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With its extreme temperature fluctuations, Mercury is not likely a planet that humans would ever want to colonize. But if we had the technology to survive on the planet closest to the sun, what would it be like to live there? To date, only two spacecraft have visited Mercury. The first, Mariner 10, conducted a series of Mercury flybys in , but the spacecraft only saw the lit half of the planet. Mining this ice would be a good way to live off the land, but setting up bases at the poles might not be a good idea, said David Blewett, a participating scientist with the Messenger program.
Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Colonization of Mercury. Edit source History Talk 0. Mercury photograph by NASA Mercury has been suggested as one possible target for space colonization of the inner solar system, along with Mars, Venus, the Moon and the asteroid belt.
Alternately, the water could be evaporated, and oxygen gas created by subjecting it to solar radiation a process known as photolysis. Another possibility would be to build underground. For years, NASA has been toying with the idea of building colonies in stable, underground lava tubes that are known to exist on the Moon.
Colonies built inside stable lava tubes would be naturally shielded to cosmic and solar radiation, extremes in temperature, and could be pressurized to create breathable atmospheres. In addition, at this depth, Mercury experiences far less in the way of temperature variations and would be warm enough to be habitable.
It also has abundant minerals to offer, which could help move humanity towards a post-scarcity economy. Like Earth, it is a terrestrial planet , which means it is made up of silicate rocks and metals that are differentiated between an iron core and silicate crust and mantle. As a result, if Mercury were to be mined, enough minerals could be produced to last humanity indefinitely. Its proximity to the Sun also means that it could harness a tremendous amount of energy.
This could be gathered by orbital solar arrays, which would be able to harness energy constantly and beam it to the surface. This energy could then be beamed to other planets in the Solar System using a series of transfer stations positioned at Lagrange Points.
This is over twice what the Moon experiences, which means colonists would have an easier time adjusting to it. At the same time, it is also low enough to present benefits as far as exporting minerals is concerned, since ships departing from the surface would need less energy to achieve escape velocity.
Lastly, there is the distance to Mercury itself. At an average distance of about 93 million km 58 million mi , Mercury ranges between being This puts it a lot closer than other possible resource-rich areas like the Asteroid Belt — million km distant , Jupiter and its system of moons Basically, missions destined for Mercury could launch almost every four months, whereas launch windows to Venus and Mars would have to take place every 1.
In terms of travel time, several missions have been mounted to Mercury that can give us a ballpark estimate of how long it might take. The extended travel time was due to engineers seeking to place the probe in orbit around the planet, so it needed to proceed at a slower velocity. Of course, a colony on Mercury would still be a huge challenge, both economically and technologically.
The cost of establishing a colony anywhere on the planet would be tremendous and would require abundant materials to be shipped from Earth, or mined on site.
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