/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9497406]

Okay, so how exactly is Mars colonization possible with 100-150 days travel time one way?

If just one ship has an accident the entire plan goes to hell. With no way to help your colonists.

[Anonymous No.9497435]

You hope there isn't an accident.
What a dumb question op

[Anonymous No.9497444]

>>9497406
>Mars colonization

[Anonymous No.9497445]

>>9497406
It's almost like we can be aware ahead of time that something might go wrong and have backup plans in case of it.

[Anonymous No.9497457]

>>9497406
There's more than one BFR heading that way at a time, and the launch window is big enough during the proper Earth Mars position that IF a cargo BFR failed, they could emergency launch another BFR or 18 FalconHeavy cargos at them.
IF it's a passenger BFR, then yeah, great sadness for all involved and supporters.
But we will prevail.
>https://endlessspace2.bandcamp.com/track/together-to-the-stars-united-empire-theme

[Anonymous No.9497472]

>>9497406
Just keep throwing people at mars until some make it. It worked for the polynesians.

[Anonymous No.9497485]

>>9497457
A 2nd BRF doesn't help.
Unless launched within minutes of each other(OK, maybe a few hours depending on maneuvering reserves) there is no way for them to rendezvous.
The real world isn't Buck Rogers or even The Expanse. You have a failure between worlds and that is the end.

The passengers die. Their orbit would be accurately known millennia into the future and someone could recover the freeze-dried corpses and maybe the cargo in a century or two.

[Anonymous No.9497518]

>>9497485
Oh, I wasn't talking about a rescue mission, I was talking about replacements.

[Anonymous No.9497535]

To be fair tons of people died on the Atlantic trying to colonize Americas. The only problem will be internet haters shitting on SpaceX the moment someone dies. Because someone will die at some point.

[Anonymous No.9497546]

>>9497406
>if one ship has an accident
Yeah no shit that's why you don't have an accident. The ISS doesn't spontaneously combust after a few months on its own, does it?

[Anonymous No.9497574]

>>9497518
Well, more men (sorry, people) can always be sent. But if the disaster occurs when ship 246 has been underway for two months, the planets will have moved out of position for a minimum energy mission. The colony on Mars may have to wait up to two years for replacements to arrive.

>>9497535
People will die colonizing Mars. One difference between America and Mars, however, is the immense cost of the journey. Expeditions sent across the Atlantic were supposed to return profits to the stockholders back in Europe. Tobacco, gold, furs, etc. Mars will be a looooong time before it's profitable. Musk is only trying because he believes in the project and can afford to lose a bundle. But even his dough can't keep it up indefinitely. He'll need investors. And they'll get discouraged by too many failures even if they also believe in the vision.

[Anonymous No.9497591]

>durr we can only do space travel if everything is perfect and nobody has their feelings hurt or dies

[Anonymous No.9497628]

>>9497406
>how exactly is Mars colonization possible
It isn't.
see
>>9497444

[Anonymous No.9497629]

>we live in an age where authorities will demand an ethnically diverse crew for space colonization, and not just one token black who dies first

[Anonymous No.9497638]

fucking babbies believing starman is actually out there. Can we please get a sci-fi board and leave the real science to the adults.

[Anonymous No.9497640]

>>9497629
This is why China must get to Mars first, the race-realist bastards they are.
Han Chinese, best Chinese!

[Anonymous No.9498279]

>>9497406
>If just one ship has an accident the entire plan goes to hell. With no way to help your colonists.
that's actually how most of early sea exploration was done, sometimes with much longer travel times and much less chances to get help

[Anonymous No.9498331]

>Mars colonization
No magnetic field
>Then what about Venus-
NO MAGNETIC FIELD

The problem of getting to Mars isn't as big as you'd think, as long as we throw enough money at it, it wouldn't be overly challenging. The problem is ensuring they actually survive after arriving. The only way you're colonizing Mars without all the colonists dying is if you build a big fucking transparent dome over a crater and fill it with O2. And it sure as hell better be able to withstand the sandstorms.

They could temporarily live in inflatable pods or something while they build the main colony. But you'd seriously need a LOT of people to do that kind of shit. The more realistic option is simply to send over robots to build automated factories and have them build the whole colony before you get there.

