If We Find Evidence of Life on Mars Should We Risk Going There?

[BAYLOR]

Send oxygen and water.

In theory they might be able to engineer plants that could thrive in Mars environment.

 

[AsmaMohd]

The astronauts will be settling on Mars indefinitely. It's not feasible to send water, oxygen and food from Earth to the astronauts: they will produce those on Mars.

 

[BAYLOR]

The astronauts will be settling on Mars indefinitely. It's not feasible to send water, oxygen and food from Earth to the astronauts: they will produce those on Mars.

It it likely they will find water on Mars

 

[Dave]

Some of the geomorphological featutres are extremely unlikely to have been formed by anything other than by running water at some point in the past. Water is not an uncommon compound and is very simple. Finding water is not the same thing as finding sufficient to supply a colony of humans and their processes and farms. I don't think they will find running water on Mars now.

 

[scientia]

In theory they might be able to engineer plants that could thrive in Mars environment.

I don't know of any theory that would allow this. The atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of Earth sea level. It's almost a vacuum. The air pressure at the top of Mount Everest is 38 kPa compared to 1.16 kPa at the lowest point on Mars. And, I don't see how you could make the atmosphere thicker since the solar wind blows it away.

 

[BAYLOR]

I don't know of any theory that would allow this. The atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of Earth sea level. It's almost a vacuum. The air pressure at the top of Mount Everest is 38 kPa compared to 1.16 kPa at the lowest point on Mars. And, I don't see how you could make the atmosphere thicker since the solar wind blows it away.

Re-ingnite Mars's Core ? That might bring back the magnetic field which would would stabilize the atmosphere.

 

[scientia]

Re-ingnite Mars's Core ? That might bring back the magnetic field which would would stabilize the atmosphere.

You would need to move another planet to Mars. For example, if you could get Ceres to crash into Mars, you might get it going in a few million years. It simply cannot be done in the near term.

 

[BAYLOR]

You would need to move another planet to Mars. For example, if you could get Ceres to crash into Mars, you might get it going in a few million years. It simply cannot be done in the near term.

Perhaps nuclear devices might could be used to fire up The Martian planetary core?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Ask Scott Munroe.

 

[AsmaMohd]

Washington (AFP) - Space enthusiasts planning a move to Mars may have to wait to relocate: conditions on the Red Planet are such that humans would likely begin dying within 68 days, a new study says.

Oxygen levels would start to deplete after about two months and scientists said new technologies are required before humans can permanently settle on Mars, according to the study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 

[chrispenycate]

I don't know of any theory that would allow this. The atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of Earth sea level. It's almost a vacuum. The air pressure at the top of Mount Everest is 38 kPa compared to 1.16 kPa at the lowest point on Mars. And, I don't see how you could make the atmosphere thicker since the solar wind blows it away.

If we could add volatiles, particularly water and carbon dioxide, say, by crashing a comet or two into the surface (I don't know if we could find one with enough ammonia to start up a nitrogen cycle, and anyway, orbital convenience would be more important than absolute composition) atmospheric thickness and density could be raised sufficiently high for radiation screening, if not for breathing, and it'd be good for several hundred thousand years. Certainly, it'd be even worse than Earth for losing dissociated hydrogen and helium, but solar wind isn't a fast way of stripping molecules, and it diminishes as the sqare of distance from the sun.

 

[BAYLOR]

If we could add volatiles, particularly water and carbon dioxide, say, by crashing a comet or two into the surface (I don't know if we could find one with enough ammonia to start up a nitrogen cycle, and anyway, orbital convenience would be more important than absolute composition) atmospheric thickness and density could be raised sufficiently high for radiation screening, if not for breathing, and it'd be good for several hundred thousand years. Certainly, it'd be even worse than Earth for losing dissociated hydrogen and helium, but solar wind isn't a fast way of stripping molecules, and it diminishes as the sqare of distance from the sun.

We'd have to find some way of restarting the planets core and magnetic field. Without that, it would be impossible to maintain an atmosphere.

