NationStates Jolt Archive

Don't know if this will actually be any use, but I felt like writing it. So.

On a primal Mars, a navy is, obviously, moot. No water to sail on. An airforce is almost useless, but not quite. Allow me to explain:
The primal Martian atmosphere is thin, but not nonexistant. Thus, it is extremely hard to generate enough lift to take off, but not impossible. The low gravity helps a bit as well, although not by much. Light, unmanned fixed-wing and entopter drones could cruise along under solar power fairly well, as long as they had wings with insanely large surface area. That, of course, makes them easy to shoot down, but they're not totally useless for survey and long-distance recon. Ballons are also a good bet, but don't try flying any of those in a dust storm.

Forget about using heavier-than-air fighters, too. In addition to the fact that you would have to use rocket engines (no oxygen for air-breathing jets), the extreme high speeds required to keep the craft airborne and the lack of a thick atmosphere for control surfaces to press against would make turning nearly impossible. Mach 20 is not a good time to attempt a hairpin turn in a dogfight. Large heavier-than-air crafts would have to be used for long-distance cargo and mass personnel transport only, and would really be more like well-controlled ballistic missiles than airplanes.

Hovercrafts would also be rather useless. Without a thick atmosphere to draw air from to inflate their skirts, they would have to carry compressed air onboard, which would quickly run out.

Ground forces have major restrictions as well. Air-breathing engines would be impossible, meaning solar of nuclear power must be used. I don't know about everyone else, but I don't particularly like the idea of Hummer with a nuclear battery under the hood, especially if a bunch of them get blown up by enemy fire. Cosmic rays and unfiltered UV are bad enough. That leaves solar and battery power. As solar cells must be on the outside, they are very vulnerable to attack, and the non-constant supply of energy would mean unpredicatability and slow advancement in the field. And, as with the aircraft, don't even try using solar cells during a dust storm. Battery power is slightly better, but consider this: batteries must be recharged. Your vehicles will probably have most of their bulk taken up by chemical batteries or fuel cells, and still not have very good range.

Then there's maintenance. Even without storms, there's a lot of dust on Mars, and plenty of grit to wear down parts. You'll want extra grease (or other lubrication), lots of spare parts, and good seals on everything. You also have to worry about life support. Most likely, individual vehicles won't be carrying around a miniature farm to supply oxygen to your troops, which means you'll need CO2 filters and will have a limited supply of oxygen. Filters have to be replaced (or cleaned and reactivated, depending on what type of CO2 remover is being used), and oxygen has to be replaced. For now, I'll just leave the issue of where that oxygen comes from alone. Your troops will also likely need environmental suits, which up the maintenance requirements even more.

Next installments: Additions to the above, plus modifications for the terraformed environment.

Forget about using heavier-than-air fighters, too. In addition to the fact that you would have to use rocket engines (no oxygen for air-breathing jets), the extreme high speeds required to keep the craft airborne and the lack of a thick atmosphere for control surfaces to press against would make turning nearly impossible.

How about... spacecraft (In design etc.. Not in range)? Since the gravity well is fairly 'weaker', i´`s also fairly more economic than, say, on earth. So, low speeds (relatively speaking) would work. Generally, since the air pressure necessary to keep things up due to wings, you would simply use more fuel. The lower gravity makes it possible to work that out without 99% of the 'plane`s' volume being used for said fuel.

At least, theoretically.

All excellent points. One thing that should be noted is that the lower gravity and thinner atmosphere will mean that vehicles can coast a lot further. This can affect a driver used to the higher gravity of Earth. Also this will affect ballistic weapon systems. Tank guns will have a longer flat range, but rangefinders and targetting computer will need to be adjusted.

That does suggest an interesting software line, since today is IT day. Likely enough software/hardware would be deployed to adjust for the changing gravity of various worlds.

Good, but I'm wondering how primal the NS Mars (The Planet Mars) is at this point, how far the terraforming is into. The map shows oceans, are these oceans there, and liquid? And how about the climate, weather, atmospheric elements?

