Peak Oil and Population reduction

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Mars is an ideal target for settlement, not exploitation, though some of that will happen. I would suggest that planets unlikely to harbor life or be a potential habitat are better targets for strip mining, such as Mercury. I don't think so though, in any case. If we didn't have to plunder the Earth, we would simply be replacing our source of materials. The materials elsewhere in the solar system are the exact same as here, the only difference being is exploiting them elsewhere spares our environment

Last edited by Vigilans on 24 Feb 2011, 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

that is an awesome idea for a science fiction short story.

I think that when mining of Mars is able to be underway that there will be commerce between the two planets and intermediate stations possibly. Materials would go from Mars to Earth and from Earth to Mars. Much of the materials on Mars would be of more use for construction upon the planet, at least immediately, than it would be merely for shipment back to Earth. After there has been a generation of colonists who have never seen Earth, objects from Earth and travel to, and from, Earth would probably increase in demand. IDK, just some thoughts.

Nice userpic keet
I think of Mars as an unexploited breadbasket rather then a big rock to tear apart. With some imported nitrogen and fell field work for a few generations, Mars' regolith could become soil-like. It would then be one of two places in the solar system where we can grow food. And because of it's lower gravity, it would be more economical to ship food from Mars to the rest of the solar system then from Earth. Additionally, even with an engineered ocean (which would likely cover no more then 30% of the surface...) Mars still has an almost equal amount of land to the Earth, and without wildlife covering it. Thus we could potentially use 100% of Mars' land for agriculture, without any clear cutting involved, or displacing any native species

Couldn't water(or components to make water) be taken from unused planets and transfered to mars? Wouldn't this be necessary for any farming on the scale you imply? Is there enough water for what you suggest already on mars? This assumes that our transportation is even at the level where the option could be considered.

There's loads of water in the form of ice on the northern pole of Mars, however the southern pole of Mars (due to both the 25° tilt and the eccentricity of its orbit) allows it to be cold enough to freeze CO2 there. For initial small scale greenhouse farming, water could be extracted from the regolith or occasionally sorties could be made to the northern pole to retrieve water ice.

Well, in the North polar cap is a vast quantity of water ice mixed with a smaller quantity of dry ice. The southern polar cap is mostly dry ice with a minority of water. This works out well though, because the Northern summer is almost twice as long as the southern summer, and conversely, the southern winter is twice as long as the northern winter. So the Northern hemisphere has a lot of water in the cap and a long season of warmth. Asides that, it is strongly suspected that Mars' has large underground aquifer reserves. The dry riverbeds all over the planet provide evidence for this; they gradually build pressure and are being renewed via outgassing from the planet's interior. When the pressure builds enough, they explode onto the surface, creating temporary rivers and lakes. In the past, this likely happened more frequently, but now it happens less as the planet's interior cools. However, there is probably still a lot of water under the surface, in addition to being mixed in with the regolith. If we were to control the burst of water onto the surface so that we used all of the aquifers (after some raising of the atmospheric pressure and temperature) simultaneously, an ocean/sea would contribute to building a stable atmosphere
You could take water from other bodies in the solar system, though. Ceres, the dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter, is suspected of having a subterranean ocean, or at least, a vast quantity of frozen water. Coupled with it's low surface gravity, I see Ceres becoming the main source of water for space infrastructure, and if necessary, importations to Mars (though, like I said, it is highly likely that Mars has enough water; I have heard estimates that there could be enough to create a shallow sea that would cover 15-30% of the the Northern hemisphere, which is much lower in elevation).

Transferred how? We can't even haul our sorry arses to Mars.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 24 Feb 2011, 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We could have been going to Mars for the past 30 years if NASA wasn't restrained by party-line politics and corporate favoritism in contracting...

Also, for the last 30 years there has been more focus within politics upon social agendas than upon doing anything novel or interesting. I think that once Obama's out of office and, assuming - hopefully - that the next president actually knows the difference between investing and spending, that the space programs might liven up again.

I'm not going to lie, at this point I expect that in 2015 while we're [space advocates] excited about the New Horizons mission arriving at Pluto or the Dawn mission to Ceres and Vesta, China is going to surprise us all by letting us know their manned Mars mission is already halfway to the destination. That will be one f*****g hell of a sputnik moment for the United States

Heck, that would be awesome. Sputnik was practically the cause of the Space Race between the USA and the USSR, so it wouldn't hurt to have another one between China, the USA and whoever else wants to finally join in to the occupation of space.

Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 24 Feb 2011, 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can't or won't?

Not if China renames Mars 'New Manchuria' and ships 100 million people there
But I do agree, they need a wake up call, and hopefully it won't be one as devastating as losing Mars or the Moon to the People's Republic

I think a ship capable of sustaining that many people for the duration of the trip from Earth to Mars would have to be built in orbit, which would tend to make such activity noticeable. It might be more possible if they used nuclear pulse propulsion, however I think more likely would be a multi-stage rocket with minimal crew. IDK though. If China developed the technology necessary to launch a colony ship from the surface of the Earth I don't think we'd have time to catch up with them technologically in order to beat them to colonizing any other of the possible sites within the solar system.