 

[Vertigo]

Recent thought seems to be that the magnetosphere is less important than had been thought:

The relative importance of each loss process is a function of planet mass, its atmosphere composition, and its distance from its sun. A common erroneous belief is that the primary non-thermal escape mechanism is atmospheric stripping by a solar wind in the absence of a magnetosphere. Excess kinetic energy from solar winds can impart sufficient energy to the atmospheric particles to allow them to reach escape velocity, causing atmospheric escape. The solar wind, composed of ions, is deflected by magnetic fields because the charged particles within the wind flow along magnetic field lines. The presence of a magnetic field thus deflects solar winds, preventing the loss of atmosphere. On Earth, for instance, the interaction between the solar wind and earth's magnetic field deflects the solar wind about the planet, with near total deflection at a distance of 10 Earth radii.[2] This region of deflection is called a bow shock.

Depending on planet size and atmospheric composition, however, a lack of magnetic field does not determine the fate of a planet's atmosphere. Venus, for instance, has no powerful magnetic field. Its close proximity to the Sun also increases the speed and number of particles, and would presumably cause the atmosphere to be stripped almost entirely, much like that of Mars. Despite this, the atmosphere of Venus is two orders of magnitudes denser than Earth's.[3] Recent models indicate that stripping by solar wind accounts for less than 1/3 of total non-thermal loss processes.[3]

While Venus and Mars have no magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from solar winds, photoionizing radiation (sunlight) and the interaction of the solar wind with the atmosphere of the planets causes ionization of the uppermost part of the atmosphere. This ionized region in turn induces magnetic moments that deflect solar winds much like a magnetic field. This limits solar-wind effects to the uppermost altitudes of atmosphere, roughly 1.2–1.5 planetary radii away from the planet, or an order of magnitude closer to the surface than Earth's magnetic field creates. Beyond this region, called a bow shock, the solar wind is slowed to subsonic velocities.[2] Nearer to the surface, solar-wind dynamic pressure achieves a balance with the pressure from the ionosphere, in a region called the ionopause. This interaction typically prevents solar wind stripping from being the dominant loss process of the atmosphere.

However I'm not sure, with Mars' distance from the sun, how important the lack of magnetosphere is to the level of radiation exposure.

 

[AlexanderSen]

Sorry to bust the party, but IMHO there is more likely to have life on Venus than or Mars. As the first types of life on a planet needs to draw upon the natural resources of the planet without other forms of life to support it. So plants which convert and the environment and Cactus, Fungus, Bacteria, or land Algae.

There is a minium amount of moisture and water, thus it is hard to facilitate waste and excertions. Don't quote me on this, as I need an expert on qualities of silicon, but, there might be Silicon life on Venus as would proabably function better due to the higher temperature making more elements melt and in a liquid state.

 

[mosaix]

One implication of the thread is that we find evidence of life on Mars, sit back, think about it and, possibly, decide not to visit. Seriously? It's never going to happen. Of course we should go.

 

[J Riff]

What an amazing bunch of lies, it just goes on and on. ) Astounding. )

 

[J Riff]

Everyone knows what's going on up there, that's where all the SF pulp covers came from. No way could they make that stuff up.

 

[Dave]

In theory they might be able to engineer plants that could thrive in Mars environment.

I find that unlikely. With existing Genetically Modified Organisms they simply take genes from other organisms and replace those of the host - so disease resistance in one plant is given to another, fluorescence in jellyfish is given to mice. Despite being called 'Frankenstein' by the newspapers it isn't a huge step from the selective breeding of animals by man that has gone on for millennia. I can see it being possible in the future to introduce hibernation genes into humans for long space voyages because such genes already exist in other mammals. However, their are no plants that can currently thrive in a Mars environment and so no genes to harvest.

In theory, it might be possible, but currently we have no idea where to even start.

 

[AsmaMohd]

Ten Reasons NOT To Live On Mars!
1. Cold
2. Vacuum
3. The "it's been done" syndrome
4. Dust and dust storms
5. Contamination
6. Unproven technology for self contained habitats
7. Hard to make self sufficient - need for parts and supplies from Earth
8. Boring landscape to unassisted human eyes
9. Accidents
10. Mars is too small to be worth colonizing

 

[BAYLOR]

So hypothetically , we make the planet habitable enough so we can establish cities and communities on the red planet. One of the bog long term problems, what about people who born on mars? their bodies will be adapted for lower gravity . They couldn't go to earth or any place with a higher gravity.