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Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars | Defector (defector.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

By Albert Burneko

9:00 AM EDT on September 11, 2024

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

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[–] [email protected] 127 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (31 children)

This is a pretty embarassing way to open this article:

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

NASA legitimately has a plan for this, and no it's not crazy, and no it doesn't involve restarting the core of a planet:

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html

You just put a giant magnet in space at Mars' L1 Lagrange point (the orbital point that is stable between Mars and the sun), and then it will block the solar wind that strips Mars' atmosphere.

Otherwise cosmic rays etc are blocked and interrupted by the atmosphere, not the magnetosphere.

The confident dismissiveness of the author's tone on a subject that they are (clearly) not an expert in, let alone took the time to google, says all you really need to know about how much you should listen to them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (17 children)

You just put a giant magnet in space at Mars' L1 Lagrange point

Well, that's a lot saner than nuking the poles.

Doesn't seem like we're near technical feasibility, though - how would you power such a massive magnet in space?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

as masterspace noted NASA has actually given it some thought.

"This new research is coming about due to the application of full plasma physics codes and laboratory experiments. In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind."

source: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.amp

It also doesn't completely protect the entire planet just two critical points on the surface.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The linked article says the artificial magnetosphere would encompass the entire planet and points out this includes two critical places where the most atmosphere is lost.

So yes by virtue of it encompassing the whole planet it does cover those two places.. I suppose they wanted to specifically mention them