I’m glad Dr. Zubrin took the time to debunk the Weinersmith’s book. Such an eloquent rebuttal more than offsets whatever he had to forfeit in order to write it.
If I really get inspired to research ideas I fundamentally disagree with, my preference as an avowed capitalist is to use Marxism against itself. In the Weinersmith’s case, I would seek out a copy for checkout at my local public library. If they don’t have it, I would request they obtain it through the library lending system. Failing that I would head over to my local Barnes and Nobel and read it from the shelf. At my local B&N they have mistakenly installed nice couches over in the periodicals section than I may sit and read until ready to put it back on the shelf.
Cleverly, the Starbucks there is railed off from the rest of the store. You have to go through the checkout counters to get there.
That picture at the top looks like Utah.
“In those days Mars was a dreary, uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah. But unlike Utah, Mars was eventually made liveable” — Prof. Farnsworth, Futurama.
OK random thought for the day and I’m placing it in this thread solely because it’s about living in a city on Mars, sort of.
The Internets say Mars’ gravity is about 38% that of Earth. So without revealing my weight on Earth let me just say my ideal weight on Earth would be just 70 lbs on Mars.
Now with the same proportional musculature that has developed in the higher g environment of Earth it begs a bit of the Superman scenario, i.e. maybe not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but it seems to me things like ceilings and vertical room dimensions for a city on Mars might have to be scaled a little more larger than on Earth to prevent head injuries?
But the idea I got to thinking about specifically are stairs. We don’t think much about stairs these days. Because the architecture has been worked out over centuries. But we’ve all been on nature trails, etc. where the raking of a staircase can be either too much or too little. There is nothing more annoying that have to make many, many mini-steps to go up a too shallow staircase. In fact for some people with balance issues it can be a tripping hazard.
Then of course we’ve all been to the fun-house or nature trail with deeply raked stairs that feel more like mountain climbing than stair walking.
So what will need to be the architectural standard on Mars? What with only ~1/3 of the gravity will ‘bounding’ up a standard code staircase of about 7 3/4″ with 3/8″ maximum riser high feel like those mini-steps to Mars inhabitants? What about head clearance? *
Maybe at 70 lbs with Earth musculature there isn’t an issue? Or maybe after a few years on Mars our bodies loose enough muscle mass that Earth standards can remain in effect?
From what I remember of my Zero-G flight, the few parabolas we did of Mars gravity “felt” not terribly dissimilar from Earth. There was a difference, but it was kind of a meh difference. Now Lunar gravity – that was awesome! Enough to be referential, but boy does one feel mighty.
What I learned at ISU regarding body deterioration can be summed up as “The body doesn’t waste energy on stuff it doesn’t need”. That’s why gym-goers get soft and doughy after they stop lifting weights. The body doesn’t need the muscle mass to lift weights, so it stops allocating energy to their maintenance in top form. In micro-g your body isn’t fighting against gravity, so stops allocating energy to maintaining the bones to that end. It’s actually remarkably efficient in that regard.
So while there would be some initial biophysical benefit to moving to a smaller gravity well, like the heart being relatively stronger since it doesn’t have to pump the blood as hard to get it to the head, that will likely wear off over time. How much time…? Plus on the Moon there’s the whole “I’ve fallen and I can’t get u…oh, wait, yes I can, nevermind”
And don’t get me started on head clearance. I have scars. The world was not designed for folks 6’4” (193cm).
I’m glad Dr. Zubrin took the time to debunk the Weinersmith’s book. Such an eloquent rebuttal more than offsets whatever he had to forfeit in order to write it.
If I really get inspired to research ideas I fundamentally disagree with, my preference as an avowed capitalist is to use Marxism against itself. In the Weinersmith’s case, I would seek out a copy for checkout at my local public library. If they don’t have it, I would request they obtain it through the library lending system. Failing that I would head over to my local Barnes and Nobel and read it from the shelf. At my local B&N they have mistakenly installed nice couches over in the periodicals section than I may sit and read until ready to put it back on the shelf.
Cleverly, the Starbucks there is railed off from the rest of the store. You have to go through the checkout counters to get there.
That picture at the top looks like Utah.
“In those days Mars was a dreary, uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah. But unlike Utah, Mars was eventually made liveable” — Prof. Farnsworth, Futurama.
OK random thought for the day and I’m placing it in this thread solely because it’s about living in a city on Mars, sort of.
The Internets say Mars’ gravity is about 38% that of Earth. So without revealing my weight on Earth let me just say my ideal weight on Earth would be just 70 lbs on Mars.
Now with the same proportional musculature that has developed in the higher g environment of Earth it begs a bit of the Superman scenario, i.e. maybe not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but it seems to me things like ceilings and vertical room dimensions for a city on Mars might have to be scaled a little more larger than on Earth to prevent head injuries?
But the idea I got to thinking about specifically are stairs. We don’t think much about stairs these days. Because the architecture has been worked out over centuries. But we’ve all been on nature trails, etc. where the raking of a staircase can be either too much or too little. There is nothing more annoying that have to make many, many mini-steps to go up a too shallow staircase. In fact for some people with balance issues it can be a tripping hazard.
Then of course we’ve all been to the fun-house or nature trail with deeply raked stairs that feel more like mountain climbing than stair walking.
So what will need to be the architectural standard on Mars? What with only ~1/3 of the gravity will ‘bounding’ up a standard code staircase of about 7 3/4″ with 3/8″ maximum riser high feel like those mini-steps to Mars inhabitants? What about head clearance? *
Maybe at 70 lbs with Earth musculature there isn’t an issue? Or maybe after a few years on Mars our bodies loose enough muscle mass that Earth standards can remain in effect?
Oh well, lunch is over, back to work.
*Staircase to nowhere at the Winchester Mystery House.
From what I remember of my Zero-G flight, the few parabolas we did of Mars gravity “felt” not terribly dissimilar from Earth. There was a difference, but it was kind of a meh difference. Now Lunar gravity – that was awesome! Enough to be referential, but boy does one feel mighty.
What I learned at ISU regarding body deterioration can be summed up as “The body doesn’t waste energy on stuff it doesn’t need”. That’s why gym-goers get soft and doughy after they stop lifting weights. The body doesn’t need the muscle mass to lift weights, so it stops allocating energy to their maintenance in top form. In micro-g your body isn’t fighting against gravity, so stops allocating energy to maintaining the bones to that end. It’s actually remarkably efficient in that regard.
So while there would be some initial biophysical benefit to moving to a smaller gravity well, like the heart being relatively stronger since it doesn’t have to pump the blood as hard to get it to the head, that will likely wear off over time. How much time…? Plus on the Moon there’s the whole “I’ve fallen and I can’t get u…oh, wait, yes I can, nevermind”
And don’t get me started on head clearance. I have scars. The world was not designed for folks 6’4” (193cm).