Forget about using heavier-than-air fighters, too. In addition to the fact that you would have to use rocket engines (no oxygen for air-breathing jets), the extreme high speeds required to keep the craft airborne and the lack of a thick atmosphere for control surfaces to press against would make turning nearly impossible.

How about... spacecraft (In design etc.. Not in range)? Since the gravity well is fairly 'weaker', i´`s also fairly more economic than, say, on earth. So, low speeds (relatively speaking) would work. Generally, since the air pressure necessary to keep things up due to wings, you would simply use more fuel. The lower gravity makes it possible to work that out without 99% of the 'plane`s' volume being used for said fuel.

At least, theoretically.

But with the constant pull of gravity the ship would constantly have to correct its well in order to maintain orbit. If a spaceship is in orbit then it has to constantly expel fuel to keep from crashing into the ground.

Or use a bigger orbit... Which likely means Martian orbit is less 'crowded' than Earth orbit.

Good, but I'm wondering how primal the NS Mars (The Planet Mars) is at this point, how far the terraforming is into. The map shows oceans, are these oceans there, and liquid? And how about the climate, weather, atmospheric elements?

The last official report was on November 8:

Atmospheric conditions:
Composition: 65% Nitrogen, 28% Oxygen, 2.5% Ozone, 2.5% CO2, 1% Assorted Chloroflourocarbons, 1% trace gases.
Equator: 450mB; 285K Aphelion, 292K Perihelion
North Pole: 455mB; 258K Winter, 265K Summer
South Pole: 310mB; 230K Winter, 264K Summer

Counterintuitive temperature variations are due to the presence of ice on the Oceanus Borealis and Mare Acidalia.

Liquid water stable in all inhabitable areas (excludes: Pavonis, Ascreus, Tharsis, Olympus, South Polar Cap).

Tenuous ozone layer present, but not evenly distributed.

Low-altitude wind patterns are generally south to north, as opposed to Earth's poles-to-equator pattern. Winds aren't as violent now that the water level accounts for some of the difference in elevation between north and south, but there are still storms at the beginning of southern summer. The recent/current orbital war has totally screwed up winds patterns, and I'm still trying to figure out how that works in. The water level shown on the map should be considered the high-tide mark, ie, when Phobos, Diemos, and Mars are all in line.

Adding to what Sunset said, the horizon is closer- you won't be able to see your targets as far.

More later.

*ahem* How the terraformed Mars is different:

Don't know if this will actually be any use, but I felt like writing it. So.

We now have water! However, the ocean doesn't go everywhere. Thus, a Navy will be absolutely useless for attacking anyone in the southern hemisphere (baring the possibility of a nation on the Hellas coast attacking another nation on th Hellas coast). A Martian navy could function almost exactly the same as an Earthling navy, with one difference: the lower gravity means that water pressure is lower than it is at the same depths on Earth. Thus, submarines can dive a lot deeper.

Next issue: the airforce. The atmosphere is still thin (approximately 1/3 Earth normal), but nearly 50 times thicker than originally. Consequently, aircraft are much more feasable than before, but still not as useful as on Earth. For comparison, imagine trying to fly a helicopter up to the peak of Mount Everest. It can't be done. Flight cielings will be very low for anything but rocket-craft, lifting structures (wings/blades) will have to be very large, min/max speeds are closer to Earth normal but still rather high, and controllability will also be about halfway between Primal Mars and Earth. This means that you still can't have high-speed dogfights, but bombers and cargo planes are within possibility. Non-fixed wing craft (entopters/ornithopters) would fair better (manueverability comparable to or exceeding Earth-based fixed-wing craft), but would have high power requirements and require significantly more maintenance.

Balloons, already used in our Primal Mars airforce start to look even better, as the heavier atmosphere raises their flight cieling. Hovercrafts, previously totally unworkable, are now at least possible, and the reduced lifting power required to overcome lower gravity means that power requirements shouldn't be too obscenely much more than for Earth-based hovercrafts. Personally, I would go with magnetic confinement of ionized air underneath the craft rather than the usual method of blowing air into a skirt, particularly because it would greatly reduce the amount of dust you end up blowing around, but that's just me.

Ground forces: well, I'll get to it eventually.