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Mars colony is a bad idea---Callisto's better


Martin

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the moon's of jupiter have plenty of water ice

and they have great scenery because jupiter is big in the sky and

very beautiful

 

and because of the gravity assist the delta-vee cost of

getting there is not all that great

 

like the galileo spacecraft did, you can do a close flyby of J

and then slingshot with the other moons and arrive

at Callisto with almost no fuel burned

 

(after the main burn at earth for transfer orbit)

 

mars is dry and does not have these advantages

 

 

people on Callisto could use nuclear power to melt tunnels

into the ice and create under-ice habitats

and extract chemicals and stuff

 

the jovian moons are a nice system--eventually a good place to live

 

Bush was a turkey to say go to the moon and mars

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Some statistics about Callisto (my second favourite Galilean moon)

 

Im curious as to why it's your second favorite.

both about why favorite at all, and why second

 

and is it your second favorite as a place to establish

a manned base among the jovian moons

 

I'm aware that as someone located at a military base in antarctica

you are probably rather broad-minded about habitats as compared

with Northerncalifornians like myself

 

personally I like the feel of gravity and am always happiest when

I get some regular physical exercise and so I would imagine

hollowing out a cave under the Callisto ice to serve as an ice-skating

rink

but I would not know what to do if I lived on Phobos and Deimos

and my health might deteriorate---also they do seem a might dry.

 

do you suppose that human musclepowered flight would be possible

on Callisto or Ganymede---that seems like a good aerobic exercise too:

if a big under-ice stadium were hollowed out to provide room for swooping

 

please reply! I urgently desire your opinion on these important matters

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Its my second favourite Galilean moon...my favourite is Europa.Its my favourite because I like the name. :)

 

I dont live in Antarctica, and even if I did it couldnt be in a military base. :eek:

 

If you want to get a good phisical exercise and lots of gravity you should be considering Ganymede more than Callsito, there youd get a really good work out... ;)

 

This isnt really an urgent matter, unless you are actually going to Callsito.and I doubt that muscle powered flight would be possible on Callisto but maybe on Phobos.This is strangely similar to a science channel episode I once saw... :P

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Phobos has an average diameter of 22Km - I think not[/i'] undertaking muscle-powered flight would be quite hard work.

 

one should be careful not to throw anything too hard or jump too high, I guess

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And I think a better moon to colonize would be Phobos or Deimos, firstly because theyre closer and second because theres not as many meteorites hitting the moon.
Surely Mars would be better in this case though... it's the same distance away and the miniscule increase in chance of being hit by a meteorite hardly counters the benefits of the presence of water and materials, atmosphere and so on, plus the potential for future real development. Considering that, according to that data, Phobos has an escape velocity of only 10.3 metres per second, I don't think there'll be enough gravity to even make a difference for exercise, though the moons might make a useful base for spacecraft in the future, when transferring supplies between Earth and Mars, if needed.

 

Oh, and the reason Martin thought you were in Antarctica is because it shows that as your location under your avatar. :P

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It would be fun paintballing there :DYou could even shoot at Mars.

 

Yes, the only problem would be if you were to hit someone else. With that slow an escape velocity, they'd probably be propelled into space.

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  • 1 month later...
a base on a jovian moon? i don't think it would work very well. it would have to be under a lot of ice because of radiation, lots of radiation.

 

Callisto and Ganymede significantly less radiation than Io and Europa the two Galilean satellites closest to Jupiter. I mentioned Callisto partly because of this very consideration.

 

Do you have a source for how much on Callisto to back up what you say? An actual quantity would be interesting.

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I don't think radiation from Jupiter wouldn't really be an issue anyway, at least not for the people on the base; all the Galilean moons are in synchronous orbit, so the far sides will always face away from Jupiter and its radiation, so a base built there should be fine.. It would still be a problem for transports, of course, and Callisto is the furthest out fo the three... though Europa might prove better as a base in other ways if it does have liquid water underneath its surface.

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and how deep under Callisto's ice do you think you would have to live

to stay healthy?

 

so far I dont think this question has been answered

 

Yourda's next post said "a few kilos"

but that doesnt make sense to me, I cant tell what is meant

a few kilograms?

 

I was asking how deep---how thick a layer of ice.

How many centimeters, or meters, of ice would be needed to stop essentially all the ionizing radiation.

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and how deep under Callisto's ice do you think you would have to live

to stay healthy?

that really all depends on the radiation output.

 

but as a calculation (ignoring the compton effect) and assuming that Ice has the same absorbtion as water (I don`t know if it differs?).

use:

 

Absorber water =1.0 @ Density/g cm^-3

 

E/MeV @ 1.0 by the mass absorbtion coeficient for energy/cm^2 g^-1

 

here`s some figures for materials, water is obviously 1.0 (as stated above).

air: 0.0013 (at standard RTP)

aluminium: 2.7

Iron: 7.9

Lead: 11.5

concrete: 2.35 (approx and variable).

 

hope that helps a little :)

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  • 4 months later...
Phobos has an average diameter of 22Km - I think not undertaking muscle-powered flight would be quite hard work.

 

The idea of a base on Phobos would be inside the moon. What would happen is the moon would be mined for resouces and after the inside would be turned into a structure like base to coordinate Mars missions. There is a very interesting proposal about how to do this and why. I will see if I can dig it up, I like this idea though. Some might ask why not just build a space station around mars instead, but actually this would be cheaper if we converted the mined resources into the project and also being underground in the moon will provide alot of protection from meteorites or cosmic rays.

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the moon's of jupiter have plenty of water ice

and they have great scenery because jupiter is big in the sky and

very beautiful

 

and because of the gravity assist the delta-vee cost of

getting there is not all that great

 

like the galileo spacecraft did' date=' you can do a close flyby of J

and then slingshot with the other moons and arrive

at Callisto with almost no fuel burned

 

(after the main burn at earth for transfer orbit)

 

mars is dry and does not have these advantages

 

 

people on Callisto could use nuclear power to melt tunnels

into the ice and create under-ice habitats

and extract chemicals and stuff

 

the jovian moons are a nice system--eventually a good place to live

 

Bush was a turkey to say go to the moon and mars[/quote']

 

 

I would live in an "eaton center" on Mercury.

It has all the energy we need and a good gravity,

it's like that of Mars.

It has a year about two monthes therefore it would

can be a good base for interplanetary travels.

It hasn't winds therefore it's more sure than Mars,

and we can make experiments about nuclear fusion

without air for interplanetary travels. :cool:

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What is an Eaton centre? Do its features protect you from the rather nearby sun?

 

Ive never heard of an "eaton centre" but I've often imagined living in a crater at the north or south pole of mercury

 

because it might be nice and cold down in the shade

because nothing above but dark sky and all the heat would radiate away easily

 

it could even be freezing down in a polar crater

 

and then if you want energy you just stick a solar collector up over the rim of the crater and point it at the such

 

most energy generation is based on temperature difference, and at poles of Mercury one might have easily accessible wide temperature differences.

the bigger the difference in temp, the more efficiently it can be harnessed or converted to electricity

 

It is possible that a Mr or Mrs Eaton worked all this out in the form of a proposal or novel, I just havent encountered it.

 

Philip, you sound as if you have thought about these things in solid detail!

Please say more about it!

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