[Anonymous No.9498336]

>>9498331
>only way you're colonizing Mars without all the colonists dying is if you build a big fucking transparent dome over a crater and fill it with O2

nopey nope nope, even if youre such a retarded idiot to ignore the poosibilitie of tunnels, there are natural lava tunnels, so all of you rknowledge is invalidated

[Anonymous No.9498374]

>>9498336
Underground tunnels are viable, but they have their own problems. The benefits of a dome colony are:

-Psychological benefits of being able to see the sky
-Sunlight is readily available to grow plants without spending any extra energy
-Greenhouse effect of the dome reduces energy cost of maintaining a habitable environment; you could even just build mirrors outside focus more sunlight into the dome for passive heating

Though giving it more thought, there's no reason they couldn't do both; using the domes for residential purposes and the tunnels as industrial space, emergency shelters, etc.

[Anonymous No.9498380]

>>9497406
That's how long early colonists were stuck on tiny wooden boats with poor food supplies and lots of disease. It's honestly not that bad.

[Anonymous No.9498387]

>>9498374
>MARS WILL NEVER BE POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF THE REASON I THOUGHT UP IN 5 MINUTES
>after thinking about it another 5 more minutes i know think it may be possible

geee anon, think about what several teams of experts from the most prestigious universities could do if they thought about it... ONE WHOLE HOUR

[Anonymous No.9498391]

>>9497406

[Anonymous No.9498393]

>>9498331
>NO MAGNETIC FIELD
Is this actually a danger to human health, or just a technical problem? At least Venus has a radiation shielding atmosphere. Roughly the same factor as Earth's sea level at habitable height (50 km).

[Anonymous No.9498409]

>>9498393
Not really. IIRC the factored in effect on lifespan and health is predicted to be similar to an average smoking habit, and once an ionosphere is established this essentially goes away. It just mostly assumed that a lack of a planetary magnetic field will lead to atmospheric and ionospheric erosion, but it lands squarely closer to a geological timeframe than any relevant to human life.

[Anonymous No.9498416]

>>9498374
>being able to see the sky

On Mars, the radiation is high enough so that if you can see the sun through glass, you are irradiating yourself. Prolonged exposure means cancer. It is the same reason astronauts on the ISS don't spend much time inside the Cupola with the windows uncovered, though that has far more radiation than what would be on Mars. 30 µSv per hour minimum on Mars is nothing to sneeze at.

[Anonymous No.9498431]

>>9498393
It's not really a problem of human health. No magnetic field means the atmosphere will get blown away by the solar wind. Venus and Mars are both covered in CO2 because CO2 is a heavy gas that is more resistant to getting blown off; there's a reason Earth has Nitrogen and Oxygen while all the other planets are covered in CO2 and hydrocarbons. Technically, Mars and Venus COULD be terraformed, it would just take a lot of time and effort. But, in the long term, it would be a complete fucking waste of time, because the sun will just blast away the habitable atmosphere you worked hard to create. You'd get a several thousand years, perhaps a few tens of thousands of years tops before everything went to shit again.

Technically speaking, we could build radiation shields up in space to block the solar wind, but how much material and how large would such a thing need to be to shield an entire planet? It's a waste of time to terraform planets without magnetic fields.

[Anonymous No.9498443]

>>9498416
>Cupola with the windows uncovered, though that has far more radiation than what would be on Mars.
wait, just so were clear. The iss gets more radiation than mars surface?

[Anonymous No.9498444]

>>9498416
>30 µSv per hour minimum on Mars is nothing to sneeze at.

That's compared to Earth's 0.707µSv per hour for the average person.

[Anonymous No.9498447]

>>9497574
>what is redundancy

[Anonymous No.9498453]

>>9498431
I consider terraforming a pipe dream anyway. Absolutely monumental proposition when we can't even agree what do to about our emissions and climate at home. I'd already find it mighty impressive if we simply managed to establish stable life in underground tunnels on Mars or in floating balloon clusters on Venus.

[Anonymous No.9498461]

>>9498443
People also don't spend their lives on the ISS, only a few months of it.

[Anonymous No.9498468]

>>9498443
Directly, in the worst section of ISS, they get 12µSv per hour, but that's with shielding. The outside gets a shitload more obviously. Compare this to >>9498444

[Anonymous No.9498472]

>>9498431
>It's a waste of time to terraform planets without magnetic fields.
You're right, let's terraform those that do have magnetic fieds, for example.. uh.. yeah.

