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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] 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] 3 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] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

as masterspace noted NASA has actually given it some thought.

Just because people talk about something at one conference that doesn't make it real, feasible, happening, etc. As the actual people said, it's "fanciful". It's literally just people talking. It doesn't matter where they work.