[Hard SF] Children of a Dead World

[x] Basira Khouri
[x] Morale Boosters: Things like genebanks for pets – allowing a few animals to be grown and turned loose as a morale boost. Other things like a few bottles of vanilla and seeds for the plants, allowing some more diet variation. Some religious paraphernalia, funded by a wide swathe of organizations on Old Earth before the bombs fell. All of this will help people keep an even keel in these times. Greater psychological stability for colonists, allows rationing of luxuries.
[x] Female

[X] Basira Khouri
[X] Female
[X]Morale Boosters: Things like genebanks for pets – allowing a few animals to be grown and turned loose as a morale boost. Other things like a few bottles of vanilla and seeds for the plants, allowing some more diet variation. Some religious paraphernalia, funded by a wide swathe of organizations on Old Earth before the bombs fell. All of this will help people keep an even keel in these times. Greater psychological stability for colonists, allows rationing of luxuries.

[X] Ellie Stewart
[X] Female
[X]Personnel: While this will mean more short term supply loss and more rationing until the Venerian supply ships come in, Titan is in the main self sufficient for foodstuffs and basic needs – the issue is more feedstock than basics. Skilled personnel in the meantime will allow more flexibility later on, as they adapt to life in the colony. Allows more options for technical skill development later on, supply crunch worsens early on.

mouli said:

Mars is not ideal as it does not have a magnetosphere and requires core ignition to avoid (1) the terraformed atmosphere being stripped off by solar winds and (2) not having the colonists be irradiated. While domes are possible, the gravity well is steep enough that domes are far more expensive than Venerian habitation even per ton of supply - and they need far more supply. Venus is the easier target.

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ConfusedCanuck said:

Huh I did not know that! You learn something new everyday, can I still guess that we could use Mars in the future if we can get pass simply surviving and start trying to thrive on Titan and the rest of the solar system?

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Blackstar said:

Mars has the issue of being a deeply suboptimal world for most tasks as it has a decently steep gravity well, it's dusty complicating suit design/airlocks, has low atmospheric pressure, is cold, has issues with nitrogen/volatile accumulation. It's not really a planet to put a long-term civilization or outpost on. Resources that are there can be obtained far more easily from the nearby(in delta-V sense) asteroid belt and that can be done without a large number of the factors that make it so hard to do it on mars.

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ConfusedCanuck said:

Are you saying all the Sci-Fi Movies have lied to me!!! I can't believe it how could they!!

So on a more serious note the worlds and I use that word loosely here where the best bet for us and we'll have to build up with what we got.

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Some of the claims made here are wrong, and while that does not matter for the quest, I am going to set them right in the name of scientific accuracy.

1) The Magnetosphere and atmosphere stripping. While it is true that Mars does not have a magnetosphere, this concern is greatly overstated. The process of atmospheric stripping occurs relatively swiftly only by geological timescales, as it happened over a time period of 500 million years (and during a period when the sun was more active than it is now). In the present day, and on a human timescales, it is irrelevant. The effort needed to counter the stripping effect is orders of magnitude smaller than the effort needed to terraform in the first place. If you can do the latter, you can do the former. On top of that, you have to consider that terraforming Venus isn't a trivial thing either. Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 90 atm, which means you need to get rid of rougly 89 atmospheres.

Edit : It should also be noted here that Venus does not have a magnetosphere either. What it has is an induced magnetosphere created by the interaction of the solar wind with it's own very thick atmosphere. If you remove that 89 atmosphere from before, you get the exact same radiation and atmosphere loss issues you would face on Mars, except more intense because Venus is located closer to the Sun (the loss is however mitigated a bit by Venus's much greater gravity).

Edit 2: And just for completeness sake. Titan too does not have natural magnetosphere.

2) Mars is easier to reach than Venus. The math on this is undeniable. Venus is considerably more massive than Mars, at 0.815 times the mass of Earth vs 0.107 times the mass of Earth for mars. This corresponds with a much deeper gravity well, and the little bit of altitude you win with an aerostat does not change the equation in the slightest. On top of that, there's also the orbital location. Venus is located much deeper in the solar system, which is a problem when you're bringing in supplies from the outer edges of the solar system, such as the Belt, Titan and Ganymede. There's some limited situations were Venus is slightly cheaper (direct, one way supply from Earth to Venus with lots of aerobraking) but the difference is practically neglible.

Now again, I'm perfectly fine with you declaring the other conclusions as quest canon. But it should be emphasized that they are not correct.

