From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Thu Jun 22 2000 - 11:39:31 MDT
Doug Jones wrote:
>
> zeb haradon wrote:
> >
> > > Somebody else wrote:
> > >Woohoo! Mars, here I come!
> > >
> > >Water = Hydrogen and Oxygen. Fuel to burn, water to drink, oxygen to
> > >breath. Most of our supplies are already there.
> >
> > Need Carbon and Nitrogen too, plus minor supplies of Sodium, Potassium,
> > etc.. There's Carbon there, I am not aware of Nitrogen content.
>
> The atmosphere there is 95% CO2, 2.7% N2, 1.6% Ar, tiny amounts of O2
> and CO (photodissociated CO2), and about .01% water vapor. The soils
> should have all the needed ingredients, although some may be too saline
> and would need to be "washed" to remove the excess.
Land a nitrogen extraction plant on Titan, ship nitrogen to Mars.
>
> Liquid surface (or shallow subsurface) water would be convenient, but
> not essential. Molecular sieves for extraction of water from the
> atmosphere (an idea I pioneered back in 1984, albeit in a less than
> optimal mode) would be sufficient, returning many times their own mass
> in water.
I'm all for dropping a comet or two to get things started.... I'm reading Martyn
Fogg's textbook "Terraforming" and its quite informative.
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