[Anonymous No.9498488]

>>9498472
>>9498431
Pipe dream indeed.

[Anonymous No.9498499]

>>9498468
>Astronauts are exposed to approximately 50-2,000 millisieverts (mSv) while on six-month-duration missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the moon and beyond.[1][2][not in citation given] The risk of cancer caused by ionizing radiation is well documented at radiation doses beginning at 50 mSv and above.[1][3][4]

>Related radiological effect studies have shown that survivors of the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear reactor workers and patients who have undergone therapeutic radiation treatments have received low-linear energy transfer (LET) radiation (x-rays and gamma rays) doses in the same 50-2000 mSv range.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceflight_radiation_carcinogenesis

>go to space they said
>it'll be fun they said

[Anonymous No.9498522]

>>9498488
>can we terraform Mars?
>is terraformed Mars better than non-terraformed Mars?
If the answer is yes to both, then we should fucking terraform Mars. It's simple as that. We don't need 1 atmosphere pressure, 0.08 is good enough. We don't need oxygen rich atmosphere to introduce basic life. No magnetic field? Who gives a shit, that'll be a problem thousands of years down the line.

Look for how it can be done, not why it's difficult. It's exciting because it's difficult. Don't be a sad cunt like thunderf00t.

[Anonymous No.9498540]

>>9498488
If we discard the requirement of reaching 1G, just bringing down Phobos, Deimos, and some of the larger objects from the asteroid belt down at the proper angles/sequence might be enough to soften up the mantle again and get the core spinning.

[Anonymous No.9498556]

>>9498522
>We don't need 1 atmosphere pressure, 0.08 is good enough

No, you need 1atm. 0.08atm would kill you. The lowest tolerable pressure is 0.47atm, but not for long term. Below 0.35atm you start to die immediately.

[Anonymous No.9498561]

>>9498540
You'd need to take both moons and slam them so hard into Mars that it'd be impossible to do. Like make both of them swing around a few planets for slingshot speeds.

[Anonymous No.9498565]

>>9498556
>what is breathing apparatus
The point of 0.08 atmosphere is to not have to wear a pressure suit.

[Anonymous No.9498648]

>>9498444
>>9498468
>>9498499
Wait a damned minute.

>30 µSv per hour minimum on Mars
>That's compared to Earth's 0.707µSv per hour for the average person.
>Astronauts are exposed to approximately 50-2,000 millisieverts (mSv) while on six-month-duration missions
>Directly, in the worst section of ISS, they get 12µSv per hour
None of these add up.

According to various sources the average human takes about 4mSv per year, which comes up to about 0.45µSv an hour.
From the above, a 2000 mSv dose over 6 months (180 days), gives about a 0.46mSv an hour rate, 3 orders of magnitude greater than on earth, but nearly 40 times more than 12µSv an hour suggested.
Similarly for Mars, Curiosity registered about 300mSv in 180 days, or just under 70µSv an hour average. (This is direct on the surface with no shielding besides atmospheric)

To top that off, a mock body showed that personal dosimeters on the outside of the crew's bodies gave doses about 30% higher than actual to the interior of your body. Giving about 9.2µSv an hour rate in the ISS.
http://spacenews.com/42294dummy-astronaut-shows-iss-crew-better-protected-from-radiation-than/

I don't have figures for dosages taken directly outside the ISS and with direct exposure, but I suppose you could figure a rough value for radiation abatement that you could apply to get a figure for how much radiation a person on Mars would be taking.

To top it off, NASA says average dose taken on a 6 month solar minimum (most cosmic radiation) is ~160mSv, for an average radiation rate of 38µSv an hour - similar to Mars atmospheric dosages.
https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/factsheets/pdfs/radiation.pdf


Tl;dr radiation is overstated, the risks are statistical and badly understood with little known of predictable biological effects, most of the assumed risk is actually in long transit times, and most data is either from direct exposure/the inside of an unshielded station that is primarily a medical experiment.

[Anonymous No.9498652]

>accident
Math prevents that from happening. If an accident does happen... well we will try again.

[Anonymous No.9498674]

>>9498648
>None of these add up.

