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[mainiac]

If I were a chemist working with dangerous chemicals, would you like to live right next to me or a few blocks away?

If a chemist were working with dangerous chemicals in Canada would you rather live in California or India?

[LordBaal]

If I were a chemist working with dangerous chemicals, would you like to live right next to me or a few blocks away?

If a chemist were working with dangerous chemicals in Canada would you rather live in California or India?

Obviously it was an hyperbole and not correctly scaled. 

[DJ]

Also, again, mars might potentially be terraformable, while the moon is not, at least for the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't solar wind just blow away any atmosphere faster than you can create it? You kinda need a planetary magnetic field for proper terraforming AFAIK. Sure, the process of losing atmosphere is fairly slow, but how quickly can you replenish it? Does Mars even have enough reasonably accessible atmospheric elements, or would you need to bring in ice asteroids? If you need those, where do you get them, Kuiper belt? How much would that cost?

Also, I think it's rather silly of Space X to work on passenger ships first instead of cargo ships. You'll need to deliver a LOT of cargo to Mars before you can expect people to survive there for the ~26 months between resupplies.

[mainiac]

If you can make passenger ships, you can make cargo ships.

And I believe there were comments last page regarding the solar wind.

[andrea]

If you can create a planetary atmosphere in a reasonable quantity of time, lack of magnetic field should not be an huge concern, im terms of atmospheric stripping. those are things that happen on larger time scales, not centuries. As far as I know.

And SpaceX is planning more than one version of the spaceship. Tanker and passenger, so I can see them building a dedicated cargo ship as well. It is not like it requires any particular designing. Just skip the life support and extend the cargo bay all the way to the tip.

But even without a separate design, the passenger ship can transport a lot of weight and if you are willing to use passenger space ( for the first few missions, for example) it can carry even more.

Basically, they don't need to build a brand new vehicle if they want cargo: what they plan already fits the role well.

edit:

If you can make passenger ships, you can make cargo ships.

yes, passenger ships are cargo ships with tons of complex machines and supplies inside. if you can make those, cargo is just a matter of removing.

[DJ]

If you can create a planetary atmosphere in a reasonable quantity of time, lack of magnetic field should not be an huge concern, im terms of atmospheric stripping.

That's a big if. An atmosphere would take a LOT of gas to make, how much infrastructure would you need to get that gas in a reasonable timeframe and how much would this cost?

[LordBaal]

Also, again, mars might potentially be terraformable, while the moon is not, at least for the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't solar wind just blow away any atmosphere faster than you can create it?

I think the estimates range around a few ten thousand up to some million years of solar wind erosion to strip away the atmosphere.

[andrea]

If you can create a planetary atmosphere in a reasonable quantity of time, lack of magnetic field should not be an huge concern, im terms of atmospheric stripping.

That's a big if. An atmosphere would take a LOT of gas to make, how much infrastructure would you need to get that gas in a reasonable timeframe and how much would this cost?

Indeed, terraforming is a tremendous effort which requires moving incredible quantities of mass.
What I was trying to say is that lack of magnetic field does not impact much terraforming plans, because if you can feasibly terraform a planet, you are greatly outpacing loss of atmosphere by solar wind anyway.

[DJ]

What is feasible terraforming, though? I sort of remember some estimates that it would take tens of thousands of years to gather all that mass, and at that rate solar wind losses can significantly increase the time it takes to make the atmosphere. IIRC the main issue was that there's simply not enough mass in all the Martian ice combined so much of the atmosphere would have to be imported. Or is there something in the martian rocks that can be turned into an acceptable gas for the bulk of the atmosphere?

[PTTG??]

Solar wind losses are a geological-scale issue. We can start with manufacturing an atmosphere now and worry about topping it off every 20,000 years or so later.

As for actually getting the atmosphere there, options exist. I personally favor polar asteroid bombardment, although asteroid winters are a bit of a problem.

[x2yzh9]

Solar wind losses are a geological-scale issue. We can start with manufacturing an atmosphere now and worry about topping it off every 20,000 years or so later.

As for actually getting the atmosphere there, options exist. I personally favor polar asteroid bombardment, although asteroid winters are a bit of a problem.

well I would like the idea as well but only if there are failsafe planetside to deal with such effects

[mainiac]

What on mars would such a failsafe even be?

[LordBaal]

I recall something about releasing gases from martian soil but can't really remember it.

[x2yzh9]

What on mars would such a failsafe even be?

I'm not sure, but I can postulate.

   If say you are bombarding it from the poles, then you need certain stations along the equator, possibly branching towards the poles. These series of pipelines and stations could be controlled from orbit along longitudes and latitudes. Then, before bombarding it, fill these stations with gas mixtures and coordinate the variables (meaning the geographical spots on Mars where the stations are placed, in real time.) And properly release them if and or when the asteroid winter(s) happen, there is equilibrium

[Dorsidwarf]

I think the rate at which mars loses atmosphere is about 3100 tonnes per year.

This sounds catastrophic and scary, but remember that industry puts out something like 7-20 gigatonnes of CO2 per year on earth, and we aren't trying to terraform the planet.