrogen cycle [1] is a critical component of many ecological systems. Critical compounds in plants have nitrogen, and the nitrogen for these is absorbed from the soil, where it is fixed by bacteria. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle
ben_w 3y ago
A synthetic magnetic field is easy compared to adding an atmosphere. Big wire with current, very big by wire standards (one square meter cross section isn't close to enough for reasonable input values if it's on or close to the ground, but it doesn't really need to be) but still small compared to the mass involved in making a dent even compared to the thin Martian atmosphere.
jwells89 3y ago
Compared to Mars the moons of the gas giants have at least three major hurdles for long-term human habitation: their distance, with the trip there being around 6 years, the incredibly harsh planetary radiation belts the moons weave through, and ineffectiveness of solar energy that far away from the sun. I think we should try to overcome these hurdles, but getting humans out there is a much taller order than establishing a human presence on Mars.