No shit. It is mostly because there's several sources that list different things and to top is off they list them in different forms of measurement from rads to rems to sieverts. Also, your sources are wrong and you're reading some incorrectly.

[Anonymous No.9498681]

>>9498674
I'm doing the best I can in a 2000 character post.

[Anonymous No.9498709]

>>9498444
>30 µSv per hour minimum on Mars
>compared to Earth's 0.707µSv per hour
Remind me why do we want to live on this planet again?

[Anonymous No.9498727]

>>9498443
Nobody spends all their time in the cupola.
And the ISS is inside the vanAllens. (One reason touting it as "getting experience for going to Mars someday" is BS. There are other reasons it's an unrealistic model of interplanetary flight.)

[Anonymous No.9498770]

Wouldn’t it be easier to alter humans to be able to live in the martian environment rather than alter the martian environment to humans needs?

[Anonymous No.9498802]

>>9498727
>SS is inside the vanAllens.
isnt the van allen belt some kind of space radiation monster that apollo conspiracionist use as an excuse they could have never have gotten there?¡??

>>9498770
yes, surgically alter them to be martian rocks. boom, instant martian colonization

[Anonymous No.9499294]

>>9498431
Venus actually has more nitrogen than Earth it just takes up less of the atmospheric composition than on Earth.

[Anonymous No.9499313]

>>9497574
We should send tards first

[Anonymous No.9499316]

>>9498331
>Sandstorms

Fuck off Matt Damon

[Anonymous No.9499529]

>>9499313
Exactly. Just like we did with colonising the Americas.

[Anonymous No.9500002]

>>9498802
Van Allen belts discovered in '57 or '58. Satellites which orbit within them, such as geosynchronous sats, have to be radiation-hardened. And manned missions can't linger.

But they also protect anything within them. Beyond Earth's magnetosphere you get more cosmics. And if there's a solar flare during transit, you are in REAL trouble. A huge flare could even be dangerous in LEO. There are plans to evacuate the ISS, get the crew back into atmosphere if that ever happens.

>>9498770
At present, we can't do either. So which one would be "easier" is unknown.

[Anonymous No.9500011]

>>9497591
That's the right thing to do. People shouldn't be allowed to put their lives at risk like that.

[Anonymous No.9500015]

>>9498431
Venus has about 3x the earth's nitrogen. Magnets are a meme about as big as the van halen's belts that erupt spaceships into radioactive balls of molten iron.

[Anonymous No.9500054]

>Mars colonization
When are we going to colonise inland Greenland or Mariana trench?

[Anonymous No.9500060]

>>9498561
And what fuck up their stable orbits? Not calling you out, just feels like a slingshot with that much mass will take a lot of potential energy with it

[Anonymous No.9500076]

>>9498674
>>9498648


here are space radiation figures as measured along with commentary, I have no specific source as it is from my memory based on lots of sources, but it should be very reliable:

Earth surface: 3.0 mSv/yr (13% cosmic rays, most important protective factor is our atmosphere, NOT magnetosphere, hence why radiation increases significantly with altitude)

International Space Station: 160 mSv/yr - 320 mSv/yr (solar maximum - solar minimum, large part of the sky shielded by Earth, a lot of this dose is due to south Atlantic anomaly, basically part of an inner van Allen belt dipping into low orbit, space station in equatorial low orbit would evade this anomaly, meaning very low radiation levels almost approaching levels of some regions on Earth!!)

deep space: 670 mSv/yr (95% cosmic rays)

Mars surface: 220 mSv/yr (half of sky shielded by the planet, weak atmosphere provides only negligible shielding, similar radiation figures apply to Moon or most other bodies in space without thick atmosphere)

[Anonymous No.9500095]

>>9497445
idk man, never heard of something like that

[Anonymous No.9500103]

>>9500011
If it is their choice then absoulutely they should be

[Anonymous No.9501032]

>>9497406
Wow because that's never happened before and still worked out

[Anonymous No.9501039]

>>9498393
you might get cancer in your 50's if you're really unlucky

[Anonymous No.9501078]

>>9497406
We build 500 sea dragons and send the entire colony there at once.

[Anonymous No.9501081]

>>9498393
>Is this actually a danger to human health, or just a technical problem?
Yes. No magfield, no atmosphere.
inb4 meme L1 magnetic solar sail. No, digging is easier and better in every way.

