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"establishing colonies" The radiation must be horrific.
by antidoh 14y ago
"establishing colonies"
The radiation must be horrific.
- tambourine_man 14y agoNot on the dark side, Mercury is almost tide locked with the Sun. I always dreamed of a colony that could harvest the temperature gradient between the two sides.
- stcredzero 14y ago> The radiation must be horrific. Obviously not where there's water ice. ('doh, Antidoh!) Click on the picture on this page to look at the configuration of the shadowed craters at the poles. (Yellow indicates a permanently shadowed region, also where water was found.) http://www.space.com/18687-water-ice-mercury-messager-discovery.html http://www.space.com/18687-water-ice-mercury-messager-discov... In 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson describes Mercury settlements slowly rolling along huge crawlers. http://amzn.com/0316098124 http://amzn.com/0316098124 But with the permanently shadowed craters, you wouldn't need them.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoWhy do you say that? Being so close to the Sun and without the protection of a magnetosphere you'd be pummeled by high energy radiation from solar flares (deeply penetrating protons, mostly). Because of the nature of the solar wind, you couldn't just rely on being in the shade to protect you.
- stcredzero 14y agoI was just thinking of electromagnetic radiation. Just do the same as you'd do on Mars or on the moon. Bury the habitats in 6 feet of regolith.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoRadiation is proportionally more intense at Mercury so you'd need thicker cover and you'd probably want to spend less time outside. Also, just getting there would be kind of a problem, radiation protection wise. Probably easier than trying to set up a base on a Galilean moon though.