Re:Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth ...
by NortySpock on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @01:57PM
(#22537782)
Plus Mars has an atmosphere (95% CO2, 3% Nitrogen, 2% Argon, 1% other at 1% of Earth atmospheric presure IIRC), which the Moon utterly lacks.
Compress that into a tank and you can chemically (or biologically) convert that into an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere to breathe.
Re:Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth ...
by Someone on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @01:32PM
(#22537483)
On the minus side, Mars gets less than half the amount of sunlight per square meter.
Re:Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth ...
by CydeWeys on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @02:39PM
(#22538191)
That's true, but I think the fact that you get light reliably every day is still a big point in its favor. It's probably a lot less mass total to send up twice the solar panels and 18 hours' worth of batteries vs half the solar panels but 16 days' worth of batteries. Solar panels are pretty light; batteries are not.
Mars is better for solar power because you won't need nearly as much battery capacity, as you get light on a ~24 hour cycle same as Earth. The Moon with its slow rotation is much more challenging.