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Another thought... mars is 35 million miles from
Earth, minimum. How do plan to get 1 million people on Mars or one of
it's moons with enough food, OXYGEN, WATER, fuel, and supplies out of
the Earth's atmosphere and all the way to Mars, besides the fact that
there is very little oxygen and water on mars, and you will most likely
run out of food by the time you can raise food?
Dec. 14,2001
At first, the first permanently inhabited base on Mars will have a crew of
less than a dozen people. One of their first tasks will be to establish
greenhouses for the production of food, oxygen, and fuel. There is little
free Oxygen on Mars, but there is plenty of Carbon Dioxide (at a pressure about
1% that of Earth's atmosphere at sea level at a density high enough to allow
the gas to be easily pressurized using ordinary pumps). This Carbon Dioxide
will be pressurized and pumped into the greenhouses where plants will use
photosynthesis to make plant material and Oxygen. The Oxygen will be extracted
from the greenhouses and used in the living quarters. There are also more
expensive chemical and thermal means for breaking down Carbon Dioxide into
Oxygen and Carbon, and these methods will be used to make Oxygen during the
first mission before the greenhouses are operational.
There is actually a lot of water on Mars. Not as much as on Earth, where
most of the surface is covered with miles of liquid water, but enough to
support millions of people. The northern ice cap is the largest proven
reservoir of water on Mars. It is believed to be about 2 miles thick and
about 750 miles in diameter. That is more than half a million cubic miles of
ice, enough to cover the United States with ice two football fields deep
(700 feet). Furthermore, extensive deposits of water-containing minerals
have been identified in the middle latitudes using various imaging techniques
from orbit (infra-red spectrum and gamma ray). Evidence of water flows on
the walls of craters also suggests that a layer of permafrost exists several
meters below the surface in many parts of Mars.
Click here
to see photos of rivers on Mars. Mars contains all the elements
and minerals necessary for plant life. The atmosphere is composed of 5%
Nitrogen, and the soil contains significant quantities of Sulfur, Potassium,
Sodium, Chlorine, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, and other essential minerals and
elements. Therefore, there is no reason why plants would not grow inside of
greenhouses with the appropriate air pressure and temperature. These
greenhouses would produce food, oxygen, and biomass for the production of
fuel, plastics, detergents and other carbon based products. Therefore, it
would never be necessary to transport food and Oxygen for millions of people
from Earth. Furthermore, it is not even necessary for millions of people to
travel from Earth to Mars in order to develop a significant population. Once
the first colony reaches the size of several dozen persons and becomes
relatively self sufficient, human reproduction will be allowed. Eventually far
more persons will be born on Mars than ever migrated there from Earth.
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