No.
Impossible. It’s filled with violent hairless apes that destroy everything they build.
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The surface pressure of Mars is about 6 mb, compared to about 1000 mb on Earth. Winds won’t be a problem, despite what The Martian says. Many other things will be, however.
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The danger of Mars dust storms is greatly exaggerated.
The storm that opens The Martian is preposterous, a deliberate exaggeration for dramatic purposes. The author knew that, but used it anyway.
(And I might’ve given him that one if he hadn’t pulled the “Mars’ atmosphere is so thin I can use a tarp to protect the front end of the MAV during powered ascent.” You can have one or the other, but not both, dammit.)
Mars has very large dust storms that sometimes expand to cover the entire planet, and wind speeds can reach a brisk 60 mph or so, but the Martian atmosphere is so thin (surface pressure 0.6% of earth’s) it has almost no force behind it.
Martian dust storms are dust storms, not sand storms, because the Martian wind only has enough force to lift very fine dust particles, but not the heavier sand grains.
Can’t even pick up sand grains.
Will definitely NOT be blowing over any buildings. (-:
The worst part of the dust storms is the way those fine, electrostatically-charged dust particles go everywhere and stick to everything.
Really annoying when you depend on solar arrays.
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This paper is 17 years old. Lots of new information, specifically about perchlorates in the soil, has come to light since.
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Of which I am aware. Have you looked at the concentrations of those perchlorates and do you know their toxicology? Because I do, and I have, and they sound scary but nope, get over it. Not a real hurdle, just a 10c scaryword.
Totally fine for use in ‘farming’ especially after we wash out the rocket fuel.
Your link shows that monocellular life is unlikely to remain in surficial soils, due to an extreme environment, hostile to all life we know. Nothing to do with processed soils and their suitability for terrestrial crops - which was the focus of my link.
Good evening.
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I agree with you.
Radiation and lots of it.
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The question was “Isn’t the soil poisonous?” Not “is it an insurmountable hurdle?” The answer to the question as posed is yes, hence my response. If you’re an expert, why are you posting largely irrelevant seventeen-year-old papers as evidence for your position, only posting a relevant, somewhat-up-to-date citation after you’d been called on it and realized you needed to run to Google?
“Good evening” right back atcha.
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Mars: the ultimate gated community. Just don’t forget to bring along plenty of servants, the lead time for hiring new help is a killer.
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Not to mention a miserable hermetically-sealed dystopian existence. Sounds like a nightmare to me.
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I didn’t think I could love Jeff Goldblum more, but now I do.
*Mars needs the people Elon happens to pay the salaries of
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s entirely true!
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Too bad. I still love him, though.
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Needs?
No, it doesn’t.
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Then don’t go there.
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Oh those evil kulaks capitalists!
Anyone who ever invents or manufactures things is apparently irredeemably evil now.
I’ll just point out that after co-founding PayPal (which, I assume, most of you have used at some point to conveniently purchase stuff you wanted), Musk made out with something north of USD 100.000.000. He could have easily spent the rest of his life on a private yacht in the Caribbean. Instead he poured that money into two projects, one aimed at making a major dent in the carbon footprint of the transportation sector and the other aimed at finding a backup planet for humanity. What an asshole.
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