Phifteen Reasons phor Phobos phirst

Φiφteen reasons φor Φobos φirst On my todo list is a paper: "Phiphteen reasons phor Phobos phirst". It seems to be growing to "Phipfty reasons..."

A too-long summary follows:

Mars life would have diverged radically as conditions worsened, evolving towards biochemical "Life 2.0". Surviving molecular traces will likely be rare, but if we find them, they can add a long-baseline parallax view of molecular biology, greatly expanding the range of artificial bioengineering.

The hunt for those rare molecules might take decades, processing tonnes of candidate rock samples, but the long term economic benefit of artificial life that is mutually indigestible might be worth quadrillions of dollars.

Direct human exploration could preclude this forever.

A manned lander crashing into Mars after a nine month journey from Earth will carry many "human-poop-years" of gut microbes; "kilo-Avogadros" of bio-molecules, dispersed by impact and the Martian winds. Finding a few trace Martian xeno-molecules with that overpowering noise signal would be practically impossible.

Mars is a terrible place to live. A healthy habitat requires thick radiation shielding and near-one-gee centrifugal gravity. Ask Joan Vernikos, retired NASA biology leader, about "gee".

Recent research suggests that most "Martian polar ice" may actually be smectite clay with the same radar signature. See the July 2021 Geophysical Research Letters "A Solid Interpretation of Bright Radar Reflectors Under the Mars South Polar Ice" https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093618

Phiphteen reasons phor Phobos phirst:

A manned station on a ***Phobos pole***, controlling robots on the surface via arrays of small relay satellites, is a much better place for survival:

*** 4 km/s less delta V between Earth and Phobos, compared to the Mars surface, and 4 km/s less return delta V. Vastly more mass can be delivered for the same Earth launch.

*** Direct Phobos landing by the interplanetary vehicle. Phobos surface gravity is 600 microgees, and escape velocity is 11 meters per second.

*** Robotic pre-manned-mission construction - launch crew AFTER there is a safe and tested place for them to live.

*** A 10 meter fractional wheel vertical axis centrifuge (10 rpm, (1 gee) habitat. It can be dimensionally and functionally identical to the interplanetary mission spacecraft itself, so that in an emergency, the habitat can be detached from Phobos and used to return to Earth.

*** A nuclear power source at the other end of the arm, shielded by the 10 meter plug of rock in the center. Consumables and waste shifted across the arm for balance.

*** A 20 Pascal-loaded cantilever tent supports 3 meters of rock shielding. The habitat itself is cantilevered off the rotating arm to circle in a trench under the tent.

*** Crew ingress/egress up the arm to the pivot, then over ziplines from the pivot to locations the outside surface.

*** A crew of humanity's most clever and versatile instrument builders on the spot, assembling new analytical instruments from component stockpiles. Delivering assembled probes to the Martian surface to follow up new discoveries as they are made. Discovery-driven science packages can be constructed and delivered anywhere on the Martian surface in days, not decades.

*** Or to repair the crew habitat or return vehicle ... Imagine Apollo 13, but using local resources to build and replenish a new LOX tank.

*** 85% sunlight to rotating sun-tracking photovoltaics. Phobos axial tilt is 26 degrees to the ecliptic, "night" is a one hour Mars eclipse every 7 hour 40 minute orbit.

*** Base-local polar PV is good for half the Martian year. After arrival, during Phobos-polar summer, build a high voltage power line to the opposite pole of Phobos, 10 km away, migrating most of the solar panels twice Mars-annually.

*** 90% of Mars surface is in direct view every 8 hours, the rest via observation and relay satellites in polar orbit.

*** TINY and NUMEROUS Mars surface robots, just big enough to carry a science package, and track and laser-link to orbiting relay satellites overhead. Terabytes per day collected on Phobos, then "big optics laser-linked" direct to Earth, or relays at Earth-Sun L4-L5 during conjunction.

*** All the talent of Earth hours away to interpret data and choose the next opportunities, while engineering teams design and test the next instruments to be assembled and landed from the mission's component stockpile.

*** WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WE WILL DISCOVER, and what we will choose to focus on after we discover it. A versatile base that can connect in milliseconds to small robots everywhere on Mars will allow us to deploy situationally unique robots in days to follow up new discoveries.

... and MANY other advantages, too numerous for an email.

No more spam in a can. Send Homo Faber, return Earth-saving discoveries soonest, while keeping Mars clean and sterile.

We've spent 4 billion years evolving in and trillions of dollars (mostly for weapons development) to climb out of Earth's habitable gravity well (escaping those weapons).

Why spend more trillions to ruin another unique but life- hostile gravity well, when there are millions of asteroids and comets to convert from threats to economic bonanzas?

Why accept planetary surface contamination and Carnot efficiencies, when gossamer mirrors in interplanetary nano-gravity and vacuum offer a 5700 Kelvin heat source and a 3 Kelvin heat sink?

Paraphrasing Tsiolkovsky, why climb out of a cradle full of baby poop, only to fill another inferior cradle with more baby poop, obliterating the priceless scientific messages written on it?

ps: is "Φiφteen reasons φor Φobos φirst" indexable?