Rovers on Mars

perhaps living beneath the turf will be a necessity for a time but, since most all of the tools and resources could already be on the planet, we could dream up and manufacture pretty much what we need.

Probably setting up a lunar colony WILL be a necessary precursor to any lengthy deep-space colonization. We need to learn how to do it properly and the moon gives us a relatively easy target (,3 days away) that we can deploy and evacuate quickly. We will need to learn the technologies for O2 and water manufacture, cosmic ray shileding , heat ,food production , waste handling, etc.

I dont see anything thats beyond us now. We could set up a lunar colony , depending on international will and resources, and develop a whole new batch of problem solving skills.

You and set are bringing up some interesting challenges and solutions, so it seems developing the science and the delivery system needs to be regular and efficient to develop any sort of living condition on mars - especially at the beginning.

That guy sounds too much like a preacher to me. A lot of fancy words with no meat on their bones. I prefer to just watch your conversations with him and experience the frustration vicariously

Here's something about which i have long thought which has next to nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

Assume we have set up a lunar (or martian) colony. We occupy it for generations. Children are born. Could a native lunar child safely enter the mother well, or would the ten times gravity (compared to their birth planet) crush them? We already know that prolonged exposure to microgravity has seriously health effects, including muscle atrophy, including the atrophy of the heart muscle--so, what happens to a lunar colonis who spends years and years there? That ain't exactlymicrogravity, but the only data we have now is the Russians in orbit on Mir for months and monts. Would lunar colonists reach a point at which the earth would be lethal to them? Would their children find earth lethal?

Mars has 38% of the earth gravity. Would martian babies eventually evolve so that they were suited to their home planets, but would be hopeless weaklings on earth?

Enquiring former science fiction addicts want to know.

I would think moon inhabitants might rotate, to ensure that does not happen. I bet the ones on Mars would develope distinctive body types. Short and lean? Tough? Frail? Sickly? Victims of evolving bacteria, based on the alien conditions? Something to think about, for sure.

The results of no gravity will exact a heavy toll on humans on mars.

I would think that if it were determined that a woman on the moon were pregnant, that they get her back on earth until the baby is delivered. There's an excellent series of novels, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, about the terraforming of the planet. Although i think the author gives it short shrift, he does describe the martian children as being taller and slimmer. The problem i see for inhabitants of the moon or Mars is the bone structure not building up because it wouldn't be needed.

Perhaps I'm off-base, but isn't there a significant amount of radiation on Mars that would prohibit manned exploration without a lot of more expensive equipment than say the past human exploration on the Earth's moon?

Forgive me if i missed someone's covering this earlier.

See the following link for a 2006 discussion on dangers of Mars manned exploration.

"Why 2040 is the earliest NASA can hope to send humans to the Red Planet"

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/602/1

Yes, you have missed it--and it's only a few posts back.

Dang...a day late and a dollar short. Guilty as charged.

I have read this much: "Because the biological effects of exposure to space radiation are complex, variable from individual to individual, and may take years to show their full impact, definition of allowable exposure will always include considerable subjectivity."

If the environment were harsh enough to affect survival and reproduction, then I think the answer is, Yes. I believe any organism when exposed to evolutionary pressures will eventually be adapted toward an efficiency of form in relation to its environment (gravity being a HUGE part of any environment).

Insects on this planet started out very large, but as the oxygen levels in the atmosphere decreased, they simply adapted by being limited in size.

Actually, this is something we've been discussing in the "science ficiton v. science fact" kind of threads. The cost of a crewed mission to Mars would be enormous because of the necessity to shield the astronauts/cosmonauts from radiation, which either would require a very heavy vehicle (extremely expensive to boost out of the mother well) or the creation of a local magnetic field (extremely fuel expensive, and, therefore, once again, expensive to boost out of the mother well). I came to dislike most science "fiction" (fantasy would be a better term) precisely because so much of it is of the "wouldn't it be cool" variety which doesn't want to think about unpleasant realities such as cosmic radiation and microgravity. The Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars series is good because it does address most of these issues. Protection from cosmic radiation was not only a significant part of the first novel, it was also used as a means to introduce an important plot twist which was not resolved until the second novel.

