If you could emigrate to Mars, but could never come back to Earth, would you go?

[Whoha]

if we colonize mars/the moon/etc we'll have to bring centerfuges or something to simulate gravity.

That said, while we all might say we want to go to mars, when we get there we'd all realize that mars sucks ass, and will suck ass for decades at the least.

[JellyBean]

Originally posted by Ned


How does one raise the temperature of the poles four degees C?

Scatter black dust over them. (Graphite from the moons, perhaps?) Decrease the albedo, watch them absorb more sunlight and heat up.

If you don't get enough greenhouse gases from the poles, try blowing through the crust with nukes. Create some active volcanoes, and see what they spew into the atmosphere.

[Odin]

Originally posted by JellyBean

Create some active volcanoes, and see what they spew into the atmosphere.

That made me think of the 50 mile deep holes they made in Red Mars.

[Drake Tungsten]

I would go to Mars just for the three-titted women.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Whoha
if we colonize mars/the moon/etc we'll have to bring centerfuges or something to simulate gravity.

Mars has enough gravity to make the efects of bone demineralization negligible. However, if you're born on Mars and go to Earth you might need leg braces (you know what I'm talking about if you've read Blue Mars ).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by JellyBean
If you don't get enough greenhouse gases from the poles, try blowing through the crust with nukes. Create some active volcanoes, and see what they spew into the atmosphere.

I thought Mars has a dead core?

[The Mad Monk]

Yeah, it's easier to just nuke the poles -- more direct and all that.

[Ned]

What about constructing huge nuclear-powered lasers on the ground that beamed energy towards orbiting mirrors that would reflect the beams down towards the frozen caps melting them? The nuclear reactors could also supply electricity and hot water for colonists.

[DaShi]

Free Mars!

[CerberusIV]

Atmospheric leakage? My memory of this is a bit hazy as it is several years since I studied it but isn't there a problem with the solar wind blowing away gases from the upper atmosphere. Most of the solar wind is deflected by Earth's magnetic field. So you need both gravity and a magnetic field to preserve an atmosphere.

Earth and Venus have both and have atmospheres. Mars and the Moon don't have a significant magnetic field and don't have much in the way of atmosphere.

Does anyone know more about this than my vague recollection of something I read years ago?


Incidentally, I wouldn't go. Send all the get-rich-quick types. Can you imagine getting emails asking you to help smuggle funds off Mars - more fun than getting money out of Liberia or wherever.

Mars could be a penal colony? Mars - the new Australia!

*ducks boomerang thrown by little green Martian*

[JellyBean]

Originally posted by Ned
What about constructing huge nuclear-powered lasers on the ground that beamed energy towards orbiting mirrors that would reflect the beams down towards the frozen caps melting them?

Thanks - that's the first good laugh I've had today. Let me explain.

Consider a nuclear reactor on the ground at the equator, producing 1000 megawatts (MW) of energy in the form of heat. That's used to boil water, which drives a turbine, generating maybe 500 MW of electricity. That electricity then powers a laser, which dissipates about 95% of it as heat, leaving a 25 MW laser beam going off into space. Atmospheric losses and beam spreading take a slice out of that, leaving about 15 MW once it's been reflected from a mirror satellite (or, more likely, a series of two or three of them) to the pole. Most of that is then reflected by the *white* ice, so there's only about 3 MW actually heating up the ice.

Or you could just plonk the reactor down on the pole, run the coolant loop directly into the ice, and use all 1000 MW.

[Ned]

JellyBean, Good point about the reflectivity of the ice.

Yeah, putting the reactor(s) at or near the poles could be used to melt ice near the reactor. But how would it melt ice miles from the reactor?

That is why I thought of the scanned beam.

[MrFun]

If we could emigrate to Mars, the important question to ask, is what kind of toilet paper will be available??

[Whaleboy]

I second MrFun. Upon a satisfactory answer, I would quite happily go. This planet sucks and at least on Mars you will have winters that are ACTUALLY COLD!!!

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I second MrFun. Upon a satisfactory answer, I would quite happily go. This planet sucks and at least on Mars you will have winters that are ACTUALLY COLD!!!

How cold does it have to be, exactly, for it to be 'actually' cold?