New Mars Forums

Hi all,
  Xenon is an attractive anesthetic on Earth but is little used because of its expense.  However, it is a side product of liquefying oxygen cryogenically which industries are likely to do on Mars.  Furthermore, it will be cheaper as Mars is some 80 degrees C colder than Earth which will significantly reduce the expense of cooling the air to liquid oxygen temperatures.

  Xenon is about as common on Mars as Earth (a bit surprising as much of it is formed by radioactive decay of plutonium which Mars formed much less than Earth).  There are 90 parts per billion (ppb) on Earth and 80 ppb on Mars.

  Here is some information on Xenon as a anesthetic:

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Xenon: A modern anesthetic

Dr Sanjay Singh

Xenon is well known as an inert gas filled inside incandescent lamps. Although, named after a Greek word ‘stranger’, Xenon is becoming less and less of a stranger for anesthesiologist. Knowledge of the anesthetic properties of xenon goes back to 1939, where Behnke and Yarborough investigated for the US Navy, the reason for mental effects in deep sea diving. Lawrence published initial experiments with xenon anesthesia in 1946. With a minimum alveolar concentration of 0.63, it is more potent than N2O. However, the extremely high cost (approx USD 10.00 per liter) has hindered its wide clinical application. Xenon was completely forgotten for more than 30 years since the early clinical trials in 1950’s, until Lachmann, Erdmannand their colleagues at Rotterdam rediscovered it in 1990. Since then, there has been a growing interest in xenon, especially in Europe and Japan, and two multi-centre clinical trials have been completed in the European Union.

Xenon belongs to the group of noble gases and is found in very small concentration in the air (0.0000087 per cent). It is manufactured by fractional distillation of liquefied air, which is obtained as a by-product during the process of pure oxygen production. After several separation processes, a purity of 99.995 per cent can be obtained; only impurity being O2 and N2. The production of one liter of Xenon consumes 220-Watt hours of energy. Corresponding to its rarity, xenon is expensive. The current world production of xenon is approximately 10 million liters per year.

Only 1.5 million liter per year is utilized for medical purposes, with half of this amount being used for anesthetic purposes. Xenon has been used for decades to study blood flow and gas distribution in lung although recent technical developments have expanded its use in magnetic resonance imaging. The resurgence of xenon as anesthetic despite its rarity and high cost may invite natural wonder in this era of cost containment.

There are three major reasons for Xenon’s popularity:

    * Pharmacological and clinical advantage
    * Its usefulness as scientific tool
    * Environment friendliness.

Pharmaco clinical advantage –Xenon exists as a monatomic gas under normothermic and normobaric conditions. Although virtually inert, the very large outer electron shell of xenon may get polarized and distorted by nearby molecules and permits xenon to interact with and bind to proteins such as myoglobin as well as bi-layer lipids. Xenon’s ability to interact with cell proteins and cell membrane constituents is presumably responsible for its anesthetic potency.

Xenon also inhibits plasma membrane Ca++ pump, an action similar to that of volatile anesthetics, which may be responsible for an increase in neuronal Ca++ concentration and altered excitability.

Franks et al found that xenon despite a relatively simple atomic structure, acts selectively by blocking the N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor. This NMDA receptor inhibitor is responsible for inhibition of nociceptive responsiveness of spinal dorsal horn neurons.

Xenon has been shown not to alter voltage gated ion channels in the myocardium, nor does it sensitises the myocardium to the dysrhythmogenic effects of epinephrine. Xenon has many properties of an ideal anesthetic gas. These include:

1. Non-inflammable and non explosive

2. Rapid induction and emergence due to its low blood gas partition coefficient (0.12), which is lowest of all known anesthetics.

3. Human minimum alveolar conc (MAC) value of 0.63 makes it suitable as an inhalation anesthetic in a mixture of 30 percent O2. It is 1.5 times more potent then N2O.

4. Sufficient analgesic and hypnotic effect in mixture with 30 per cent O2.

5. The absence of metabolism, low toxicity and devoid of teratogenicity.

6. Compared to another anesthetic regimen, xenon anesthesia produces highest regional blood flow in the brain, liver, kidney and intestine. Dangers of tissue hypoxia are greatly reduced. It therefore appears to be an interesting alternative for anesthesia in transplant surgery.

7. It may protect neural cells against ischemic injury. During cardiopulmonary surgery its neuro protective effect is confirmed.

8. Undisturbed ventilation and pulmonary function. Despite higher density than N2O it does not alter respiratory mechanics. Airway resistance is not increased.

