/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4370880
No, it's once every 15-17 years.
Also, roughly every year, communication between Earth and Mars has to be done through relays which route it around the sun.

>>4019946
>I'm not quite as optimistic as Inurdaes about the timeframe
My version of habitable is more along the lines of 'as habitable as base camp Mt. Everest.'

>>3964346
Not all of Mars' atmosphere was stripped away. Much of it is frozen in the soil at the polar latitudes, or oxide rocks all over the planet. That's one of the main reasons for Mars' rusty colour.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/04/mars-south-pole-holds-nearly-an-atmospheres-worth-of-co2
.ars
Also,
>>3964310

>>3904414
>Start by devising a way to strip about 99% of the atmosphere away from the planet.
Bad baaaad idea. When you add lots of water to Venus it is going to want a nice thick atmosphere to eat it all up to create carbonate rocks. And besides, humans can live in 45 atmospheres of pressure temporarily if Mad Scientist's threads on ambient pressure habitats has taught me anything.

>>3816909
'MAY' be trapped in geological features.

And if that's the case then we should begin shuttles dumping CO2 from Venus on Mars and water ice from Ceres.

>>3618398
Where on earth did you read that tripe? Mars receives 47% of the solar radiation Earth does. harmful ultraviolet rays and other radiation would be further blocked by a thick atmosphere since Mars' 0.37Gs means the atmosphere is less compacted under gravity, resulting in 2.5x more atmosphere to go through to harm anyone. If anything it's entirely possible you'd receive less solar radiation on the surface of a terraformed 850 millibar pressure Mars.

5/5

An more on the caves:
>Possible New Mars Caves Targets in Search for Life
http://www.space.com/3632-mars-caves-targets-search-life.html

>The project team also aims to design robots that can explore caves on Mars after they have been spotted. Natalie Cabrol, a planetary geologist with NASA Ames and the SETI Institute, will be integral to this part of the project.

>Cabrol is a Mars robot veteran. Before Spirit and Opportunity were sent to Mars, she helped engineers perfect their designs by field-testing the robotic rovers in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

>The researchers may have to design more than one type of robotic cave explorer. "There are many types of caves," Cabrol said in a telephone interview. "It may be that we come up with one very versatile design ... or we might end up with several designs."

This is the last of the series of pics of partially terraformed Mars, from Orion's Arms.