Sunday, February 2, 2014

A trip to Ceres instead of Mars

Recently, there was news about water being vented on the dwarf planet of Ceres.  What about this little planetoid anyway?

Last year I wrote a post about using Ceres to assist a Mars mission.  What if you could just go there instead of Mars?  The delta v for a trip isn't too much different than one to Mars.  The amount of time for the mission isn't too much different.  The time spent at the planetoid isn't too much different.  You could make your own fuel with the materials available, just like Mars.  It is actually easier to get to the surface and back to orbit than from Mars, since Ceres is so small.  You could even use solar panels to generate electricity there.  The surface temperature of Ceres is not too different than for Mars.

Now, if you can exploit the venting of the water, you can make yourself a little home out of the ice, just like the Eskimos on Earth.  Capture the water and make big blocks of ice and use it for shelter.  Not only that, the water can be used to make fuel for the trip back to Earth.

Grow your own food there and live off the land.  Looks like you've got some basic building blocks of life.


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