9. Lack of cardiovascular depression is the most appealing characteristics of Xenon. Even with 80 per cent concentration of Xe, Ca++ flow in human cardiomyocytes remains unaffected. Myocardial performance Index (MPI) and contractility, as measured by measuring the velocity of circumferential fiber shortening (Vcfe) and left ventricular and systolic wall stress (LVESW) using Tran esophageal echocardiography did not show any depression. The unique combination of analgesia, hypnosis and lack of hemodynamic depression makes it a very attractive choice for patients. Though its limited cardiovascular reserve, makes it expensive.

10. Diffusion hypoxia is less than N2O.

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More information can be found at:

Xenon as an Anesthetic

Warm regards, Rick

Hi bstvns139, everyone.
  Your questions are so vague I do not know what you are asking.  But if you are asking: "can you do anything strictly with in a planet's atmosphere that will change its orbit?" the answer is no.

  If you are asking: "can you do anything strictly with in a planet's atmosphere that will change its rotation about its own axis?" the answer is not really.

  To change the rotation of the planet you must move some radius from the center of the body (the planet's surface is fine) and fire mass off of it at an angle (90 degrees is best) at as high of a speed as possible.  This creates torque and will change the planet's rotation.  However the mass must LEAVE the planet.  If it falls back the angular momentum you have gained in the firing you lose in the impact.

  Now the not really part of the answer come up with you start dealing with gyroscopes.  Let us say that the body we are discussing is a spaceship with a gyroscope at the center of mass.  Let us say that the rotating part of the gyroscope masses 1/1000 as much as the rest of the spaceship.  If you start the gyroscope rotating 10,000 revolutions per minute, the rest of the spaceship will rotate in the other direction at 10 rev / min.  (You also have a bomb's worth of energy humming in the center of your ship.)

  Now the net angular momentum of the spaceship as a whole has not changed, but the outside of the ship is spinning!

  (c) 2008 Richard Wayne Smith
  HOWEVER, this has given me another idea that I think would work.  Let us say we want to make a tide locked body - say a moon - start to spin.  We build a giant accelerator around the equator that will spin 1 kg steel ball bearings around the planet at high speeds.  Spin the millions of these steel balls up quickly.

  Now the whole moon starts to rotate.  But it does not complete the rotation.  There is a mass concentration on the near side which keeps the massive side of the moon pointed at the planet.  But let us say that we have enough torque to move the moon 1 meter clockwise.

  Just when we reach the maximum displacement (which takes, say, an hour to do) we send those millions of steel balls into tens of thousands of side loops off our accelerator and reverse the direction.

  The moon swings back because of gravity (its tide locked after all and we are no longer forcing it off center) AND it swings a bit further.  It goes 2 meters counterclockwise.  About 2 hours after we reverse the direction of the steel balls, the moon reaches maximum displacement counterclockwise.

  Then we reverse the direction of the balls again.  The result is that an hour later it swings 3 meters clockwise.

  You can see what is happening.  We are building up a swing using the natural resonate frequency of the moon.  We are using a gigantic expenditure of energy to create a torque.  The interaction with the gravity of the main planet allows us to transfer this torque off the moon itself.

  This works like a child pumping herself up on a swing with out touching the ground.  It would not work if the body was by itself in deep space, anymore than a child could pump a swing without a gravity field.

  I think it could work in any solar system using the sun as a bank to pass the angular momentum to.  However, the weaker the gravity field, the less angular momentum you can pass and the more effort & time it would take to build up any sort of rotation.

  I'm quite proud of this idea, I've never read it anywhere and I think it would work.  Can anyone find a flaw in it?

  Warm regards, Rick

Hi workstation, everyone.
  The number I usually see quoted is 14 mBars.

  Rick

Hi Larry, everyone.
  Soil can be generated fairly quickly on Earth when lava flows are colonized with life.  Now, Earth has a lot of advantages Mars doesn't.  Some off the top of my head are:

- plenty of nitrogen for nitrogen fixing bacteria.
- birds flying over with droppings to speed things up.
- plenty of warmth and sunlight.
- liquid water.
- oxygen for faster, higher energy metabolisms.

   Mars has one advantage over Earth:
- Earth's atmosphere is CO2 starved which slows plant growth.

  Anyway, if conditions were ideal on Mars, (say a small area with lots of warmth, water, minerals, sunlight, nitrates, etc.) and we used lichen and bacteria & other life as conditions allowed, I think we could grow shallow soils in thousands of years not millions.

