OT: Carbon Dioxide races -> known vs unknown -> terraforming mars -> is or is not

[oleg]

[quote]Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:

By the time you eliminate the ones that can only exist in a proton accelerator/ the centre of a star/ supernova/ black hole etc, you find that there are only about 100 or so elements actually available to Mother Nature for making life. We know the properties of all of those elements, and so we can make some pretty good assumptions about what aliens will be made of.

Well dang. That makes a lot of sense teh way you put it there, but it's kind of depressing. It makes it seem like we are closer to the end of knowing pretty much everything then to the begining.

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Not really. For example the known matter makes only 10% or even less of Universe. The rest is "dark matter". Or how about cosmological constant ? It is not proven yet but it appears to be not zero. But what is its nature ?

[General Woundwort]

Has anybody read the book Rare Earth? I think it bears directly on the discussion here re: the viability of non-oxygen based life-forms (and other conclusions even more depressing to avid sciffers).

[oleg]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Sorry to double post, but I have a mostly on-topic question for my own sci-fi writing purposes, and this post has nothing to do with my Last.

I know Mars has a thin CO2 atmosphere. If we were to build a domed ecosystem on Mars, I imagine we could use photosynthesis or some chemical process to extract all the oxygen we needed from this CO2.

However, as has already been stated in this thread, our own atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, and that is also important to us. (Nitrates in the soil for plants etc)

Does anyone know if there is any useful amount of nitrogen present in the martian atmosphere, or is it all CO2? If there is none, would we be able to extract the required nitrogen from other nearby resources (rocks, asteroids etc)?

Finally, would an artificial atmosphere made up in this way (say ~75% nitrogen, ~15% oxygen, ~10% CO2) be viable for a human ecosystem, or would we need to import/ locally source all the other trace elements in our own atmosphere?

It is mostly CO2 with some water vapor. N2 is not important for us to breath, Appolo astronauts used pure oxygen. Proved to be very dangerous though - Appolo 1.

[Loser]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
I know Mars has a thin CO2 atmosphere. If we were to build a domed ecosystem on Mars, I imagine we could use photosynthesis or some chemical process to extract all the oxygen we needed from this CO2.

I'm not so sure there's quite that much. And the thinness of the atmosphere is going to slow down the conVersion.

Originally posted by dogscoff:
However, as has already been stated in this thread, our own atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, and that is also important to us. (Nitrates in the soil for plants etc)

Does anyone know if there is any useful amount of nitrogen present in the martian atmosphere, or is it all CO2? If there is none, would we be able to extract the required nitrogen from other nearby resources (rocks, asteroids etc)?

A good source for terraforming Mars is one particular sci-fi series: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. I would recommend these, if you don't mind the excessive sex sci-fi authors feel they need to include to get their work of the juvi-fic rack.

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Finally, would an artificial atmosphere made up in this way (say ~75% nitrogen, ~15% oxygen, ~10% CO2) be viable for a human ecosystem, or would we need to import/ locally source all the other trace elements in our own atmosphere?

On Earth it's about 70% N2, 22%O2, 4% Argon, and the remaining 4% everything else (very small amount of CO2). But it's not the percentage of Oxygen that's important, it's the amount of O2 molecules per Liter of 'air'. So at lower pressures it's important to have a greater percentage of O2 and at higher pressures it's not only important to have a lower percentage of O2, but also to have less N2 or no N2. A high enough pressures N2 will act as an intoxicant, so an inert gas, such as He (elemental Helium), is used.

[Taera]

how can you claim we know all particles in the universe? perharps somewhere there are atoms that have gravitons orbiting electrons and thats it for the atom. and dont start telling me there are no gravitons, its not proven. Or perharps atoms with quadraple cores? and how you know its impossible to have 1/2 of a particle? if we cant do it it doesnt mean its impossible. You cant go at the speed of light - who said its impossible?

[dogscoff]

if we cant do it it doesnt mean its impossible.

Well, no. There probably are som wierd and wonderful particles out there to be discovered, but they would have to be damned rare and only exist under certain (life-unfriendly) conditions- otherwise we would have encountered them in our own solar system.

You cant go at the speed of light - who said its impossible?

Einstein.

[Fyron]

You can make up all the fancy particles you like, but they do not exist in reality. There are only so many sub-atomic particles, and we know what they are. There are sub-sub-atomic particles and such, but they can not form anything comparable to atoms, just sub-atomic particles.

You can not have half a particle because half a particle results in either a fairly large explosion or simply in the pieces floating off. Matter is only stable in very rigid and specific patterns. And, the sub-atomic particles are made of 3 smaller particles anyways, so 1/2 is not even a valid fraction. But joking aside, those smaller particles can not form any larger particles other than the ones we know about already. There are only so many ways matter can combine, and we have seen or modeled them all.

