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Venus is another possible target for human colonization but would require humans to either live in dirigible cities high above the surface, or bombard the planet with approximately a Mars-sized balloon of hydrogen to produce water (enough to cover 80% of the surface with ocean).
Venus can never be colonized. It is simply impossible to live in "dirigible cities" because of the air pressure and because of the Sulfuric Acid in the atmosphere and if anyone bothered to keep up with space news they'd know that Venus landers failed and the two that were successful were only able to broadcast for less than an hour before being destroyed by Venus.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
Also, the planet has a 243-day rotation and, probably because of that, hardly any magnetosphere. It might some day be possible to accelerate the rotation to be approximately 24 hours, using some kind of bombardment or super-explosive techno-trickery that today is just fantasy.
It will never be possible to accelerate the rotation.
Solar systems come in two flavors: Clockwise rotation and counter-clockwise rotation.
Our Solar System is of the counter-clockwise variety. The Sun's axial rotation is counter-clockwise. Because that is true, and in keeping with the Laws of Physics, namely Newtonian and Kepler, all celestial bodies organic to this Solar System orbit Sun counter-clockwise.
Because that is true, all satellite bodies orbit their parent body counter-clockwise with one exception, namely Triton, a moon of Neptune. Triton is not organic to our Solar System meaning it did not form in our Solar System. Triton formed in a solar system that had a clockwise rotation, somehow got ejected and escaped that solar system then was captured by our Solar System. Triton entered our Solar System clockwise and was subsequently captured by Neptune. Note that Neptune's other moons orbit counter-clockwise.
All celestial bodies in our Solar System have a counter-clockwise axial rotation with two exceptions, Triton, and Venus.
It is impossible for Venus to form in our Solar System with a clockwise axial rotation because that would violate the Laws of Physics, particularly the Laws of Newton and Kepler.
There is only one possible explanation for this bizarre behavior by Venus.
First, we can rule out anything like a micro-black-hole or mini-black-hole traversing our Solar System.
That mini-black-hole would have to traverse our Solar System on the Plane of the Ecliptic which means it would have to pass through the Asteroid Belt not once but twice and it would leave a massive gap devoid of asteroids where it entered and where it exited. Since such gaps do not exist, we can rule it out.
If the object enters from another angle, and it certainly could have since Space is 3-dimensional, then it would have affected the axial tilt of Venus. Venus would look something like Uranus which has a 58° axial tilt due to the fact that something collided with Uranus and "knocked" it over on its side. Since the axial tilt of Venus is 3° we can rule that out.
The other reason we can rule out a micro- or mini-black-hole is that it would take repeated passes through our Solar System to change the axial rotation of Venus and there isn't a shred of evidence for that.
That leaves a rogue body as the only possibility.
This rogue body came from another solar system that has a clockwise rotation, possibly the same solar system where Triton originated.
It could traverse our Solar System anywhere from plus or minus 30° of the Plane of the Ecliptic traveling clockwise and as it reaches perigee with the Sun about 66% of the time it would encounter and "trap" Venus retarding the axial rotation of Venus.
And it would do that repeatedly over 4 Billion years.
Venus goes from a 12 hour to 48 hour "day" like all the other planets in our Solar System to several "days" then a whole lotta "days" and eventually Venus has no axial rotation at all and then it reverses its axial rotation from counter-clockwise to clockwise.
Since this rogue body comes through our Solar System on a regular basis there is nothing you could do to counter its effects unless you could figure out how to destroy it without destroying Earth, our Moon, Venus, and our Sun.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
Mars is not the answer, at least for the next 1000 years or so.
Mars is the only answer and it will have to be within the next 500 years or it'll be the 1880s all over again.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
Mars as a habitable planet is a romantic notion cooked up by the imagination of science fiction writers of the past. It’s a dead, poisonous, radioactive rock that is useless to humanity other than as a historical curiosity and source of scientific knowledge.
There is no requirement to make Mars a habitable planet.
