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There's one gaping hole in the idea though: where are we going to get water? One other interesting possibility is colonizing Mercury. It turns out to not be as

by j_baker 12y ago

There's one gaping hole in the idea though: where are we going to get water? One other interesting possibility is colonizing Mercury. It turns out to not be as crazy an idea as it seems at first. Mercury does have water, there's plenty of solar energy, and it's not too hot at the poles. The trickiest part would really be getting there. As deep as it is in the sun's gravity well, it would take 6 years to get there!

jlebar 12y ago
Does Mercury offer any protection from the solar wind? I (naively) expect the solar wind intensity to go as the inverse-square of distance, and I know that surviving the solar wind on Mars is a big challenge, given the lack of a magnetosphere there. I expect the difficulty would be worse by many orders of magnitude on Mercury? Not to mention that you have to survive six years with no protection just to get there; just surviving the trip to Mars is a challenge.
- aetherson 12y ago
  If you wanted to build a habitation on Mercury, you'd either build a mobile one that stays on the dark side of the planet, or you'd stay in always-shaded areas at the walls of craters. So you're shaded from the solar wind by rock.
  - j_baker 12y ago
    You actually wouldn't have to do either of those. There's actual frozen ice on Mercury's poles, which means you have a relatively temperate environment, plenty of sunlight for energy, and water. The atmosphere and gravity situation on the other hand are about the same as Mars.
    - aetherson 12y ago
      The ice around Mercury's poles is in permanently shadowed craters. The polar aspect is what allows there to be substantial permanently shadowed areas (because the sun never rises high in the sky). Ref: http://www.space.com/27450-messenger-mercury-water-ice-photos.html http://www.space.com/27450-messenger-mercury-water-ice-photo...
- j_baker 12y ago
  No, Mercury actually has a magnetosphere. I don't know about what kinds of protection you would need to get there though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mercury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mercury
  - monkeypizza 12y ago
    This site also has some nice info on Mercury colonization. http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html

by j_baker 12y ago

jlebar 12y ago

Does Mercury offer any protection from the solar wind? I (naively) expect the solar wind intensity to go as the inverse-square of distance, and I know that surviving the solar wind on Mars is a big challenge, given the lack of a magnetosphere there. I expect the difficulty would be worse by many orders of magnitude on Mercury? Not to mention that you have to survive six years with no protection just to get there; just surviving the trip to Mars is a challenge.

aetherson 12y ago
If you wanted to build a habitation on Mercury, you'd either build a mobile one that stays on the dark side of the planet, or you'd stay in always-shaded areas at the walls of craters. So you're shaded from the solar wind by rock.
- j_baker 12y ago
  You actually wouldn't have to do either of those. There's actual frozen ice on Mercury's poles, which means you have a relatively temperate environment, plenty of sunlight for energy, and water. The atmosphere and gravity situation on the other hand are about the same as Mars.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    The ice around Mercury's poles is in permanently shadowed craters. The polar aspect is what allows there to be substantial permanently shadowed areas (because the sun never rises high in the sky). Ref: http://www.space.com/27450-messenger-mercury-water-ice-photos.html http://www.space.com/27450-messenger-mercury-water-ice-photo...
j_baker 12y ago
No, Mercury actually has a magnetosphere. I don't know about what kinds of protection you would need to get there though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mercury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mercury
- monkeypizza 12y ago
  This site also has some nice info on Mercury colonization. http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html