Browncoats: Mars Needs You

POSTED BY: MarsOrBust
UPDATED: Saturday, May 13, 2006 01:45
VIEWED: 5954
PAGE 1 of 3

Howdy,
For all you fellow Browncoats out there, I wish to share with you a vision of a future that potentially very Firefly/Serenity like and one that may actually happen.
Robert Zubrin, a former aero-space engineer for Martin-Marietta and a founding member of the Mars Society wrote a book a few years back called "The Case for Mars"
In it he describes a world that can be settled using 1890's gas-light era technologies.
Those unfamiliar with the "Mars that is" may not know that Mars does indeed have water; much of the ground is in fact permafrost that contains up to 50% water. Mars looks superficially like a bone-dry desert but it would be more accurate to descibe it as a world of frozen sand-castles. And it has recently been discovered that it does possess of frozen sea and glaciers that we didn't recognize as such because they are coated in layers of dust.
It also turns out that the martian atmo is just this side of going greenhouse. It is primarily carbon dioxide but if we could by some probably relatively simple method raise the atmo temp at the south pole by just 4 degrees celsius, we could start a runaway greenhouse effect that could within decades raise the temp and atmo pressure to the point that expensive pressure suits would no longer be required. All that would be neccesary would be cold weather gear and off the shelf scuba equipment and you're out there..running around. Cool huh?
Theres more. With 1890's chemical engineering technologies, atmo CO2 could be reacted with hydrogen electrolysed from indigenous water and you have more water, air, and methane and hydrazine for fuel.
Theres more. Mars receive 40% of the solar flux that Earth receives from the Sun but it has been proven that this is sufficient for greenhouse farming.
Older, more reliable technologies could be readily manufactured and maintained. Gears and pullies instead of automation, pressure guages instead of digital readouts, HAM radio instead of internet. All the resources are also present for all kinds of metallurgy and the production of all sorts of polymers (plastics, adhesives, etc).
It also turns out that a compound known as silane can be readily manufactured. What is important about this is that silane will combust in a CO2 atmo. At Martian temps it is a semi-solid so it would not be good for internal combustion but would be great for boiler fuel: Steam Engines.
So all together imagine a Jules Vernesque world of steam powered turn of the century industry and vehicles.
The one thing that would be difficult to do on-planet would be the kind of sophisticated electronics that we take for granted as copper appears to be quite rare based upon soil samples. High tech items would have to be imported from Earth at high cost..sorry computer geeks.
Nitrates also appear to scarce but what this might creat is a situation in which soebody might be willing to pay your way if you bring your jar of pennies and a bag of manure as both those things would be as gold in a Martian economy.
Woo Hoo! Scuba gear gunslingers robbing locomotives with steam powered tanks heisting cow-shit on a world where two moons visible hurdle through the sky; casting fast moving shadows upon the ground..where there are dust devil so big they make a terrestrial tornado look like a popcorn fart. Shiny as copper y'all.
How could all this come about? Well, the Moon will more than likely be first, mostly due to near-future military considerations. This is the subject of my next post: The Future of War.
Add to this that historically, colonists are almost always rejects of the parent civilization and this J. Vernesque world would be colored by some very eccentric folks.

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Just add some PAX, and you're good to go!

This is some very interesting stuff. Look forward to hearin more!

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Child One: "Republicans aren't real."
Child Two: "Full well they are!"

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I'm sorry to be busting any bubbles here, but I just read a Discover article yesterday that stated it's possible and even likely that, due to cosmic radiation, we are pretty firmly trapped on Earth. The basic case made was that the human body is too delicate to withstand prolonged time in space, which a trip to mars would be. Weightlessness, for one thing, can cause many problems with bone decay and organ failure that they are still trying to combat. Worse than that, though, is what could happen to a body that wasn't shielded from bursts of radiation from Sol. It could cause serious brain damage, blindness, and increase the risk of cancer. Months spent in space could render people completely useless. So while Mars has water and could possibly be made habitable, the heartbreaking reality is that we might not even be able to make it there. Of course we want to, and there's plans to, even plans to try setting up a base there, but there's some fresh doubt being shed on the whole subject. They're still studying it, but I wouldn't look for a signup sheet anytime soon.

*************************************************
One summer.
One mission.
One legion of Browncoats.

Starting June 23rd, we aim to misbehave.

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Sure, we could become all crispycritterish from solarradiation. But remember that we faced the same problem first time we went to the moon, all lot of folk thought it to be impossible from a radiation point of vue. But NASA managed to shield the ship and the astronauts survived, I reckon they can do the same to mars, although it will take better tech, it aint impossible.

And dealing with Weightlessness is a problem, but remember that we have had astronauts, and for even longer periods cosmonauts, out on spacestations in orbit around earth for long periods of time, and they have managed to survive.

We will leave our planet and voyage into the rest of the solarsystem. The question is only how soon.

You can’t stop the Signal.
Keep spreading the word about Firefly!

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...and who's gonna be along for the ride.
Seriously, do you think they'd just settle you and me to Mars? We'd be left to rot on this rock, while the wealthy and powerful build their little utopia up there. It's the perfect opportunity to weed out "unwanted" parts of the population for the New Brave Mars.
Who'd decide who can go and who can't? And who exactly would do the colonizing? Countries? Companies?
What about the countries that don't have a space program? The ones who DO would try to squeeze as much out of those countries as possible as payment for their assistance (and brag about how kind-hearted they are to help those in need), and this way those countries would be at a very big disadvantage in the colonisation process, since they have to spend enormous sums of money to even get to Mars - and there's nothing THERE yet. Or those countries would have to rely on private companies, who'd do just about the same thing.
It's not gonna be a time of "Yay, let us, the human race, work together as brothers and sisters to conquer the stars!". People will try to grab what they can, get the advantage as soon as they can, fuck people over as hard as they can. That, or we're gonna have a world government, anyways.
And of course there'd be total surveillance and implanted ID chips and all that conspiracy stuff.