Im back at your question re: gravity anomalies, the health effects that the Mir guys and the ISS crews are experiencing is caused mostly by weightlessness . . I knnew of bone density issues and some myopathies on organs but didnt know of anything that was lasting. (Even the bone density issues were reversed after a year back on earth).
Now, however, long term TDY's on , say, the Moon, may not be as reversable since the forces that apply will be acting on a single plane rather than triaxially as in outer space. SO, will anything change over generations? I have no idea because we would be trying to set up artificial environments and whenever we go outside wed have to wear our environment as a space suit.

I guess cardiomyopathy is a serious consequence but even this can be handled by drugs. I think space can mostly be handled like a chronic condition.
I found that a two foot layer of a specific density of hydrogen gas or water can act as a good cosmic radiation buffer. In one area a water shell can act as a reservoir or trombe shell (passive solar heat) or the hydrogen gas shell can act as a balloon . SO, in my minds art. I see the town on the moon being a series of dwellings that look like various sized igloos.

Lets make a 20 generation leap , Just like Sherpas and their lung capacity, maybe the moon or martian humans would be more looking like little stout people . MAybe larger but bonier feet

Ive always thought that , for deep space exploration (and it must eventually happen since its something thats in us to do), we would build the craft for planetary insertion out in space and leave it in orbit for use when the mission is a go. The shape and ssize of the craft has no matter because it neednt be streamlined and the propulsion could be an ionic pulse jet that starts out slooooowly but accelerates almost sub infinitely. Then there is a landeing craft .
The Planetary transit craft could be a huge mother with all kinds of add on modules for extra supplies and building equipment.

Itd be neat to see how the orbital elevators could work.

An orbital "elevator" was a major component of the technology and a major plot device in the Mars series of novels.

YEh, the tech makes sense. It cheapens the cost of sending stuff up to an orbital parking area so that machinery etc can be manufactured in zero grav and space vehicles that look like cubes all stuck together, can be built without the huge expenditures of lift vehicles from the planet.
It was also a way to get rid of trash

This made me think of the atmosphere as incinerator.

Send up the trash and burn it up on reentry.

Not 100% Sterile

The issue involves a set of drill bits carried by the Curiosity rover, which launched Nov. 26 to Mars. When project developers made an internal decision not to send the equipment through a final ultra-cleanliness step, it marked a deviation from the planetary protection plans scripted for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

That judgment, however, didn't reach NASA's chief protector of the planets until "very late in the game," said Catharine "Cassie" Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer. "They didn't submit the request for the deviation not to comply with their planetary protection plan until several months ago," she emphasized.

Conley told Space.com that the initial plan called for placing all three of the drill bits inside a sterile box. Then, after Curiosity landed, the box would be opened for access to the sterilized bits via the rover's robot arm, extracted one by one and fit onto a drill head as the mission progressed.

But in readying the rover for departure to Mars, the box was opened, with one drill bit affixed to the drill head, Conley said. Also, all of the bits were tested pre-launch to assess their level of organic contamination. While done within a very clean environment, that work strayed from earlier agreed-to protocols, she said.

"That's where the miscommunication happened," Conley said. "I will certainly expect to have a lessons-learned report that will indicate how future projects will not have this same process issue. I'm sure that the Mars exploration program doesn't want to have a similar process issue in the future. We need to make sure we do it right."

Equatorial target
Conley said the deviation from protocol was reinforced by science and project officials concluding that Curiosity's target landing spot, Gale Crater, is free of potentially life-harboring ice — at least at depths that the drill bits would penetrate.

"That reinforced the reasonableness of not having the drill bits sterilized, because there's unlikely to be 'special regions' in the Gale Crater landing site," Conley said.

I hope their mistake doesn't end up contaminating Mars.