[X] Ellie Stewart
[X] Female
[X]Personnel: While this will mean more short term supply loss and more rationing until the Venerian supply ships come in, Titan is in the main self sufficient for foodstuffs and basic needs – the issue is more feedstock than basics. Skilled personnel in the meantime will allow more flexibility later on, as they adapt to life in the colony. Allows more options for technical skill development later on, supply crunch worsens early on.

[X] Basira Khouri
[X] Female
[X]Morale Boosters: Things like genebanks for pets – allowing a few animals to be grown and turned loose as a morale boost. Other things like a few bottles of vanilla and seeds for the plants, allowing some more diet variation. Some religious paraphernalia, funded by a wide swathe of organizations on Old Earth before the bombs fell. All of this will help people keep an even keel in these times. Greater psychological stability for colonists, allows rationing of luxuries.

Hmm, we're on Titan, surely in the future we need to make some sort of genetic supermen, clad them in great armor and armed with 'fuck-off' guns....and call them Space Marines?

[X]Name: Blaike Faulknen
[X]Gender: Male

[X]Morale Boosters: Things like genebanks for pets – allowing a few animals to be grown and turned loose as a morale boost. Other things like a few bottles of vanilla and seeds for the plants, allowing some more diet variation. Some religious paraphernalia, funded by a wide swathe of organizations on Old Earth before the bombs fell. All of this will help people keep an even keel in these times. Greater psychological stability for colonists, allows rationing of luxuries

10ebbor10 said:

1) The Magnetosphere and atmosphere stripping. While it is true that Mars does not have a magnetosphere, this concern is greatly overstated. The process of atmospheric stripping occurs relatively swiftly only by geological timescales, as it happened over a time period of 500 million years (and during a period when the sun was more active than it is now). In the present day, and on a human timescales, it is irrelevant. The effort needed to counter the stripping effect is orders of magnitude smaller than the effort needed to terraform in the first place. If you can do the latter, you can do the former. On top of that, you have to consider that terraforming Venus isn't a trivial thing either. Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 90 atm, which means you need to get rid of rougly 89 atmospheres.

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The issue is that impact is combined with the lack of availability of gas on mars itself, as every loss of atmospheric gas is near Irreplaceable. Leading to mars being un-teraformable just due to lack of material on the planet.

The solar wind is a long term a thing yes, but it's effects have already happened/caused the current situation. Making the effort to counter it far harder as the atmosphere needs to be shipped in, rather then made locally.

What happened to Luna and the Lagrange Points? Mercury?

Blackstar said:

The issue is that impact is combined with the lack of availability of gas on mars itself, as every loss of atmospheric gas is near Irreplaceable. Leading to mars being un-teraformable just due to lack of material on the planet.

The solar wind is a long term a thing yes, but it's effects have already happened/caused the current situation. Making the effort to counter it far harder as the atmosphere needs to be shipped in, rather then made locally.

Inventory of CO2 available for terraforming Mars - Nature Astronomy

There is not enough CO2 in the Martian system that could be mobilized — with present-day or near-future technologies — to provide enough greenhouse warming that could lead to the terraforming of the planet.

www.nature.com

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Sure, you have to bring in nearly 1 complete atmosphere.

But the reverse is true for Venus, where you have to get rid of 89 atmospheres. And lifting those out of the Venetian gravity well isn't going to be a trivial exercise.

10ebbor10 said:

Sure, you have to bring in nearly 1 complete atmosphere.

But the reverse is true for Venus, where you have to get rid of 89 atmospheres. And lifting those out of the Venetian gravity well isn't going to be a trivial exercise.

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Why do you have to haul them out of the well? Just fix CO2 to something that can happily sit on the surface of the planet and remove them from the gas mix that way? No need to haul it out.

10ebbor10 said:

Some of the claims made here are wrong, and while that does not matter for the quest, I am going to set them right in the name of scientific accuracy.

1) The Magnetosphere and atmosphere stripping. While it is true that Mars does not have a magnetosphere, this concern is greatly overstated. The process of atmospheric stripping occurs relatively swiftly only by geological timescales, as it happened over a time period of 500 million years (and during a period when the sun was more active than it is now). In the present day, and on a human timescales, it is irrelevant. The effort needed to counter the stripping effect is orders of magnitude smaller than the effort needed to terraform in the first place. If you can do the latter, you can do the former. On top of that, you have to consider that terraforming Venus isn't a trivial thing either. Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 90 atm, which means you need to get rid of rougly 89 atmospheres.

