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To: Bobalu
Making electricity on Mars is easy, solar and nuclear...

No, it isn't easy. In fact, power will be the key limiting factor preventing the early and/or easy (much less cheap) attainment of permanent presence on Mars. Solar flux is half that of Earth's, meaning that twice the mass of solar arrays have to be soft-landed on a planet with twice the gravity of the Moon, so evaluate that multiplicative factor of four by the rocket equation. It's ugly.

Nuclear could provide the requisite power levels, except that a space reactor of appropriate size (10 megawatt-class) does not exist -- and won't for the foreseeable future.

15 posted on 04/14/2015 4:56:55 PM PDT by Cincinatus (Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam)
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To: Cincinatus
Solar flux is half that of Earth's, meaning that twice the mass of solar arrays have to be soft-landed on a planet with twice the gravity of the Moon, so evaluate that multiplicative factor of four by the rocket equation. It's ugly.

Or, soft-land something that will make solar cells using silicon from the Martian surface. We don't have such a thing now, but we will.

23 posted on 04/14/2015 5:42:30 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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