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[discuss] essential elements for survival on mars (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/space@lemmy.world
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Hi there, I'd like to connect with people to discuss technical aspects of settlement of mars.

I'd look at a house on earth and ask: what things have to be supplied from the outside; what things can be produced inside the house? Houses on earth have piping for water, and cabling for electricity.

Plants can be grown in a green-house using these two ingredients, and the people can sleep in a spaceship.

Comment whatever comes to your mind.

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[–] 19 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Not sure if this falls within the scope of what you’re thinking, but radiation shielding is gonna be a big part of figuring out how to make it on mars.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I honestly think the best approach would be to use old magma tunnels to establish a base deep underground. That provides sufficient shielding, and also gets the settlement closer to water reservoirs.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I agree with you as tunnels would address many concerns but I also find it fantastically ironic that once we become advanced enough to colonize another planet we right away go back to living in caves

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Don't forget perchlorate mitigation!

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Chlorates and perchlorates are fairly unstable, and readily decompose into chlorides + oxygen gas when heated. Could we solve two problems at once by washing the perchlorates out of the soil, and then decomposing them to produce oxygen for breathing and propellant?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't see perchlorates as a big problem.

    After all, plants grow quite well without soil, like hydroponics, I guess.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Where are you going to get all that water?

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 years ago

    I was thinking three options:

    • mining from underground (hoping that there's enough ice underground/water in the mineralic crystals that can be thermically released)
    • water from the atmosphere (believe it or not but the atmosphere in the early morning is actually saturated with moisture - about 0.25 mbar iirc) so it could be extracted through something similar to a room de-moisturizer
    • polar caps (unrealistic in the early game)
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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    Yeah, I guess. I've read on Wikipedia that a year on Mars gives a human 200 mSv of radiation. While the limit for US radiation workers is 50 mSv a year. So that's 4x the allowed dosis.

    Still, I wonder how much that can be alleviated by metal shielding. A spaceship's outer walls are 5mm solid steel, and I've read somewhere that most of the radiation is particle radiation (not electromagnetic radiation), so that can be stopped with solid steel quite well. Unfortunately, I don't have any actual numbers, though.

    Edit: Source

    Edit:

    250 mSv: 6-month trip to Mars—radiation due to cosmic rays, which are very difficult to shield against

    Apparently I was wrong. It's not just particle radiation, it's actual electromagnetic radiation. Which is much more difficult to deal with.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How do they currently do it on space stations?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago*

    the current attempt seems to be that ISS is low enough to be protected by earth's magnetic shield (which, as I understand it, only protects against particle radiation, not EM radiation). So that would stop most radiation from hitting the ISS and astronauts. So the radiation dose is a bit lower than in true (even-farther-out) outer space, and then pray for the best, basically.

    Edit: Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused. Multiple sources contradict one another about what kind of radiation is actually most prevalent in outer space. Most say it's particle radiation (which would be easy to protect against), but some say it's electromagnetic radiation, which would be way more problematic.

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