New Mars Forums

bobunf

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ

Registered: 2005-11-21

Posts: 223

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

Mars has had a much different geological history than Earth as evidenced by the planet’s lack of a global magnetic field, and the apparent absence of plate tectonics for billions of years.  The different geological history suggests to me that geothermal is a less likely source of energy even than on Earth, and that Mars is likely to have a less diverse suite of minerals on the crust than does Earth.  A less diverse suite of minerals suggests that materials suitable for fission reactors are probably in less abundance than on Earth; not just fuel, but other materials for necessary components.

In any case, manufacturing a nuclear plant on Mars would be an immense industrial undertaking, requiring a very advanced industrial sector.  Even on Earth nuclear reactors are very big projects.

Fusion power doesn’t exist today and may never work. 

As for solar energy from photvoltaic cells: today, even on the Earth, the energy required to extract and transport the materials for solar panels, and manufacture, transport, install and maintain the panels; that energy approaches the total amount of energy retrieved from such photvoltaic cells.  Solar cells are like batteries that only work in sunlight.  On Mars there would be more difficulties around every aspect of extracting energy from such cells: extraction, transportation, manufacture, installation and maintenance; and, most importantly, solar insolation is about half that received on Earth.  It seems to me that it would be a near miracle to come up with any substantial net positive energy output.

Solar is not a complete impossibility because it would be possible to use a more efficient method of extracting energy from the sun than photovoltaic cells: using solar as a source for heating fluids to provide heat, power industrial processes and to generate electricity using something like steam turbines.  A colony on Mars should be able to manufacture and maintain a solar powered steam turbine electrical generating station much more readily than a nuclear reactor.

I don’t think wind power is a complete impossibility either, even though the density of the Martian atmosphere is less than one percent that of Earth.  The energy in the wind varies with the cube of the speed of the wind and the first power of the density of the atmosphere.  So if places could be found on Mars where the average wind speeds are about five times that of suitable wind power locations on Earth, the amount of energy that could be extracted could be about the same as on Earth.  Lower Martian gravity may make the construction of wind turbines less demanding than on Earth, and there would be no problem with bird deaths on Mars, and less concern about defacing thousands of square kilometers of the landscape with the sight and sound of huge wind turbines.

There might be other possibilities such as might be provided by some use of the very reactive top surface layer of the planet.

Energy on Mars will be a problem, but it seems like there will be a very large number of approaches to solving the problem.

Bob

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

The answer is Solar and later predominantly Gravitational.

Solar cause you need only several grams per acre in order to concentrate light using planar fresnel lenses or zonal plates.

Gravitational cause it is the most abundant and clear form... Remember www.paulbirch.net , see - "orbital rings...III".   He figures there that if we deorbit the Moon gradually using ORS ( orbital rings systems ) to deliver from the lunar orbit to the earths surface 6 000 000 000 tonnes of matter annually ( of which 1 000 000 000 tonnes already processed steel, aluminium, titanium...) we`ll satisfy all our energy needs and metal demand for 10exp10 years...

Why moon? Why not asteroids? All the goods including the food could be produced in space and delivered on planetary surfaces TOGETHER with the necessary energy...

The problem with Solar is that at the moment the efficiency we get from the solar panels we can easily make on Mars is poor, especially with an efficiency quotient of only about 10 to 20% also due to the distance that Mars is from Earth we get a problem that Mars just does not recieve much solar energy. Actually plans to terraform mars always start with how do we increase the sunlight Mars gets. Not to mention Solar does not work in the cold nights and of course is also heavily interfered with by dust storms.

Gravitational really just when is this miracle power source due to appear, we cannot even do fusion yet so dont expect what we can do in 1000 years to be able to help us now.

We almost agree that on surface the martian industrial energy should come from space

[b]Solar  - solar sail material lenses/mirrors in orbit or statite.

Gravitational -- WHAT kind of miracle you see , for god sake, in a hydro-power.  A water power dam is gravitational machine...

No principle difference between the using the potential gravitational energy of several hundred feet column of water, and the potential gravitational energy of billions of tonnes of ready consumer goods descended via kinda space lift from "hight" of dozens of thousands of kilometers...

holger2401

Banned

Registered: 2006-02-08

Posts: 5

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

All that is why I think it's a good idea. Mars will be where the next leaps can happen. It can be, given enough energy per capita, a true terra nova, where land taken is not taken away from someone already living there. It can be like the USA, except without the somewhat bloody past. (Though, to be accurate, 95% of all aboriginals in the USA died from disease, not war. But even so.) That, and having another, totally new planet for people is why for me.