The only requirement is that you be able to extract resources from it. To do that, people can live and work underground. You already have people living and working underwater in submarines so it ain't like it can't be done. Mars does have water, just not in the form you're accustomed to seeing but it could be converted to water and better technology will make that easier and cheaper to do.
I'm not sure what debris result from a nuclear explosion.
Not to worry. I am sure.
The "debris" from fission or fission-fusion is that percentage of Plutonium-239/240 that did not undergo fission (anywhere from 88% to 93% will fission) and fission fragments. The fission fragments consist overwhelmingly of various non-radioactive isotopes of Zirconium and various isotopes of Xenon, two being radioactive and one not radioactive, and a very, very small percentage of time (>1%) it will produce Cesium and Krypton isotopes, and all of those are radioactive. Generally, about 98% of the Hydrogen fuel is fused into Helium. If the Hydrogen was in the form of a Lithium compound, then "debris" would include Lithium compounds, and if not then Hydrogen in the form of Deuterium or Tritium.
The other "debris" would be massive numbers of high energy fast moving neutrons.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
Wouldn't it be mostly a pure blast of energy?
Yes, with a temperature greater than 10 Million °F that would vaporize the spacecraft and everyone and everything in it.
The vaporized spacecraft and crew would also be part of the "debris."
The imploded Plutonium-239/240 sphere turns into a plasma and expands.
On Earth, there is gravity and other forces so the plasma is irregular-shaped but in Space absent gravity it might actually take the shape of a sphere/spheroid.
Regardless, it will have a diameter of about 100 meters. A fission-fusion weapon detonated in the atmosphere will convert air, water vapor, and particulate matter into a plasma that has a diameter approaching half a mile. There is no atmosphere in Space, but even so, personally, I would not want to be in that part of the spacecraft encompassed by the plasma.
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
I'm just trying to picture how many G's we might be subjected to when we set off a nuclear bomb at the end of our rocket.
You would be vaporized.
If you were within the plasma, your molecules that formerly made up you would be ejected at the speed of light. If you were outside the plasma but still on the leading edge, your molecules that formerly made up you would approach the speed of light.
If you were at Distance X from the epicenter of the blast, the molecules that formerly made up you would be moving around the same speed as a fast moving neutron which is roughly 31,317,108 miles per hour.
If it's any consolation, the molecules that formerly made up you would reach Pluto in about 100 hours or so give or take a few minutes.
Then again, Pluto's orbit is inclined 15° from the Plane of the Ecliptic so it's highly unlikely you'd actually hit Pluto.
On a more brighter note, you might actually escape our Solar System. Sadly, the Michelin Guide doesn't have any 4- or 5-Star restaurants listed out that way but at least you could check out the Oort Cloud.
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Originally Posted by Mike2023
We will go to Mars but its a dead planet the core is dead it can never hold a atmosphere like earth.
The core is not dead. It separated for reasons unknown. Actually, stratified is a more accurate description of what happened. Because the elements stratified (Iron, Sulfur, and Hydrogen) there is no convection current and without a convection current in the core it cannot produce a magnetosphere.
With the loss of the magnetosphere, solar wind destroyed the Martian atmosphere.
I have absolutely no idea if that could ever possibly be fixed. The most logical approach would be to drill down into the core and inject a chemical solution that would initiate a reaction to de-stratify the core, but I just don't see how that's possible at present.
The Hydrogen is under extreme intense pressure from the mantle and crust, not to mention the heat, and so it's in liquid form. The second you penetrated that zone, you'd effectively vent it and it would blow-back up the drill hole with incredible force.
Maybe if you had a self-sealing robot drill like a robot-drill that produced intense heat to liquify the rock around it so the robot-drill could move through the rock and then the molten rock would cool and harden after the robot-drill passed through it.
Presently, that isn't possible but future technology might allow it.
Venus can never be colonized. It is simply impossible to live in "dirigible cities" because of the air pressure and because of the Sulfuric Acid in the atmosphere and if anyone bothered to keep up with space news they'd know that Venus landers failed and the two that were successful were only able to broadcast for less than an hour before being destroyed by Venus.
