Mars Is Practically Drenched in Water

[Requia]

To the people asking why not the moon first? Helium-3. Mars has it. The moon not so much. We thought it had it but it turns out to be too sparsely pocketed for a profitable mining operation. If we ever get fusion working, the stuff is gonna be the new oil. Granted all those valuable rocks on moon are worth chasing, but just remember that if we want Helium-3, Mars is the closest place that has it.

I thought Fusion power worked on the basis of using Deuterium as the catalyst?

Isn't that exceedingly easy to obtain due to it coming from sea water? If that is the case, it will be extremely difficult to justify conflict or monetizing of this resource, due to it being like.....Everywhere.

Deuterium is the catalyst for some (probably most) nuclear fission reactors. Potential fusion reactor fuels include Deuterium+Tritium, Deuterium+Deuterium, Dueterium+He3, He3+He3, and something involving Boron I forget the details of, though if we get anything running in the next couple decades it'll probably be one of the first two.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Wow, that was surprisingly depressing....

I mean it's exciting that water is basically saturating the planet but what depresses me is "why do I have to be alive now?" I would much rather be alive in two or three thousand years, it would be so interesting, being able to go to Mars like we go to the shop.... "honey, I'm going to work" means going to mass effect 3 type Mars. What tech will there be? Will world hunger be solved by replicators?

Does beat growing up two or three thousand years ago though.

Nah, if you actually lived in those times then going to Mars would be as unremarkable as flying across the world is today. You'd grow up with the idea and it would seem boring. Instead you'd be wishing you were born another thousand years in the future when time travel has been fully realised... and Half Life 3 has been released.

I bet our ancient civilisations would be wowed by the technology we take for granted today.

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one!

But still they come...

 

[legendp]

What exactly would be the benefit of colonizing mars ?

kinda weirdly hard to place a value on a inhabitable planet isn't it ?...but i'm sure we could manage to do so eventually

i'm also sure many of those who become Martians will probably think it's a lovely planet.

they'll probably have something like Marstube montage videos set to Hoppipolla.

the key value to us left on Earth is probably in terms of trade...each new colony would increase the amounts of economic activity between them and Earth would probably enjoy a gilded position as the progenitor.

...and ofc it greatly increases the long term survival chances of our species.

the first one probably makes the biggest difference in that respect.

when we "do" one...we kind of learn most of what we need to know to live, if not spread out amongst the stars, at least spread out across this solar system.

after that it's just a case of building a better engine...

call me mad but I think venus would be a more long term place to settle, yes I know it is really hot (hotter than mercury), but mars is a lot smaller than earth while venus is a similar size, changing a very hot atmosphere on venus seems a lot easier than artificially increasing gravity on mars. whithout that increase there could be a huge range of forseen and unforseen consequences. astronauts usually are not left in space too long (less than a year I believe) for gravity like reasons (such as bad for muscles and spine), needless to say long term colonisation of mars would be...problematic. venus would be better (imo), if you can fix the whole temperature thing and hurl some ice comments at it for water.

edit: then agian the lack of magnetic field and rotation would make it difficult, perhaps flying out into the galaxy looking for other earth like worlds.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Load up your Hulks, people, it's time to go mining!

/EVE joke

 

[legendp]

What exactly would be the benefit of colonizing mars ?

kinda weirdly hard to place a value on a inhabitable planet isn't it ?...but i'm sure we could manage to do so eventually

i'm also sure many of those who become Martians will probably think it's a lovely planet.

they'll probably have something like Marstube montage videos set to Hoppipolla.

the key value to us left on Earth is probably in terms of trade...each new colony would increase the amounts of economic activity between them and Earth would probably enjoy a gilded position as the progenitor.

...and ofc it greatly increases the long term survival chances of our species.

the first one probably makes the biggest difference in that respect.

when we "do" one...we kind of learn most of what we need to know to live, if not spread out amongst the stars, at least spread out across this solar system.

after that it's just a case of building a better engine...

call me mad but I think venus would be a more long term place to settle, yes I know it is really hot (hotter than mercury), but mars is a lot smaller than earth while venus is a similar size, changing a very hot atmosphere on venus seems a lot easier than artificially increasing gravity on mars. whithout that increase there could be a huge range of forseen and unforseen consequences. astronauts usually are not left in space too long (less than a year I believe) for gravity like reasons (such as bad for muscles and spine), needless to say long term colonisation of mars would be...problematic. venus would be better (imo), if you can fix the whole temperature thing and hurl some ice comments at it for water.

edit: then agian the lack of magnetic field and rotation would make it difficult, perhaps flying out into the galaxy looking for other earth like worlds.

hell of alot hotter, enough to melt lead, rains sulphuric acid and the air pressure crushes things with ease due to the runaway greenhouse effect if there is anything in this solar system that fits the text book example of hell its venus. nasty ass place to try and settle and you need a hell of alot of specialised gear not to mention any sort of mistake is going to be instantly fatal and in a very painful screaming in agony sort of way.

from this it seems there is plenty of water for long term colonisation and less specialised equipment for a colony

I was talking long term (100-1000 years). mars gravity is about half that of earths which could cause people to have the same problems astronauts have (loss of bone density and muscle). venus is similar gravity to earth. and while the climate is dangerous, I was saying that changing venuses climate would be a 100x easier than changing mars gravity. and if we could change a planets atmosphere than moving water to it seems easy in comparison. the problem whith venus is it rotates to slowly in th wrong direction, that would be the real difficulty, changing it's rotation and setting up a magnetic field to stop solar winds

 

[XMark]

Ugh... why am I already 31 years old when we're still in the first teeny little baby steps of space colonization? I'll be long gone before the really cool stuff starts happening.

Oh well... I'll probably be able to go on vacation in an orbital space hotel when I'm 80.

 

[Nosirrah]

God damn it NASA, you spent all that time looking at rocks and going into caves when you could have picked up some dirt and job done. NASA, can't find water even if they're standing on it.

Well, i was going to sleep but clearly not anymore.

 

[blackrave]

Duh?
Guys (and gals), anyone who knows a bit about composition of our solar system will know that water is quite abundant around Sun (not in close proximity of course)
Every planet of our system is made of same materials, what matters is amount of them and distance from Sun (and in few cases process of formation of planet)
Proportions are more or less the same everywhere.
One major exemption of this is Mercury since it has noticeable exosphere (basically Sun evaporates all lighter elements (up to K, I think) and since Mercury has too weak gravity these vapors leave the planet)
As far as I know Mars has no exosphere, so water had to be in high amount on Mars (or at least H and O- maybe in some other forms).

But before people becomes excited about Mars colonization, don't forget that main problem with Mars is lack of full magnetosphere around planet (that good stuff that, in combination with ozone layer, protects inhabitants of Earth from Sun)
So before we plant flora on Mars and start terraforming process, half of the planet must be shielded by some other means.