China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#71

Post by electrograv » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

adam-a wrote: post #37

MichaelApproved wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from. It takes nearly 2 years just to get to Mars. Also, China tends to be a fast copier , not a leader. They seem to leave the bulk of development costs to someone else. So I think it's unlikely that they will front the resources it'll take to make a Mars mission possible.

> China tends to be a fast copier, not a leader. What a huge generalisation. This appears to be true in the consumer electronics world perhaps, but look outside of that and it's harder to justify. For example, China has been building a lot of infrastructure in the past few decades, including the longest and highest bridges in the world[0][1]. There was a story on HN a few days ago about a Chinese company's plans to b…

I actually think that it's quite fair to criticize a "leading" achievement that falls apart or otherwise fails soon after.

For an achievement to "count", I'd make the bold claim that it has to actually work.

* However, I do agree that often to make progress you absolutely have to push your engineering "comfort zone" and try dangerous things, in order to learn from your mistakes. But this does not change my definition of "success", it just acknowledges realities of R&D.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#72

Post by angersock » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #60

Synthetase wrote: post #9

It's odd that any mention of Elon Musk colonizing Mars results in rapturous worship. Other efforts, China in particular, seem to attract scorn. Especially in light of the fact that Elon Musk's original plan was to send a greenhouse with plants to Mars. Perhaps I over-estimate the HN crowd.

>Perhaps I over-estimate the HN crowd. Perhaps this has something to do with China's absolutely atrocious record regarding: 1) The environment 2) The rest of the world 3) Human rights -- Is it really that difficult to understand that some of us have the foresight to realize that China's method of interfacing with its environment is not something that we want to see tarnishing a yet-untarnished planet?

Think of the verdant fields that could be reduced to red dust!

Truly, an environmental catastrophe. They could render the planet uninhabitable. :(

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#73

Post by hazov » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 5:59 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #16

vitno wrote: post #13

If China manages to do this, then we will have people on Mars in under 2 years. Competition from china is the only thing I can see spurring the USA into action.

Far from. It takes nearly 2 years just to get to Mars. Also, China tends to be a fast copier , not a leader. They seem to leave the bulk of development costs to someone else. So I think it's unlikely that they will front the resources it'll take to make a Mars mission possible.

That's true for gadgets and some other industries, engineering of some things that makes the world go on, like container ships and cars are another matter in which the West has long ceased to be the sole leader, even in design.

Aerospace and software are industries the West still dominates though. Since HN tends to focus on those this is a common impression for people here, it's not in some other industries.

I think the PRC do have technology and money to put things in outerspace in the near future, what they do not have yet is the know-how.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#74

Post by Symmetry » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #16

vitno wrote: post #13

If China manages to do this, then we will have people on Mars in under 2 years. Competition from china is the only thing I can see spurring the USA into action.

Far from. It takes nearly 2 years just to get to Mars. Also, China tends to be a fast copier , not a leader. They seem to leave the bulk of development costs to someone else. So I think it's unlikely that they will front the resources it'll take to make a Mars mission possible.

Also, China tends to be a fast copier, not a leader.

You could have said the same thing about the US in the first half of the 19th century, and look how innovative we ended up being by the start of the 20th. Or about Japan later on. Societies that are able to copy innovations quickly seldom have trouble generating innovations when they run out of things to copy.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#75

Post by bitteralmond » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

I hate to knee-jerk this one, but my first reaction to this is that it's probably propaganda. In the States a few years ago, there was an effort to create a self-contained ecosystem and it failed no matter how hard the engineers behind it tried. That China can suddenly say "Yo guys, we got it to work" out of the blue is suspicious at best.

Not to say they haven't got something half-functional. I'm just very skeptical that it's as great as they say it is.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#76

Post by svachalek » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #16

vitno wrote: post #13

If China manages to do this, then we will have people on Mars in under 2 years. Competition from china is the only thing I can see spurring the USA into action.

Far from. It takes nearly 2 years just to get to Mars. Also, China tends to be a fast copier , not a leader. They seem to leave the bulk of development costs to someone else. So I think it's unlikely that they will front the resources it'll take to make a Mars mission possible.

