Settling the Martian Mars: Phobos & Deimos

The Red Planet beckons us toward it, and the day draws closer when humans will walk on its dusty surface, and the moons of Mars, Phobos & Deimos, may be our gateway to that future.

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Credits:
Settling Mars: Phobos & Deimos
Episode 438; March 14, 2024
Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Editors: Israel Debro
Graphics:
Fishy Tree
Jarred Eagley
Jeremy Jozwik
LITE / Ian Long
Katie Byrne
Udo Schroeter
Sergio Botero
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Music Courtesy of
Epic Mountain, "Wave", "Zero Gravity"
Frank Dorittke, "Morninglight"
Taras Harkavyi, "Alpha and..."
Ross Bugeden, "Interstellar"
Marcus Warner, "Dance of the River Spirits"
Stellardrone, "A Moment of Stillness", "Blinking Star", "Red Giant"

[InquisitorThomas]

I don’t know Issac, I feel like settling the moons named “Fear” and “Terror” is just asking for trouble. I don’t want to get Franklin Expeditioned.

[mahatmarandy]

I remember an article in Future magazine circa 1978 called “Fun on Phobos” and it mentioned that the grqvity was so low you could knock a baseball into orbit around mars just by hitting it with a baseball bat. I was completely fascinated by that

[alfredlaalpacadeageofempir]

"As long as nothing supernatural happens, this should be easy..."

[larspeterthomsen]

I propose that the first Phobos base should be codenamed E1M1

[cannonfodder]

Rather remarkable how forgotten the Martian moons are in sci-fi and futurism discussions.

Informative as always, Isaac.

[Phoenix]

Watching this was so gratifying because many years ago I've told my wife & others over & over again I _don't_ dream of going to Mars it's *_Phobos_* I'd want to live on because _that's_ where colonization will begin, it's where everything important about Mars will happen! Phobos & Deimos first, _then_ Mars! Most people don't understand that, I don't know why.

[doltsbane]

Deimos would be a great location for a base where people teleoperate machines on Mars itself. Communication lag would be less than a second and it would be line of sight for two and a half days at a time. You might not be able to juggle with such a robot, but you could certainly wield a rock hammer.

[michaelpettersson]

An underground base on one of Mars moons would be protected from cosmic radiation. People on the base could remote control teleprecsence machinery on Mars. This way we could avoid putting people on Mars until we have a functional base built there. We cannot directly remote control machinery on Mars due light speed lag but if the operators are nearby, it could work.

[mahatmarandy]

NASA did some paper studies on Marian Flybys. They were more interesting and useful than most would assume. The sell was that it was way easier to flyboy with leftover Apollo tech than it was to actually land. A flyby would be close enough to Mars to run r/c rovers in near-real-time, and if you had samples collected by a rover or whatever, you could launch them to be snagged by the flyby pretty easily, and study them almost in-situ for a year on the way back to earth

[thumb-ugly]

I instantly remembered Unreal Tournament map "Phobos." Good times, just like watching SFIA. Good times.

[cacogenicist]

Starship had a largely successful flight this morning. Was cool to see every one of those 30-something Raptor engines light. Hot staging worked. They lit the Ship's Raptors. Propellant transfer test was performed during the glide.

Didn't quite get the booster engines relit for controlled landing in the Gulf, and they lost the Ship at some point on reentry, but they got some rad footage of plasma buildup as it reentered, and presumably a lot of data. Tim Dodd thinks the hot gas thrusters iced over, preventing being able to get proper entry attitude. If that's all it was, that's an easy fix one way or another.

Pretty crazy to think they could've deployed 150 metric tonnes with all that reusability hardware. Probably somewhat over 200 with a fully expendable version.

Really feels now like they're going to get that system working. That will come in handy, however we do a Mars mission. That's just a shite-load of mass to orbit, and a whole lot of cargo volume.

[Imagine_Beyond]

Starship launch, pi day, Isaac Arthur uploads a video and it is Albert Einstein’s birthday today!! Wow this is a great day!!!

[Vjx-dc]

Taking a break to watch the starship launch, ill finish the episode after

[xINVISIGOTHx]

can you make a video that's like "how an isaac arthur video is made" ?

[briancohen-doherty]

Im guessing we'll see a "Mars-to-orbit" system as a concept test of a in-situ fuel process.

[TaeSunWoo]

Why didn’t I get notified of this upload?? Yes yes, let’s gooo

[OMADRevolution]

The Myles O’Brien redundancy department thing had me going! Lol

[kyles]

As long as the Union Aerospace Corp doesn't do anything shady we should be alright

[chupacabra]

Aw yissss, snow day for the kiddo, I’m off, new Isaac Arthur video & warm breakfast while I look outside at the snow n watch space shows

[sirgog]

Looking forward to this. I do think that these two are an excellent location for a "test run" crewed mission to the Mars area. Landing on these moons instead.