MarsBlog.net

Here is SpaceRef’s article on the proposed Russian tourist spacecraft. This one includes pictures.

Note the shape similarity to DynaSoar.

Personal hygeine is a topic that doesn’t seem to get a lot of print when it comes to Mars settlement, but is something that will have to be dealt with in the course of things.

For NASA, the immediate problem is how to stay clean in zero-g, aboard the Shuttle or the ISS. And of course, they’ve gone and done some research on the topic. It’s a fascinating paper, covering the various methods that have been tried in the past (note the sauna aboard Mir — what a great idea!) and some that may prove useful in the future.

All things considered, though, this is one more reason why it’s better to settle a planet than to colonize an orbit.

Yet another article on martian water, this one from NASA itself.

The article suggests that the recent MOLA camera survey of near-surface water in martian regolith doesn’t tell the whole story (see, I told you so) — there is evidence to suggest occasional catastrophic outflows of liquid surface water. Granted, this has been suggested before, based on MGS photographic evidence of apparently water-carved features, but it was thought to indicate only large outflows many thousands or millions of years in the past. However, judging by interactions of smaller water-carved features with wind-formed dunes, it may be that smaller, swimming-pool-sized outflows occur frequently — even today.

With efficient recycling technology, a settlement could make great use of the occasional swimming-pool-sized near-surface aquifer. If, that is, they could find it before it drained onto the surface, when it was still easy to harvest.

There is also speculation in the article that Mars’ climate cycles through periods of warmth, when temperatures rise sufficiently to melt the carbon dioxide in the polar caps, raise the pressure to around 40 millibars, and thereby provide conditions in which liquid water can exist freely on the martian surface. Combine this with suggestions noted elsewhere that the martian climate may be entering one of these warm phases, and it looks as though we may have chosen to settle the planet at just the right time.

On second thought, I’m going to skip the Zubrin Analog article. It does indeed deal with extrasolar intelligence (SETI, the Drake Equation, communications over interstellar distances, etc.), a subject I personally find pretty dull — and one which is obviously not connected to Mars settlement.

An even-better view of the suspected water-ice distribution in Mars’ upper surface. The previously posted article’s graphics only showed the southern hemisphere.

As with the cosmic radiation exposure rates, the more interesting regions seem to have little going for them in terms of near-surface water-ice availability. Indeed, the areas in which one would expect to find some sort of hydrothermal activity (the comparatively young volcanoes of Tharsis) appear to be dry.

Of course, since this survey only concerns the upper three feet of the planet’s surface, it doesn’t preclude the existence of exploitable aquifers deep beneath the surface. It’s no more valid to conclude from this data that Mars has too little water to support settlement than it would be to conclude from data on the hydrocarbon content of the upper three feet of Earth’s surface that there is insufficient petroleum to support globe-spanning energy and petrochemical industries.

We just don’t know. Yet.