I'm not exactly sure on population carrying capacity, but my WAG would be somewhere around 100 million - because of the resource problems and energy requirements.

More like Canada than the US. Wide, cold and barren countryside with a few big cities in more heavily populated narrow corridors. Or even more like Sibiria. I think Sibiria has about 20 million inhabitants and is about 1/4 of the landmass of mars. 100 millions sounds about right :-).
For that matter I don't think the mars could stand a resource drain like todays US on earth. Additionally, there is no China on Mars either from were all the cheap good stuff comes from. So, guess Mars turns out very much like Sibiria. People are crowded and lead a very modest live in crowded grey cities. Don't think the whole similarity between wild west and mars is appropriate either.

bobunf

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ

Registered: 2005-11-21

Posts: 223

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

Siberia has an area of about 10 million square kilometers.  The Earth has a land area of about 150 million square kilometers.  10/150 =  about 7%.  One-fifteenth, not one-fourth.

Mars has an area of about 145 million square kilometers, but there are no oceans or other open bodies of water.  Therefore 10/145 =  about 7%.  One-fifteenth, not one-fourth.

Bob

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

LO

The idea of limiting the population growth makes sense. If we want the quality of life for all people, then yes, the population shouldn't grow too fast. In K.S. Robinson's "Blue Mars" people could live a very long life due to a new treatment but another procedure forced them to have only 1 baby per family. The rights could be bought/sold. At first I felt it was weird and cruel but then I thought it would probably be the right thing to do if the Earth's population reached 20 billion.

Before telling such things, U'd better take notice that world population projection by demographs has completly changed,
hardly up to more than 8 billion by 2050, and world population could decrease after 2050.
This because increasing urbanisation equalizes natality behaviour,
urban people do naturally limit the number of children to an average number of two, under the generation renewal rate.

You know why? Because the Male spends so much time in the city fighting traffic and the cars move so slow, that by the time he finally gets home, his wife is asleep, hence fewer children. 
2 children per family is under generation renewal because of accidental and disease losses.
Also take notice that Africa's population long range demographic projection has been made without AIDS devastations coming on.
Last thing, don't ever eclude burst of some pandemia...

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,267

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

an old topic

this was an interesting discussion on power requirements, disease and sickness, culture and education, history and nations and a discussion on population growth.

Popular in the video game word but the gamer physics cartoonish and not based on reality.

Terraform a planet in this survival game that looks like Subnautica on Mars
https://www.pcgamer.com/terraform-a-pla … a-on-mars/

The Planet Crafter Needs Room to Grow
https://techraptor.net/gaming/previews/ … er-preview
Miju Games survival game The Planet Crafter lets you bring an entire planet to life from the first-person perspective of someone on the ground.

After some degree of Terraforming, mass global warming pollutant dumped into the atmosphere to change the planet I would still expect Mars to be very very cold, it will have a long but cold 'summer' and what seems like a very very long winter compared to one Earth year of freezing and little warmth, atmosphere of Mars is already rich in global warming gas carbon dioxide but it is thin and you could dump pollutants far with far more warming potential than CO2,  dump C2F6, SF6, and NF3, Carbon tetrachloride with the chemical formula CCl4, liquid Carbon tetrachloride might have a boiling point too high to be useful 76.72 °C 170.10 °F it is too early to say if life is on Mars or not so changing it is a controversial subject other gas might have valuable water or oxygen use while some would be dangerous for the human colony and be deadly neurotoxins, Methane seems useful if we can get lots of farm animals there and get them to pollute by constant farting flatulence and use as a fuel.

Shorter lifespans in some regions on Earth

a 2006 article

'The Mountain That Eats Men'
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/200 … livia.html
Welcome to Potosí, Bolivia, one of the most polluted places on Earth.

I would expect some village Biosphere colonies to be unhealthy, another Biodome or Biopshere might have improved life due to innovation. Mars would still have some of the worst difficult hardships, if you compare it to difficulty people face in towns and countries of high elevation, extreme cold or dry deserts, in Chile, Russia, Canada, Italy, Finland, Alaska, Lesotho, Bhutan, Senegal, Libya, Kenya, Iraq, Somalia, Nepal, Argentina, China, Australia, Bolivia and Armenia or research at the South Pole Antarctica the people of Mars would face greater challenge but far better than life say 100 years ago, Cyborgs, Robots and AI might colonize first before the true wave of human immigration arrives.

Staying in a high altitude cold community on Earth is difficult and some early settlements might cluster around resources much like Egypt's population is around the Nile river, Antarctica's research science population is about 5,000 during the austral summer, and drops to under one thousand for the winter.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-03-30 06:08:07)