In a scenario I'm writing right now, some "colony ships" are in fact slave ships, with the cryo chambers rigged so that the colonists will wake up only AFTER the loyal security forces are in place and all is set for enslavement, and the colonists are put to work as slaves to build an Utopia for the elite.
The self declared masters will be woken up when their luxurious homes are finished, and live like gods.
They take the slaves' children from their parents right after birth and keep them separated and teach them whatever version of "history" they like. So 50 years after colonisation, there won't even be any slave left to remember earth, and they are gonna think it's always been like this. Or, more likely, they'll be told that it was sooooo much worse before, but their masters made everything better for everyone.

Okay, so that is obviously a science fiction concept, but it might not be too far off, although of course exaggerated for dramatical effect.

And what about religion? Where the hell is Mecca when you're on Mars? Do religious people believe that their God or whatever will be on Mars, too? Will people leave religious "hot spots" behind?
Apart from that, all over earth, there'll be religious mass hysteria - it's more or less the Final Days, and all the rich and beautiful get to go to heaven, while the rest of us sinners
can stay on this rock, which will very soon resemble hell.
There'll be chaos and death and insanity and war EVERYWHERE (apart from total pollution and melting polar caps and all that shit).
Whacky fun.

There's also psychological issues - you'd be living in little boxes on a huge, hostile planet, an eternity away from Earth, the closest place were you could breathe naturally. It's like living in an underwater city that lies at the bottom of a 55 to 400 million kilometer deep ocean.

Gravity is a problem. How will the colonists - and future generations - adopt to the changes? Will born "Mars humans" be able to again sustain Earth's gravity, or will their legs break under their own weight? (If your weight is 80 kg here, you're about 30 kg on Mars).

SO

Colonising sounds like a shiny idea, and is just about the only chance of survival for the human race (or at least the few people who can afford it), but those are gonna be quite shitty times, I assure you.

See that go-se pile of problems? And I didn't even comment on the technical issues of colonising Mars that much, because the technology is not as much the problem as human nature.
There's no idea so pure that man won't pervert it over time.


******** BONUS RANT SECTION! WOOHOO! ***********

If it weren't for the fucking church and its reign of terror during the dark ages, we coul

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Quote:

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Originally posted by MarsOrBust:
It also turns out that the martian atmo is just this side of going greenhouse. It is primarily carbon dioxide but if we could by some probably relatively simple method raise the atmo temp at the south pole by just 4 degrees celsius, we could start a runaway greenhouse effect that could within decades raise the temp and atmo pressure to the point that expensive pressure suits would no longer be required. All that would be neccesary would be cold weather gear and off the shelf scuba equipment and you're out there..running around. Cool huh?
Theres more. With 1890's chemical engineering technologies, atmo CO2 could be reacted with hydrogen electrolysed from indigenous water and you have more water, air, and methane and hydrazine for fuel.

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Not quite. There's a pressure problem for a start, Earth has a surface pressure of 1014 millibars, that's the pressure our bodies are 'designed' to survive at. The surface pressure of Mars is about 9 millibars, not much above the Vacuum of space. This is one of the reasons any greenhouse effect on Mars is so low, there's simply not enough atmosphere to hold the heat in.

Due to this only a few places on Mars reach above 0c and only in direct sunlight. In fact the surface of Mars can get so cold Carbon Dioxide falls as snow (~-78c). Cold weather gear wouldn't defend you against that level of cold and Scuba gear would not help with the pressure. Also Scuba gear is designed to work to positive pressure, not negative pressure environments.

Simply put, you'd need a spacesuit to walk around on Mars.

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Theres more. Mars receive 40% of the solar flux that Earth receives from the Sun but it has been proven that this is sufficient for greenhouse farming.

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In order to get the same effect Mars would need an atmosphere with a much greater concentration of greenhouse gases with an atmosphere at least as thick as that of Earth. This means a massive Terraforming plan that can not be achieved with 19th century level technology.

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It also turns out that a compound known as silane can be readily manufactured. What is important about this is that silane will combust in a CO2 atmo.

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Silane is a compound of Silicon and Hydrogen. It still requires Oxygen to burn, burning is a chemical reaction; it is a rapid oxidisation, thus requiring oxygen.

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The one thing that would be difficult to do on-planet would be the kind of sophisticated electronics that we take for granted as copper appears to be quite rare based upon soil samples. High tech items would have to be imported from Earth at high cost..sorry computer geeks.

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What has copper got to do with computers? Computers are constructed from plastics, silicon, Gold/Silver and solder (alloy of Tin and Lead). Copper is used in wiring because it is a reasonably good conductor and cheap, there are plenty of alternatives.

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Nitrates also appear to scarce but what this might creat is a situation in which soebody might be willing to pay your way if you bring your jar of pennies and a bag of manure as both those things would be as gold in a Martian economy.

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It really doesn't make sense to be seeding Mars with manure from Earth. Terraforming to a degree would be required, quite a fascinating subject in itself and obtainable with modern technology, but I don't have time to get into it now.

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Add to this that historically, colonists are almost always rejects of the parent civilization and this J. Vernesque world would be colored by some very eccentric folks.

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Historically colonisation was relatively cheap and for the most part not Government sponsored (except for protection by the army). Colonisation of another planet however is incredibly costly, and requires Government funding at the moment. Large corporations may one day be capable of doing it, but not yet.

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Originally posted by Agatsu:
Okay, so that is obviously a science fiction concept, but it might not be too far off, although of course exagger

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