[Anonymous No.9501145]

>>9498709
basically anywhere is better than earth now

[Anonymous No.9501154]

>>9501081
If we're building Martian & Lunatic colonies, an L1 magnetosphere generation station wouldn't hurt anything.

[Anonymous No.9501170]

>>9501154
>an L1 magnetosphere generation station wouldn't hurt anything.
it's resources and that could be spent on laser defense.

[Anonymous No.9501933]

>>9497444
>Muh jelly babies
Serious question, is there any real reason why space exploration would require people to live their entire lives on a planetary/lunar colony?
Consider this idea.
>Send equipment to mars
>Send manned mission
>Astronauts spend 6-8 months in transit
>Spend 2 years on mars setting up automated facilities/robotic construction equipment and maintaining it.
>On next closest approach astronauts leave just as new batch of astronauts are heading to mars
>Astronauts never spend more than 3 years (give or take a few months) in space.
>Eventually have an almost entirely robotic colony/research base with future manned missions simply being skeleton crews to maintain/repair equipment rotated every couple years.
>Maybe some astronauts choose to stay indefinitely and submit to studies on the long term effects on their health.

[Anonymous No.9501988]

>>9501933
When people say "colony" it's usually implicit that they expect it to be self-sustaining at some point. Otherwise it doesn't really serve its purpose of being a backup of humanity.

[Anonymous No.9501997]

>>9497472
>tfw Mars people will be thicc enough to make the trip and riccch enough to afford it

Truly the gods race

[Anonymous No.9502008]

>>9501988
>When people say "colony" it's usually implicit that they expect it to be self-sustaining at some point.
And it would be those astronauts that choose to stay and be studied and monitored would help the development of techniques to maintain the health of future colonists.
The first colonists would essentially be guinea pigs for healthy future colonists.

[Anonymous No.9502360]

>>9502008
Silly me, I forgot that technology solves literally everything.

[Anonymous No.9502385]

>>9500103
Suicide isn't allowed for a reason.

[Anonymous No.9502397]

>>9497406
You make a good point OP, its why we don't even have a moon base yet. You'd need to bring enough supplies and replacement parts that you could survive till the next ship comes, there's no way to bootstrap up into colony status, you have to bring the whole city with you, which is expensive. The only way to bootstrap something this big is with lots of robot Landers, send the supplies first, build the buildings first, then send the people, but even then things can go full XCOM on your ass.

[Anonymous No.9502400]

>>9497472
The Polynesians didn't have to bring their own air and radiation shielding.

[Anonymous No.9502402]

>>9497629
They don't do this shit with astronauts, they might have a token black guy but he/she/"she" (male), will be a qualified operator.

[Anonymous No.9503135]

>>9497406
>If just one ship has an accident the entire plan goes to hell.
Unless you build in enough redundancy to the plan.

[Anonymous No.9503303]

>>9498416
Just don't spend your entire life on Mars? Or cover the base with a few centimeters of soil?

Fucking ULA shills

[Anonymous No.9503996]

>>9497406
>If just one ship has an accident the entire plan goes to hell. With no way to help your colonists.
Scary, isn't it? Not a venture for cowards.

[Anonymous No.9504046]

>>9497444
What is the argument for the jelly babies thing?

[Anonymous No.9504075]

>>9504046
we know that microgravity is enough to give you bird bones and severely atrophy your muscles (including heart) in order of weeks and that is with serious daily workouts.
you can extrapolate what fucked up shit would it do to growing fetus just from going off the above
we don't really know what would one third of a G do precisely, but you can get the rough idea
bottom line, people born and raised on Mars will be either lanky as fuck or amorphous blobs, but either way, they will be so weakly built, they will most likely not even be able to go live on Earth

[Anonymous No.9504093]

>>9504046
They did some tests on the ISS and mammals can't even conceive in 0 gravity. Like the fertilized zygote simply does not develop.

Granted Mars is 0.3 Earth's gravity, but that's closer to 0 than it is to 1.

[Anonymous No.9505344]

>>9501170
Yeah, shoot those solar rails with lasers!

[Anonymous No.9505359]

>>9502400
The perils of their trip were arguably on the same magnitude, though. They travelled thousands of miles in fucking canoes. One rogue wave, one bad storm, one misshaped trajectory, etc would kill the entire "ship".