Check out this short article on the dirigible concept (space.com). They would hover, 30 miles above the surface, where air pressure is approximately one Earth atmosphere and gravity is about the same as Earth. No one's saying it's going to happen next year or even next century, but it's considered feasible, if a way can be found to insulate against Hâ‚‚SOâ‚„ droplets in the atmosphere, among other technical challenges.
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Mars is the only answer and it will have to be within the next 500 years or it'll be the 1880s all over again.
There is no requirement to make Mars a habitable planet.
The only requirement is that you be able to extract resources from it. To do that, people can live and work underground. You already have people living and working underwater in submarines so it ain't like it can't be done. Mars does have water, just not in the form you're accustomed to seeing but it could be converted to water and better technology will make that easier and cheaper to do.
I think it's pretty well understood that Mars will not be habitable, except by small groups in sealed, shielded bubbles. The soil is full of perchlorates, which are toxic to humans, and the dirt is full of asbestos-like crystals that will kill us.
It's hard to see why mining Mars will be superior to mining the asteroid belt, except of course that Mars is conveniently closer (every couple of years). Traveling to the asteroids will be a long distance, but we won't need planet-capable landers and boosters; just float near to a rock, grapple it, and start digging.
Nasa is prepping a vehicle to explore a metal-rich asteroid, Psyche. It will take 6 years to get there. Psyche's largest diameter is 140 miles and is considered the largest metallic body in the solar system. Probably, any metallic structures we build in space for the next 200-300 years could be mined from this one planetoid.
In three days or so, the Indians hope to succeed where the Russians, Japanese, and Israelis have failed: to land a functional probe on the lunar surface and join the U.S., China, and USSR in this exclusive club.
Just imagine how much more challenging a Mars landing is: more gravity, atmosphere, wind, dust, communications lag, tiny launch window every 2-3 years... the fact that Nasa has landed seven operational probes (several including mobile rovers), the Chinese one, the Soviets one (partial success) is something to celebrate.
The idea that we'll be shipping rocketloads of people to Mars later this century, landing them safely, and populating the planet as is, with no terraforming or other modifications... while I am a dreamer and a romantic who grew up on science fiction stories about populating the other planets... this just seems a bridge too far at the present.
Some technological breakthroughs in transportation and communications will be needed before relocating to other celestial bodies is a practicality, aside from one-off super-expensive scientific missions.
- pseudo-gravity, achieved by spinning a vessel to generate centripetal gravity-like forces, for deep space travel longer than a couple of days. This is currently possible but has not been tested out in space beyond a couple of small experiments on ISS.
- artificial gravity, achievable by unknown means possibly to do with manipulating gravitons or setting up a spacial relationship between matter and anti-matter. This is currently not possible and is purely speculative. All we know, so far, is that antimatter and matter seem to behave differently to gravitational force.
- Quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication over arbitrary distances. No one understands how it works, but somehow particles can be "entangled", or connected on a quantum level, to instantaneously change at the same time even over great distances. Once humans have some grasp of this fantastic phenomenon and can implement reliable encodings, we would be able to skip the speed-of-light issue with deep space communications and a Martian talking to his grandmother on Earth would be as instantaneous as phoning her up from the next town over. However... this is decades, possibly centuries from now.
- Radiation and microparticle shielding - we have a lot of this now, but we need something better, lighter, and faster. And cheaper. When such shielding is perfected, humans will be able to walk on the Moon or Mars in a lightweight suit that completely protects them from the raw, deadly particles of space. It's not clear how we get to this point; it might involve some kind of active anti-particle magic that a high energy field could produce.
So... not to be a Debby Downer today but let's hope the Indians succeed where several others have failed recently, and keep up the exploration. I can't think of a more worthy way to spend scientific resources, certainly better than developing deadlier weapons or blowing our discretionary budget on distant wars.
Just imagine how much more challenging a Mars landing is: more gravity, atmosphere, wind, dust, communications lag, tiny launch window every 2-3 years... the fact that Nasa has landed seven operational probes (several including mobile rovers), the Chinese one, the Soviets one (partial success) is something to celebrate.