It may interest you to note that in 2012 China has a manned space program, while the U.S. does not.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#77

Post by takluyver » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

iwwr wrote: post #66

takluyver wrote: post #33

How well could this work? On the plus side (for plants), the Martian atmosphere is about 95% CO2. Even though the total pressure of the atmosphere is much less than our own, the partial pressure of CO2 is still about 20 times higher (erring a bit on the generous side). On the other hand, Mars is about 1.5 times as far from the sun, so the intensity of sunlight is less than half, and temperatures are correspondingly c…

If you have a nuclear reactor or extensive solar panels, you may just as well use it to split CO2 into O2 and CO (monoxide gas can also burned as fuel). Plant photosynthesis is rather inefficient if your goal is a breathable atmosphere. If the goal is biomass for food, then just call up Monsanto for a few space-dense crops. It would probably easier to oversize the powerplant (to generate oxygen, growlights, melt wate…

I agree, but I think it's still interesting from the point of view of food. As it takes months to get there, and months to get back, you probably want astronauts to be staying there for at least a few months.

Resupply from Earth is slow and expensive - especially when Mars is at the far end of its orbit. And as far as I know, we can't synthesise food artificially. Even if we could make some simple sugars, that will hardly keep the astronauts healthy. So I think growing plants would start to look quite inviting.

But I think the bigger challenge is getting anyone there in the first place. They'd need life support for months. I suspect you'd have to assemble something about the size of the ISS in Earth orbit, then send it across to Mars, and deploy landers to reach the surface.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#78

Post by jlgreco » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:47 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #72

blhack wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Perhaps I over-estimate the HN crowd. Perhaps this has something to do with China's absolutely atrocious record regarding: 1) The environment 2) The rest of the world 3) Human rights -- Is it really that difficult to understand that some of us have the foresight to realize that China's method of interfacing with its environment is not something that we want to see tarnishing a yet-untarnished planet?

Think of the verdant fields that could be reduced to red dust! Truly, an environmental catastrophe. They could render the planet uninhabitable. :(

Funny, but I think the actual concerns are more along the lines of "What happens if it works?"

If they accidentally unleash an Earth origin extremophile, it would have the potential to taint any any life that may already exist on Mars. This hypothetical life on Mars probably isn't of any real use to us, obviously it isn't megafauna or something, but it would be of unspeakable scientific importance. The chance to study live from an independent instance of abiogenesis.. I just can't find the words to describe how important that would be.

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#79

Post by omegaworks » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:49 PM UTC

takluyver wrote: post #54

mogrim wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although if you've got water (and there is water on the moon) and a nuclear powerplant generating loads of electricity, getting oxygen's not a problem.

It appears that you don't have much carbon, though (see 'Lunar regolith' on Wikipedia). So once you've got your oxygen generator set up, you may have to fly coal up there to burn for CO2. Once you're set up, though, you should be able to keep the carbon in a closed loop between humans, the encapsulated air and the plants.

Soylent green is people!

Re: China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

#80

Post by takluyver » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:49 PM UTC

jws wrote: post #64

takluyver wrote: post #33

How well could this work? On the plus side (for plants), the Martian atmosphere is about 95% CO2. Even though the total pressure of the atmosphere is much less than our own, the partial pressure of CO2 is still about 20 times higher (erring a bit on the generous side). On the other hand, Mars is about 1.5 times as far from the sun, so the intensity of sunlight is less than half, and temperatures are correspondingly c…

Mars is about 1.5 times as far from the sun, so the intensity of sunlight is less than half Don't break out the nukes yet… No cloud cover is going to push up the average insolation, plus a thinner atmosphere will absorb less. Dust will bring it back down some amount. Temperature could be handled with insulation. Aerogel might be good here. A thin layer of glass sufficiently hard to survive the blowing dust and then a…

I think the light would be sufficient for plants, but I don't think insulation would be enough without a heat source. Now, you could lug loads of chemical fuel all the way from earth, or...

Break out the nukes ;-)