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Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars | Defector (defector.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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By Albert Burneko

9:00 AM EDT on September 11, 2024

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind."

Indeed, "in the future" seems to be doing quite a lot of heavy lifting. As noted, 1-2 Tesla is a pretty powerful magnet - so you'd need a pretty big and powerful magnet.

It also doesn't completely protect the entire planet just two critical points on the surface.

That is certainly an important catch.