From: trolidous@go.com   
      
   Alain Fournier wrote:   
   > SpaceX plans on building Starship to transport Mars colonist and   
   > equipment for a Mars colony. But they mostly expect other companies and   
   > organizations to handle the actual establishment of a base on Mars :   
   > habitats, greenhouses... Starship seems to be advancing well, but I   
   > haven't heard much about others working on the necessities for living on   
   > Mars. Have any of you heard about others having such plans?   
   >   
   > Alain Fournier   
      
   Hello.   
      
   I have been surfing a bit about basic facts about the   
   planets and Mars.   
      
   Overall, I am thinking that a post nuclear war world   
   where the U.S. has 30,000 nuclear weapons like it did   
   at its peak in the middle 1960s and the Soviet Union   
   with its 50,000 nuclear weapons like it did in the 1980s,   
   all aimed at all the word's cities at an even spread   
   throughout the world for maximum kill - is much more   
   livable than even the most hospitable of other planets   
   in this solar system.  It is not a matter however of   
   supporting a small handful of persons on Earth, but   
   each individual out of billions and billions, and   
   infinitely reproducing hoards controlled by their   
   lust to reproduce more and more humans without end.   
      
   Getting to space, however, reading about the ice caps   
   of Mars I am very intrigued.   
      
   Basic questions - How does the dry ice at the   
   poles of Mars accumulate in the Martian winter?   
   Does it snow or freeze onto the surface?  To what   
   extent is it mixed with water ice when it happens?   
   If one were to drop it into an enclosed area and   
   let it sublimate upon heating, would it have less   
   embedded carbon monoxide in it than the atmosphere   
   of Mars in general?  How easily could it be accumulated   
   to aggregate onto heating coils to act as a first step   
   to be sent to lighted lake-vats or air-caverns to be   
   converted into oxygen and condensed carbon/food through   
   photosynthesis?   
      
   Where is the Nitrogen on Mars?  If you remember,   
   four fifth's of the Earth's atmosphere is Nitrogen.   
   So if four fifth's of it were on Mars that would   
   be a lot of Nitrogen that is not in the atmosphere   
   of Mars.  Did it escape into space a long time ago   
   or is it embedded in the rocks or the interior of   
   Mars?   
      
   People on Earth have wandered across the Earth's   
   surface looking for precious rocks and minerals   
   since ancient times.  On the other plants, moons,   
   and asteroids and comets, there is no free oxygen   
   ready to combine with fossil fuels to act as an   
   energy source.  This means - solar for places near   
   the Sun like Mercury - or nuclear - meaning you   
   would likely want to purify better grade uranium   
   and thorium ores as a starting point for all   
   other energy sources - from smelting of metals   
   to heating materials to make them in the right   
   temperature range for humans if humans are wanted.   
      
   How much 'prospecting' of the planets can be done   
   of the Moon, planets, or asteroids using satellites?   
   In other words, understanding where on or in the   
   planet or asteroid it would be most likely to get   
   the best ores?   
      
   How much water is there on the poles of the Moon?   
   Is it a very dispersed and extremely rare aggregate   
   of hydrates mixed in with a vast amount of rock   
   by Earth standards, or could it realistically be called   
   'ice' by any practical Earth standards when we would   
   see ice on a glacier on Earth?   
      
   How do the poles of Mercury compare?  How about   
   Ceres or some of the other major Mars-Jupiter belt   
   objects?   
      
   I am intrigued by how much mass there is in   
   the interior of a 20km diameter asteroid.  There   
   are a lot more of these objects between Mars and   
   Jupiter than just Ceres and Vesta although there   
   is a lot of matter in Ceres and Vesta.  Furthermore,   
   with a lesser amount of gravity it might be possible   
   to mine into the interior with a greater extent with   
   less hazard from cave ins.  On Earth, humans have not   
   even drilled to the mantle yet, much less the inner   
   or outer cores.  It takes a lesser delta g to get   
   on and off asteroids in the Mars to Jupiter belt   
   and they have rock, metals, and volatiles, however   
   they have lesser solar energy than Mercury or Mars.   
      
   Floating above Venus at an altitude high enough to   
   have one Earth atmospheric pressure using oxygen as   
   a lift gas might be an interesting concept, but I   
   wouldn't want to fall from the balloon.   
      
   Of course, practical fusion energy would be a major   
   change for the feasibility of various endeavors in   
   space, but it would also have significant effects on   
   Earth.  Of course people have been trying to do that   
   for some time.   
      
   When it comes to Mars, however, are there any new polar   
   missions planned?  I am thinking that the only successful   
   one so far died before the most interesting time period,   
   between the dry ice freezes and dry ice thaws during the   
   dark winter at the pole.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)