  If you are talking about having soil EVERY WHERE on Mars, I don't think millions of years is long enough since most of the planet is likely to be a desert even if very optimistic terraforming scenarios.

  A question to the list.  Does anyone know of studies that say how long it takes soils to form.  Hard numbers are always better than opinions.

  Warm regards, Rick

Hi all,
  Very little (read almost none) radioactive material is at the core of Earth or Mars.  The rare earths (which include Uranium et. all.) are silicon loving elements that are concentrated in the crust.  The elements that reach the core are the ones that love iron.  These are especially, iron, nickel, sulfur (on Mars) and the elements that can close pack with these under pressure.

  The majority of the heat in the core does not come from radioactivity but from gravity.  Specifically the potential energy released when dense materials drop in the gravity field and get closer to the core.

  One way to add heat to the core would be to dig a mohole, say, 1 km wide and 50 km deep.  Then fill it with pure iron.  The mass of the iron would be so high it would crush the rock under it forcing its way downwards.  As this mass of iron sinks, it gets hot (mass dropping in a gravity field releasing potential energy)  As the iron sinks out of sight, keep adding more iron.

  There will be earthquakes, the crushed and heated rocks will be shoved sideways.  With enough time, volcanoes will erupt (either thru our mohole or near by).

  If you invent some scheme to get radioactives to sink deep, the best you can likely hope for is the lower mantle.  (Not that I think that there is ANYTHING WRONG with the lower mantle.  Some of my favorite parts of the Earth come from the lower mantle.)

  Warm regards, Rick

Hi Spatula, everyone.
  I was rereading some old post and saw Spatula's comments above.

  The Ideal gas law is:

    PV = nRT

where
P is the absolute pressure,
V is the volume of the vessel,
n is the number of moles of gas,
R is the universal gas constant,  (R =  8.314472   J·mol−1·K−1)
T is the absolute temperature (degrees K).

(The ideal gas law assumes that gas molecules bounce freely off of each other.  Real gases have slight molecular forces but these are very, very small, the ideal gas law works very well under a wide set of circumstances.)

Anyway, I have a question Spatula, why do you say that a thick atmosphere would lose mass to sputtering more slowly.  At the edge of space the atmosphere will be equally thin and have a considerably larger area so I would assume that the (slow) sputtering would be faster, not slower.  Considering the Ideal Gas Law, I don't see any reason the rate would increase with the thicker atmosphere.

Warm regards, Rick.

Another fine post by Midoshi which discusses CO2 levels and plants.

Examples of plants at high CO2 levels.

Rick

Hi Nickname.
  It should not.  The inferno in Apollo 1 was caused by pure O2 at
slightly above ambient pressure (16 pounds per square inch).  The
gas mixture I picked had the same partial pressure of O2 as Earth's
sea level. 

By the way, I assume you do not literally mean self combust.  The
O2 won't burn with O2, it needs some sort of fuel.

Now fires in pure O2 burn a bit hotter.  One use of a buffer gas is
to lower the flame temperature because this gas that is not adding
to the flame energy will absorb heat to warm it up. 

CO2 takes a bit more heat to warm it than N2 (more vibration modes
in the molecule) but there is less CO2 (in the above suggested atm)
than Earth's sea level N2. So likely the atmosphere suggested above
would have slightly higher flame temperatures.  However, I can't
see the flammability of things being orders of magnitude more
combustible.  The key point in the Apollo 1 fire was that there was
5-6 times more O2 than normal.  The above atmosphere, has 1
times the normal (sea level) O2.  Look at the partial pressures of the
gas components and not their percentages.

Now the air mixture does not have to have that much O2.  We can
breathe lower partial pressures of O2 and if we pick a mix that say
has 50 mbar less, then fires should be slightly less likely to spread
than sea level fires on Earth.

(I am a bit out of my area here.  Can someone comment on my
educated guesses?)

Rick

Hi Nickname,
  This won't work.

  The launcher is sitting at the equator and launches east.  The momentum is conserved so while the projectile (light) is moving east very fast, the planet (heavy) rotates a little faster west.  When the particle reaches the other side of the planet the projectile crashes and slows down and the planet regains its angular momentum and speeds up.  Net result, zero.

  However the the particle was fired off at above the escape velocity, the planet would speed up to counter balance the torque supplies by the escaping matter.

  Perhaps speculations on spinning Ceres could be moved to the Ceres thread?  It is easier to find posts if they stay on topic.

  Warm regards, Rick.

