James Swayze wrote:
>
> John Thomas wrote:
> >
> > From today's "Salon" newsfeed:
> > >The right stuff for the Red Planet: At 35, Dava Newman's an MIT engineer
>
> A little off the subject but can someone explain to me why people promoting the
> terraforming of Mars still think it will hold a man made atmosphere despite the
> believed theory that it lost it's atmosphere in the first place due to it's
> diminutive size and thus lack of sufficient gravity? Don't get me wrong I want
> us to go there and I feel we could live there. I believe, though, we can only
> live there under a man made roof to hold in the atmosphere. I asked R. Zubrin
> this question. All he said was go read his book. Geez, was a straight answer so
> difficult? Perhaps he's only in it for the money as he was more interested in my
> buying his book than answering a question that couldn't have taken but a few
> words.
Yes, Mars would tend to lose its atmosphere, but the time constant is on
the order of thirty million years. Once you get it set up, the next
preventative maintenance visit could be scheduled for oh, sometime in
the next ten million years.
Also, an oxygen bearing atmosphere would not lose hydrogen at a high
rate- it would form an ozone layer, creating a stratospheric cold trap
which keeps the water vapor below. With no water reaching the
ionosphere, no photolysis and hydrogen loss occurs.
Megayear vistas don't make much sense with the Singularity bearing down
upon us...
-- Doug Jones Rocket Plumber, XCOR Aerospace http://www.xcor-aerospace.com
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