[Anonymous No.9505362]

One way makes things more expensive really. having a supply ship, possibly automated or with a rotated crew means the colony can get regular resupplies, If the colony has a launch platform, maybe return people home.

Ideally there would be 2 ships so there will be supplies every 50-75 days.

[Anonymous No.9505590]

>>9505362
>supplies every 50-75 days
Ehehehe, sure if you wanna spend 20% more fuel and longer flight time for resupplies at aphelion. Otherwise launch windows to Mars are every 780 days. Easier to strap a big package in Earth orbit and send it all off at once, and then they can pick it out of Mars orbit as needed.

[Anonymous No.9505634]

>>9505590
>throwing precious earth materials into god knows where with no way to replenish them

[Anonymous No.9505958]

>>9505634
In the prospect of achieving self sustainability. In order to build a log cabin in the New World you had to take an axe from the Old World.

[Anonymous No.9506003]

>>9504075
Wouldn't just raising the air pressure and increasing the oxygen content in a habitat alleviate this problem?

Something like 400 kPa and 25%?

Something like

[Anonymous No.9506176]

>>9506003
>t. early February 1967 NASA

[Anonymous No.9506185]

>>9506176
Hey, everyone started off as a brainlet.

[Anonymous No.9506207]

>>9506003
Why would raising atmospheric pressure in a habitat alleviate the effects of microgravity?
It wouldn't.

>>9505634
>no way to replenish them
What is mining metallic asteroids.
Luxembourg is already on it, doing the R&D.

[Anonymous No.9506216]

>>9504075
And that's why Venus colonization proponents are the master race.

Unless you wanna build half kilometer diameter rings in space and not bother with celestial bodies at all.

[Anonymous No.9506218]

>>9506207
Wouldn't the high pressure and oxygen force muscle growth, and in turn, bone growth?

[Anonymous No.9506233]

hey guys i just want to say this is a great thread and i enjoyed reading all of it.
have a nice day

[Anonymous No.9506234]

>>9506218
No, muscle only develops in response to use against a force.
No gravity = no force to push against = no muscle development.
High pressure air in a zero g environment would just cause your body to adjust to a higher pressure; which is dangerous as any sort of immediate pressure drop would cause your body to pop like a balloon.
If anything, you'd want a lower air pressure in a colony. Less structural strength needed for the Mars/Moon/Asteroid/Space colony wall to keep the air in.
And the only side effect from a lower air pressure, going by earthly examples in humans, is a larger lung capacity development; as seen the Himalayan peoples.

[Anonymous No.9506248]

>>9506234
But the oxygen?

[Anonymous No.9506259]

>>9506234
And yet another reason for the Venus master race. At about 55 km altitude you have an approximate temperature of 25°C, a pressure in the realm 0.5 to 0.7 bar, an atmospheric radiation shielding similar to Earth's, and an atmospheric density so high that a balloon-like structure will float simply from being filled with breathable air. The one downside is that the atmosphere consists in large parts of sulfuric acid, meaning you'd have to design your structures accordingly, but you could in turn process the atmosphere into water, hydrogen fuel and oxygen, and you could theoretically step outside in nothing but a hazmat suit and breathing apparatus.

[Anonymous No.9506385]

>>9506248
Ramping up oxygen percentage of a local atmosphere doesn't stimulate muscle or bone growth. All it does is make the subject "more awake / alert", that's why Vegas pumps oxygen into their casinos too keep people partying and gambling longer; then the moment the get to the hotel room, it's sleepy time as your energy rush ends.
Also, a higher oxygen percentage = easier to light shit on fire.
If anything, you'd just want to keep oxygen levels at Earth's summer time avg at 20.9%... or if you want your colonists to work like crazy before having some real heavy sleep; 22%.

[Anonymous No.9506390]

>>9506259
Isn't the Sulfuric acid gas at a lower altitude? Or is that what you're floating in in your breathable air zeppelin?

[Anonymous No.9506779]

>>9497406
See pic related

[Anonymous No.9507247]

>>9506390
There is a thick sulfuric acid haze between about 30 km and 50 km height, and thinner sulfuric acid clouds between 50 km and 70 km height. The lower atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide with quantities of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, sulfur trioxide, hydrogen, oxygen and water vapour in varying composition depending on altitude and therefore temperature and pressure.