Edit : It should also be noted here that Venus does not have a magnetosphere either. What it has is an induced magnetosphere created by the interaction of the solar wind with it's own very thick atmosphere. If you remove that 89 atmosphere from before, you get the exact same radiation and atmosphere loss issues you would face on Mars, except more intense because Venus is located closer to the Sun (the loss is however mitigated a bit by Venus's much greater gravity).

Edit 2: And just for completeness sake. Titan too does not have natural magnetosphere.

2) Mars is easier to reach than Venus. The math on this is undeniable. Venus is considerably more massive than Mars, at 0.815 times the mass of Earth vs 0.107 times the mass of Earth for mars. This corresponds with a much deeper gravity well, and the little bit of altitude you win with an aerostat does not change the equation in the slightest. On top of that, there's also the orbital location. Venus is located much deeper in the solar system, which is a problem when you're bringing in supplies from the outer edges of the solar system, such as the Belt, Titan and Ganymede. There's some limited situations were Venus is slightly cheaper (direct, one way supply from Earth to Venus with lots of aerobraking) but the difference is practically neglible.

Now again, I'm perfectly fine with you declaring the other conclusions as quest canon. But it should be emphasized that they are not correct.

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My mistake there then, but the end result holds up IMO. Titan does not have a natural magnetosphere, but its atmosphere is also rich enough in nitrogen and thick enough to prevent irradiation when coupled with its sheer distance from the sun. At base, Mars has no more than maybe a scientific research station at this time in quest, and Venus was the main target.

mouli said:

My mistake there then, but the end result holds up IMO. Titan does not have a natural magnetosphere, but its atmosphere is also rich enough in nitrogen and thick enough to prevent irradiation when coupled with its sheer distance from the sun. At base, Mars has no more than maybe a scientific research station at this time in quest, and Venus was the main target.

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Titan does not have its own magnetosphere, but it is inside Saturn's 95% of the time, so it's fine most of the time, except during solar storms when the magnetosphere is blown past Titan's orbit. Similarly, Ganymede is well inside Jupiter's much stronger magnetosphere.
For the Mars thing, it's worth noting that ITTL Mars is the primary target for exploration - indeed, 14 space agencies have affirmed their goal to a landing on Mars' surface and have published a roadmap to it.

Why would you want to live on Mars though? Venus has 0.9g gravity and enough insolation that you can have a nice warm and happy Earth clone once you deal with all that pesky atmosphere. Mars is always going to be a small cold rock with about half the insolation Earth gets (max, usually less) unless you want to build giant, fragile, expensive, fragile, and fragile solettas (which are a bad idea for your lifeboat that's supposed to survive the apocalypse). With magic biopunk bacteria to start working on eating the Venusian atmosphere it's a lot more feasible than Mars imo.

Pempelune said:

For the Mars thing, it's worth noting that ITTL Mars is the primary target for exploration - indeed, 14 space agencies have affirmed their goal to a landing on Mars' surface and have published a roadmap to it.

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Putting a few boots on the ground for propaganda reasons and bringing home some rocks for the nerds to nerd out about does not a giant terraforming/colonization/backing up human civilization project make. Mars having some scientific outposts makes sense for keeping the nerds happy, but I dunno why you'd want to settle millions and millions of people there.

Pempelune said:

Titan does not have its own magnetosphere, but it is inside Saturn's 95% of the time, so it's fine most of the time, except during solar storms when the magnetosphere is blown past Titan's orbit. Similarly, Ganymede is well inside Jupiter's much stronger magnetosphere.

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A gas giant's magnetosphere is a mixed blessing, because it generates a lot of radiation.

Ganymede recieves enough radiation to make extended surface visits lethal, but Titan is better off.

Our theme song.

[X]Personnel: While this will mean more short term supply loss and more rationing until the Venerian supply ships come in, Titan is in the main self sufficient for foodstuffs and basic needs – the issue is more feedstock than basics. Skilled personnel in the meantime will allow more flexibility later on, as they adapt to life in the colony. Allows more options for technical skill development later on, supply crunch worsens early on.

[X]Personnel: While this will mean more short term supply loss and more rationing until the Venerian supply ships come in, Titan is in the main self sufficient for foodstuffs and basic needs – the issue is more feedstock than basics. Skilled personnel in the meantime will allow more flexibility later on, as they adapt to life in the colony. Allows more options for technical skill development later on, supply crunch worsens early on.

So what you're saying is that we need to ship part of the Venusian atmosphere to Mars.