h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3162129.stm

"Russian scientists have announced plans to build a nuclear power station on Mars.

They say that all the necessary technical drawings have now been completed, and - after a few minor niggles have been ironed out - all will be ready for the construction work to begin."

We haven't got there yet so let's start making plans for really f**king it up...

Liam.

Well, it seems a tad... overambitious, doesn't it?

Though I dunno about "f**king it up." After all, it's not as though Mars has an ecosystem, yes?

True but with the Russian's implicable safety record it may be worth leaving the fissible material on earth. I can't work out how they're going to get the power lines back to earth though

Liam.

It would probably make things a lot safer But it is a bit over ambitious, like the chinese wanting to build a moonbase within the next few years without ever having had a man in space.

well, a moonbase in 20 yrs was also a story on the science bit as well.

And europe launching a solar powered moon explorery thingummy bob.

Anyway, they won't need a powerstation, they just need arnie to start up the martian atmosphere generator.

On a more serious note, I'm not too sure of the martian environment. If there is ice then perhaps they could use some sort of fuel cell device to generate leccy, otherwise they are a bit stuck aren;t they?
No evidence of coal, but or natural gas is there?

But it'll keep those meddling martians in check, won't it?

Akk Akk Akkkkk Akkkkkkkkkkkkk

Sorry, couldn't resist

Zantic

Well, It sounds perfectly logical to me, We need the energy...
And really, as Eagle 1 said, there is no ecosystem for us to muddle up...

But Something about it just doesn't sit right with me... Perhaps at least we should set foot on mars and check it out, you know, scope out the neighborhood before moving in...

Zantic,

oops,

The thing I find funny about all of this is one of the reasons for a base is to do research. The first thing they might find is that everything is radioactive ....

Wouldn't it be better to use coal?

To say that Mars doesn't have an ecosystem is not true. It's just we haven't found one yet. We are still finding new forms of life on earth in places we didn't think possible (eg: Hydrothermal Vents etc) so no one really know what to look for on other planets. It's like standing in a field of wheat looking for grass if you know what I mean.

"To say that Mars doesn't have an ecosystem is not true"
We have no evidence that this statement is true or false but its probably false.(Mars probably has no ecosystem.)
We have no evidence that Life exists on any other planet, rock or moon than the Earth. So to say we find it here (on Earth) in unusual or precarious places has no meaning in relation to Mars. Life probably exists elsewhere in the Universe but until a second example (after Earth) is discovered we cannot rule out the possibiliy that the Earth is unique. Show me a second and we can extrapolate millions more, but... not until we find life elsewhere.

"Show me a second and we can extrapolate millions more, but... not until we find life elsewhere."

Concidering that current technology can only show us planeys no smaller than jupiter outside our solar system, there might be an earth around the nearest star and we don't know it.

Suggesting that earth is unique is a rather 'flat earth' statement.

on topic, considering the sixe of some of the canyons on mars. Mars is probably much harder to mess up than Earth. The story says they want to put it in a canyon.

I presume their Martian design would be somewhat better than Chernobyl, being solely intended to make power safely, rather than producing lots of Plutonium on the side.

I'd also guess their technicians would have learned that shutting off the safety systems and playing with a reactor in the middle of the night isn't a particularly smart idea, especially if you really don't have anywhere to run to if things go tits-up.

>No evidence of coal, but or natural gas is there?<

Both require trees/vegetation/animals/crustaetians at some point in the planet's history.

Cleaner fission energy - without producing plutonium or other nasties. If we can do it on Mars why aren't we doing it on earth?

How about scooping up He3 from Jupiter's atmosphere at producing fusion generators? *wistful look to the future*

Liam.

"Both require trees/vegetation/animals/crustaetians at some point in the planet's history."

zactly, I was just going to post 'but no evidence of that' but thought I'd add the question as I am not a religious reader of martian surveys and may have missed something

Looking at the extreme circumstances that life can exist under on Earth does show it might be there on Mars. There seems to be no big herds of animals roaming the plains, but there might be smaller things. We have only scratched the surface in a few places, not enough to say wether there might be some single cell life on there. I don`t even think we should send humans there untill we know more. Let alone something that could cause an exctinction event like a nuclear power plant.

Xanatic, we are talking about a massive search that could take ummm... a long time.

Not that I am opposing your ideas, I definately think we should learn more about mars before we set up shop there...

But look at all we know about Earth- there are still tons of species of animals we haven't even discovered yet of course!

"there are still tons of species of animals we haven't even discovered yet of course"

can't help but wonder if there is a problem with the logic there

Yes, but on Mars we have hardly done anything. How many probes have we had down on the surface? Can`t be more than ten. Let`s get some more in different places before we make any presumptions.