"The Geology of Mar: Evidence by Earth-Based Analogs", Edited by Mary Chapman, Cambridge University Press, (c) 2007, ISBN-13 978-0-521-83292-2, 460 pp, ~$150.00.

I was so excited by this book that I bought it for full price rather than waiting a few years and letting the price drop.  I was hoping for a book that would be full of geological information that would be useful for people planning colonization.  There was not that much along those lines.

The book is divided up into articles that talk about strange structures on Mars that are hard to explain.  These are compared to unusual terrestrial geologic formations. 

The book is NOT easy to understand.  I have long studied geology and feel that I have more than an interested layman's grasp of the subject.  But I found much of the book a very tough read as technical terminology obscured what the various authors were trying to say.  Basically, they were writing for a professional audience.  Sadly there is not a glossary of terms, so I had to do some research to follow what was being said on several occasions.

Many pages of the book are taken up with scientific references.  The essays obviously summarize many people's work.

The book begins with a high level essay that explains our current theories for Mars' geologic past.  Then individual essays start carving away at the strange landforms we have discovered.  I'll summarize a few points I found interesting below.

Impact structures on Earth and Mars had nothing too surprising.  I got better formulas for how big a hole meteors dig on Mars.  One thing I learned is that some "sploosh" craters suggest that there were liquid water aquifers as well as permafrost when the rock hit.

A couple of chapters look at Martian volcanism.  Nothing too surprising.  There is evidence that some eruptions were modified by water.  Some cones that were thought to be volcanic are likely conical spring mounds where dissolved minerals build up a cone at lower elevations as the water evaporates.

The next chapter discusses flood lavas. On Mars, these go about ~10 times further and seem to have flowed faster than ones on Earth.  This is very strange as Mars is colder & has lower gravity which would tend to suggest it should have smaller, thicker flows.

I enjoyed the next chapter as it talked about rootless volcanoes.  I had not heard about these before, but they are formed when a lava flow goes over wet sedimentary rock and steam explosions create a local cone when the lava finds an area where it can dig into the lower rock.  When the water is locally exhausted, the mini crater stops.  Usually these are found in fields.  On Mars the rootless volcanoes are all found over the northern 'polar sea' area with the exception of one field found east of Hellas Basin.  They are larger and steeper on Mars than on Earth, because the low air pressure gives better explosions and the lower gravity allow the mixture of sedimentary and igneous rock to be thrown farther.

The next chapter talks about large strange mounds (layered terrain) on the floors of Valles Marineris and the connected Valles Candor.  There is strong evidence that these were formed by volcanic eruptions under glaciers 4+ km thick.  If they are caused this way, they are huge.  The typical layered terrain in these valles are 10,000,000,000 times the size of similar structures on Earth.  For example the Ganges Mensa Interior Layered Deposit is 105 km long and 4 km deep.  (It holds a similar volume of lava as the entire Hawaniian island chain.)  As has been seen before, Martian geologic structures are huge.

After a chapter they discuss wind blown land forms.  Mars has big dunes.  There are dunes composed of sand sized particles but they seem to move much slower than Earth's dunes.

The next essay they suggest that some of the gullies found on Mars are debris flows.  These are formed with loose rock is saturated by water (ice) which then melts causing a 'mud & rock' slide.  So many of the gullies on Mars are not caused by a trickle of water every year but a mass slump caused at rare intervals.  Debris flows in Jameson Land (Greenland) look very much like many of these Martian land forms.

Some outflow channels on Mars look much like Siberian rivers flowing over permafrost.  The erosion is caused both by water and the heat the water carries melting the permafrost.  The flows on Mars were very large compared to the Lena river in Siberia.

The chapter on Cataclysmic flood channels was interesting but I knew most of it already.  They pointed out that we have found signs of catastrophic floods on Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan.

The geology of playa's (dried lakes) are discussed which concentrate minerals in a variety of ways.  Some land forms on Mars are likely to be playas.  (Paleoshorelines are found in many craters.)

The next chapter was very interesting.  It talks about very high altitude lakes in the Andies at over 6+ km.  These lakes get a lot of UV radiation.  I found that clear water allows UV to go fairly deep, but if the water is cloudy with biological biproducts it quickly stops UV rays.  Someone on this forum was asking how well water stops UV rays.  Apparently 45 cm of clear water reduces the UV flux by 1/3. 

They looked at bacteria, plankton and diatoms in these lakes and found that they showed increased UV resistance.  (But plenty had DNA damage from the radiation.)  The condition lakes are in now are similar to Martian lakes during the transition between the Noachian/Hesperian period of Mars history.  (At the end of the heavy bombardment and during the warm / wet period of Mars' history.)  A 5 year study of these and other high lakes is being taken by astrobiologists.

