Thread by @BobKoinonia

#Mars
It is realistic to think about human habitation on Mars, or the Moon for that matter? The answer is NO, &, potentially, YES.
Let me explain.
GCR's or Galactic Cosmic Ray bombardment, basically prohibits a 12 month flight & 18 month stay on Mars.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_th…

The reason for this is the lack of a protective Magnetosphere, which Mars lost about 4.2 Billion years ago, resulting in the subsequent loss of most of it's Atmosphere, a portion of which migrated into the surface of the planet itself. However, that's not

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospher…

..not the end of the story.
It is now technologically feasable & doable, to create an artificial Magnetosphere for Mars by building & stationing a giant figure 8 (known as a Lemniskate) Magnetic Field of approx. 86 Teslas, at a location known as Mars L1.

medium.com/our-space/an-a…

Looks like @NASA is on the case & very likely the reason for a patent they recently submitted pn a mini fission reactor, which is what would be required to power it, at least initially.

phys.org/news/2017-03-n…

#Moon
The moon presents precisely the same problem for any kind of extended human habitation.
Mars L1 is a gravitational balancing point well out from the planet. The Moon would require something entirely different, & we don't want to mess with the Earth's Magnetosphere.

For the Moon one might imagine simply a series of smaller mag field generators in close orbit encircling the moon as required to generate an artificial Lunar Magnetosphere. Powering them could be challenging, maybe giant unfurled solar arrays or vacuum e?

large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/p…

Summary
The ability to be & to remain the dominant force in Space Exploration & "Winning the Space Race" (against China), for the remainder of human History, rests with whoever establishes the conditions suitable for sustained human habitation.
Always begin with the end in mind.

A Miracle Awaits.
Once Mars has its "planetary shield generator", water would resurface, interact with the Martial soil & release whatever remaining atmosphere had migrated into the soil 4 billion years ago. Atmospheric pressure would rise & the Martian sky would soon turn blue.

@threadreaderapp "unroll"

No, that's not right, since the moon base isn't going to cover a large section of the moon & will exclude the dark side. All that would be needed would be a "domed" area of protection over the base & launch area. Large-tall towered mag field generators or something like that?

@elonmusk 👆

Another "vision" just presented itself to me thought I'd share.

To enhance the efficacy of mag shield, can sprinkle in metalic elements & do what we all did with magnets as children, but if possible try to use rainbow colors. Images of it would be breathtaking. ♾

Or not. Don't wanna block the sun, just for a pretty display! lol

For the Moon Base Alpha, the field gen. towers could be comprised of rocket segments one landed on another? @elonmusk (can't tell if you're still included my twitter is f'd).

@elonmusk is thinking to himself, perhaps - you know, that's a good idea for a Moon Base, a "domed" artificial magnetosphere, but how could we possibly power it? Does @NASA have the plans for a mini fission reactor? Could we get that there on a "heavy"? A tethered solar array? 🤔