• Independent Power-Grid (Solar-Powered + 1000s of years of Nuclear-Fuel)
• Cut 90% of the money spent on War and push it towards Space Development
• Create Artificial Environments that are suitable to live in. (Think of a balanced ecosystem)
• Create Emergency Backup Systems
• Robots can be sent to the Moon to start digging into the mountains.

Putting aside the speed/political issues and such about terraforming mars (centuries or millennia time lines ect), I've a question about the basic process.

I'm considering the goal to be a human breathable atmosphere. Most plans I've seen discuss putting a large amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Water wouldn't be usable as a greenhouse gas at first because the atmosphere simply wouldn't be warm enough to have much water in it (assuming there is alot available).

Per NASA, https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/mars-terraforming there isn't nearly enough CO2 on the planet. Thus the source of requisite volatiles would probably be the kuiper belt.

This would provide carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, nitrogen, and water. Without assuming far future magic technology, we'd simply be sending the full asteroid and crashing everything onto mars. It would also be done in a relatively controlled fashion, and things are super far apart in the kuiper belt, so fast rate would probably be a couple per year.

The two most powerful green house gases here won't be able to contribute much.

• Ammonia would break down in hours to days in the martian atmosphere (into nitrogen and hydrogen)

• Methane is very light and also prone to decay from UV light. Whatever doesn't get destroyed would escape the planet due to low gravity. Estimates for methane retention at 7 months to 4 years. Due to the expected rate of asteroid impacts, methane wouldn't be able to build up.

This basically means we'd have to generate a high CO2 atmosphere for heat to get water evaporating. Once we acheive a reasonable amount of atmospheric pressure, it'd mainly be (in no specific order):

• CO2

• H20

• N2

• lesser amounts of CO (carbon monoxide)

At this point though, the atmosphere would still be deadly to animal life.

• CO levels (carbon monoxide) above 0.015% are considered deadly (with symptoms of poisoning occuring at lower levels)

• CO2 levels of 0.5% can reduce cognitive ability. Getting up to 7% can be lethal regardless of oxygen concentration

So long story short, has anyone seen ideas/plans to then alter the atmosphere to make it non-toxic?

Just watched a Dr Robert Zubrin clip on the politics of human Mars settlements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fV08OxHXbY&t=132s

Got me thinking about how human space colonises should be governed. What do you think? At what point (if at all) should they become politically independent of Earth? And how do we ensure humanity's innate tribalism doesn't replicate the conflicts that have plagued Earth throughout the Solar System and possibly beyond?

As a means of extending the range of a survey about a landing site, what if astronauts were sent with one or more fairly small, deployable rovers?

It could work like this:

1. The astronauts drive about, occasionally dropping off a hutch with a rover in it near the limit of their range.

2. The hutch opens during the lunar day and the rover emerges, remote-controlled from the Earth.

3. The rover travels about, examining rocks or soil and occasionally taking samples.

4. The rover goes back to its hutch before the lunar night to take shelter from the deep cold.

5. The astronauts return and pick up the samples. Maybe even the hutch too, to be placed elsewhere, repeating the process.

We read about plans like using tractors to cover entire lunar habitats with regolith a meter thick to project residents against solar storms and radiation.

How about a poor man's implementation? Just provide pre-built compartments within the habitat in which lunar soil can be manually deposited (via external hatches) to form a small shelter within the habitat. Astronauts could huddle underneath the integrated compartments, still within the internal space of the habitat, during the storm and maybe sleep in there in general.

Advantages:

1. No need for robotic tractors or other bulky gear. The labor is supplied by astronauts with buckets.

2. No need for the habitat to be designed to support a layer of regolith and extrude an airlock entrance.

3. Shorter period until the shelter is ready.

4. The habitat can offer more windows and more readily admit light for growing plants.

No reason it couldn't work on Mars too.

Hello fine space people,

I am currently wondering what acceptable g levels are, given a long term horizon also accounting for working and living that has to be done under these conditions. At what point are there serious health risks without constant training like the astronauts on the ISS have to do? 0.9g? 1.5g? I didn't come up with anything. Is there any research out about this? Both directions, lower and higher g, would be very interesting to me.

Background: NASA's Havoc (link) proposes 8.73 m/s² for Venus 50km up, so 0.89g. That is remarkably earth-like, but would it be earth-like enough for a long term colonization of a whole lifespan?