I am not sure what you mean by quadruple cores, but it sounds like wishful thinking to me. The only possibilities for the core of an atom are protons and neutrons (except for antimatter, which has identical particles except that they have opposing charges and spins, so they are essentially the same anyways). What gives a piece of matter almost all of its properties is the number of protons in the nucleus. Change that, you get entirely different matter.

IF (and that is a big if) gravity is found to be particle like in nature (in addition to wave-like), like light is (photons), then these "gravitons" would be no more able to form new types of matter than photons are (which they are not). If they exist, they would have a similar interaction with electrons to that of photons with electrons. I am not sure what precisely this interaction would be, but it most certainly would not be to form new types of matter with the electrons. They would have to be immensely smaller than photons anyways, as we have never been able to detect or see the evidence of any such gravitons.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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You cant go at the speed of light - who said its impossible?

Einstein.

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Einstein was not right about everything. He refused to believe the findings of his pupil, Heisenburg (I hope I remember the right name...) that particles have wave-like properties. He only believed that waves have particle-like properties (which is true, solar sail anyone?). Of course, it was later proven that particles do have wave-like properties (atoms in molecules are a distance apart that is exactly equal to the sum of the lengths of the matter-waves of the electrons in them, for example).

[narf poit chez BOOM]

if it's smaller than an electron, i don't see how we can be sure it's there. least until we have something that can see smaller than an electron. yes, i know there's mathamatical models. but think about this:

cells - 1 remove. can be seen with a Version 1 light microscope. i think there's one that can be seen with just the naked eye.

molecules - 2 removed. not sure if you could prove, conclusivily, that those atoms are linked. could you even watch individual atoms? i mean 100%, not 99.5%

atoms - 3 removed. can only be seen and poorly, with an electron microscope. no idea how extensive that is...can you watch them move? but they can be proved to exist

quarks - theorized by mathematical model.

so, i can't accept quarks as more than a theory. yes, i know if i investigated the math i might agree. but, i have trouble picking through math models. it's not that i don't understand it, it's that i'm like a turtle with physics as math - steady, but slow. so, in order for me to accept this, i'd like some pretty picture and words. english words, to. and so would, probably, the general public.

[ July 17, 2003, 08:33: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[dogscoff]

Follow this link for an extensive treaty on the nitrogen cycle and how it is important to life on Earth.

Thanks. Most of that article goes over my head, but I get the basics and it has some pretty pictures ;-)

That is dangerously close to a lethal atmosphere. Your colonists would suffer greatly, and casualties would be high.
Drop that CO2 concentration by at least an order or two of magnitude.

OK... the exact proportions don't really matter, just as long as a breathable atmosphere could be produced from local materials. Next question: How much variation in these proportions of gasses could we withstand? a few percent? A few fractions of a percent?

If realy, why bother with mars? I've never understood it. Whats special about it? is it the closest planet to earth's conditions or what.

Here are some reasons to go to Mars:

1> The first is the distance from the sun, which has already been mentioned. It's close enough to gain trap some of the suns energy. Solar panels would be viable there, and plants could probably get enough sunlight to survive (if they were kept under glass)

2> Mars is interesting. I want to go there to check out the possibility of martian (ex-)life and the amazing terrain: Olympus Mons is the largest "mountain" in the solar system, making Everest look like a molehill. There are some other cool geographical features that ppl would like to see. We could also settle all that cydonia nonsense once and for all.

3> Although Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere, it *does* have an atmosphere, which would offer at least some protection against meteor strikes and the sun's radiation.

4> As we've already discussed, Mars has some good raw materials to work with: A thin CO2 atmosphere, some ice (probably) lots of iron (that's why the landscape is all red), a couple of small moons that may come in handy one day and no doubt lots of other useful things.

5>Although Mars is much smaller and less dense than Earth, it's bigger and denser than the moon and the Jovian satellites. That means gravity there would be closer to that of Earth. The effects of living long-term in low gravity are as yet unknown. Some of them probably would be good- because the reduced gravity means less energy spent and less "wear and tear" on the body. however there are bound to be negative effects as well. All these effects are likely to be multiplied for children born and raised on low-grav worlds, so to start with it would be best to colonise the most Earth-like gravity available.

6>Mars has a 25-hour day, which would be easy for colonists to adjust to.

Of course, the other likely candidates for colonisation are the asteroids. Plenty of raw materials to work with, and maybe even export. They're further out than Mars, but still closer than Jupiter, and the low-gravity problem could probably be overcome by messing with an asteroid's rotation or something. (?) Mars' moons (Phobos and Deimos- Fear and Panic=-) are nothing more than asteroids, really, so they might be a good place to start.

Looks like Nitrogen is fifth behind Hydrogen...

I did find an interesting and relevant link.
(click on the quote to go to the source)

i cant name the source but i remember reading that Mars has some nitrogen - in frozen state however, i think on the poles.

Thanks.

Einstein was not right about everything.

I know, I was just being facetious. I don't really know enough about science to discuss it in more than vague terms. I was mostly right about all that atomic makeup stuff though, wasn't I?