I learned about hourglass grabbens (valley like depressions caused by blocks of land pulling apart and a middle section sinking).  These were caused enmass as the Tharsis region bulged upwards.

The chapter on Geochemical Analogs & Martian Meterorites talked about how elements differentiate on planetary surfaces.  They suggest that some of the Martian meteors are low level KREEP basalts.  KREEP basalts are common in the Lunar highlands and are named after Potassium (atomic symbol K), Rare Earth Elements, and Phosphorous.  This is further evidence that there has been geochemical differentiation on Mars which will have created useful ores.

This essay suggests that acidic volcanic gases (acidic mists) may have broken up many rocks into the Martian soil.  It should be enriched with lead, bromine, antimony, mercury and arsenic since water has not moved these away.

Some clays such as saponite may be formed on Mars.  My impression is that this class of clays are rare on Earth.

The final chapter is how to do studies on Earth to get the most training and preparation for Mars missions.

There were no chapters on rock glaciers or geometric terrain tho both are mentioned in passing.  If you are curious about these formations, pick up "Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet."

I generally had a lot of fun reading this book.  Mars has so many strange features!  I am glad to have bought it as I don't have anything else like it in my library.  However, because of the cost, I would suggest that you ask your local university library to pick up a copy if you want to read it.

Warm regards, Rick.

Hi all,
  I bought a book, "The Geology of Mars: Evidence from Earth - Based Analogs".  I'll do a review of it later but I found in chapter 2 formulas for craters on Mars.  They are:

d= depth (km)
D= diameter (km)

For simple craters less than 7 km:
d = 0.26 D^0.67

For complex craters between 7 and 110 km:
d = 0.36 D^0.49

This is very different than the formula I used last post.  This book says that the formula for complex craters on Luna is:
d = 1.044 D^0.301
  ... which is basically the formula I found.

Using the Martian formula, we get a deeper hole (~7.6 km rather than 6.45 km).  My estimates for the amount of digging were very conservative so this strategy looks even more viable with better data.  (Note that this formula is only good up to 110 km diameters and we are talking 500 km for the first impacts, so there are still no guarantees.)

This also assumes that impacts this size would not cause massive volcanic eruptions.

Anyway, it's fun to think about.

Warm regards, Rick.

This is from the post near the top of this thread where I'm trying to increase the N2 partial pressure to the point where nitrogen fixing bacteria have enough N2 in the air to fix.

Note that if you halve the radius, you increase by ~8 times the number of asteroids that you need to move.  (Of course each asteroid is 8 times easier to move...)  Large impacts blow away bits of atmosphere, where as small impacts blow away zero to an insignificant amount of air.  So I generally suggest we move lots of smaller bodies than a couple big ones.

Under my "slow but steady" terraforming story above, I suggest it will take several centuries to get the partial pressure of CO2 up to 300 mBar.  But this is based on what the CO2 reserve is like, which is simply unknown.  My estimates were quite conservative.  If there is more CO2 than the minimum, we might reach 500 mBar in only 3 or 4 centuries.

However, even at 200 mBar, we should be able to enjoy lakes that freeze during winter. Many (most?) species of cyanobacteria are not killed by a winter freeze so we should be able to get a biosphere started in small areas quite early. 

Another assumption I make is that we make a push to warm Mars by 10 to 20 degrees and then seriously don't try to warm it more until we have a larger pressure of nitrogen in the air.  But this is an artificial delay so that I can talk more clearly about what happens at each stage.  (It also assumes that some administrations basically ignore terraforming for a while.)  There is no reason to think that after people get Mars 20 degrees warmer they will slow down.  If they keep pushing and get it another 30 or 50 degrees C warmer, then everything will happen much faster.

A lot of this delay is how long does it take the heat on the surface to work its way down into the subsoil.  If the surface is a lot warmer, the wave of heat moves more quickly, which will drive the CO2 out of the soil that much faster.

In summary, I assume in this series of essays that we have a slow and steady push for terraforming.  People do not aim for the final goal that is a long way away.  Instead they say, "forget the O2, I just want to be able to dump pressure suits.  Let's thicken the air some.".  The point is that it is hard for a government to aim for a goal that is 1,000+ years away.  But several subgoals exist that could improve the planet in significantly smaller time frames, which make steady progress on terraforming more likely.  (And Mars is so cold that increasing the temperature just a degree or three will be popular politically for a long time.)

Warm regards, Rick.