Originally posted by googlefudge It has a grandiose, harsh and hostile beauty that is captivating...
For about five minutes, after which you start thinking, "I would like to go somewhere with trees,
grass, birds, water, life..."
I cannot imagine wanting to go to Mars to stay [as opposed to visiting] when it is so hostile
and barren.
It's one of the reasons I prefer built sp ...[text shortened]... /projects/#portfolio/20/
But probably much larger, that's an 'early prototype' sized habitat.
I don't think there will be above ground habitats on Mars till they work up some kind of planet wide magnetic field. I envision a superconducting cable going around the Martian equator with maybe 20,000 amps or so making a field capable of shielding most of the ions of the solar wind. If they do that, they can think about rebuilding an atmosphere and do a terraforming on Mars.
Originally posted by sonhouse I don't think there will be above ground habitats on Mars till they work up some kind of planet wide magnetic field. I envision a superconducting cable going around the Martian equator with maybe 20,000 amps or so making a field capable of shielding most of the ions of the solar wind. If they do that, they can think about rebuilding an atmosphere and do a terraforming on Mars.
Originally posted by sonhouse I don't think there will be above ground habitats on Mars till they work up some kind of planet wide magnetic field. I envision a superconducting cable going around the Martian equator with maybe 20,000 amps or so making a field capable of shielding most of the ions of the solar wind. If they do that, they can think about rebuilding an atmosphere and do a terraforming on Mars.
Not having a magnetic field will certainly cause any atmosphere on Mars to get blown off
at a much higher rate that of the Earth [for example].
But it's still not overnight.
I suspect it would be far simpler to just replace the atmosphere at the rate it's lost.
However the difficulties in terraforming a planet, and the time needed to do so are some of
the reasons I have for preferring habitats in space.
Originally posted by googlefudge Not having a magnetic field will certainly cause any atmosphere on Mars to get blown off
at a much higher rate that of the Earth [for example].
But it's still not overnight.
I suspect it would be far simpler to just replace the atmosphere at the rate it's lost.
However the difficulties in terraforming a planet, and the time needed to do so are some of
the reasons I have for preferring habitats in space.
Not having a magnetic field limits habitats to underground or very well radiation shielded. It would also preclude having above ground agriculture assuming we have made an oxygen containing atmosphere.
Eventually they will come to the conclusion a magnetic shield is vital to a placid planet.