The idea that we'll be shipping rocketloads of people to Mars later this century, landing them safely, and populating the planet as is, with no terraforming or other modifications... while I am a dreamer and a romantic who grew up on science fiction stories about populating the other planets... this just seems a bridge too far at the present.
Some technological breakthroughs in transportation and communications will be needed before relocating to other celestial bodies is a practicality, aside from one-off super-expensive scientific missions.
- pseudo-gravity, achieved by spinning a vessel to generate centripetal gravity-like forces, for deep space travel longer than a couple of days. This is currently possible but has not been tested out in space beyond a couple of small experiments on ISS.
In 1957, when I was months old (I don't have a first-hand recollection) the U.S. public was surprised and alarmed by Sputnik. This was, of course, in the very recent shadow of: 1) the end of WW II; 2) the Berlin Blockade; 3) the loss of freedom by Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary; and 4) with regard to Hungary, the rolling of Soviet tanks in 1956. The latter event was almost exactly a year to the day before Sputnik's launch. At that point, the Cold War, verging a few times on something more threatening, cast a major shadow on the ebullience of the West's recovery from the Great Depression and WW II. In short, the U.S. absolutely had to regain control of earth's orbit. That was the reason for the "space race." It demonstrated America's technological superiority.
Mars is a different story. Even a successful Martian colonization or settlement would not pose near the threat that a 1957 iteration of the USSR posed by virtue of having a monopoly of satellites in orbit, with or without people or Laika on board. While my particular school did not use "duck and cover," It did have some scary warnings of "civil defense drills." We were told that at any given point we might not see our parents for a long time or ever, but the teachers would take great care of us.
There just is no similar impetus for a Martian voyage, with all its risk, expense and likely impracticality.
The one reason for "colonizing" Mars - sovereignty.
If the "first" settlers can claim ownership of all MARS, that would be impressive.
And if they claimed it in the name of a terrestrial government, even more impressive.
But do they have a legal leg to stand on?
Hmmmmmm....
"The United States of America & its Martian territory"?
The one reason for "colonizing" Mars - sovereignty.
If the "first" settlers can claim ownership of all MARS, that would be impressive.
And if they claimed it in the name of a terrestrial government, even more impressive.
But do they have a legal leg to stand on?
Hmmmmmm....
"The United States of America & its Martian territory"?
It’s not the 18th century any more. The U.S. has landed multiple spacecraft on Mars and covered miles of surrounding territory. If any nation could claim the Red Planet, it should be the U.S. But that’s pointless, obviously. There’s plenty of toxic, barren land to share.
Now, mineral-rich asteroids are a different matter. We may need to develop international agreements to govern exploitation rights. Nasa is going to explore that metallic asteroid in a few years from now, and some people might say, that gives us ownership.
If you hurry, you can watch the OSIRIS capsule return with samples from an asteroid. It's being broadcast live at THIS LINK at 11:AM Eastern.
This is closely related to what I believe will happen with mars. We will send robots and they will return, but people, I believe, will never go.
If you hurry, you can watch the OSIRIS capsule return with samples from an asteroid. It's being broadcast live at THIS LINK at 11:AM Eastern.
This is closely related to what I believe will happen with mars. We will send robots and they will return, but people, I believe, will never go.
They stuck the landing!
Couple billion miles, 7 years, suffered 32 g's decelerating, deployed drogue chute to slow down, and then main chute for final landing in the desert and landed right where it was supposed to.
The Geeks went wild! And who can blame them? True Geeks don't mind being called a Geek. I am one myself. Geeks know lotsa stuff about lotsa things and never stop learning. Nerds, by contrast, are uni-dimensional and become fascinated with one field or one idea - like Star Trek, or sports.
If astronauts had been aboard, half the population of the planet would have been watching, but as it is there were just a few of us.
And that, I think, is the point of all the talk about sending people to mars. It attracts more money. There must be people at the top who know full well it is never going to happen, but if they talk about it they will be able to fund the projects that are actually feasible.
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