Mercury is a world unlike any other. Reaching temperatures up to 427 degrees Celsius, Mercury is not the place one would choose to go sun-tanning.
Mercury is a very barren and harsh planet, with little economic value, unlike the Moon. But what if technology revealed precious metals beneath its surface, enough to convince humanity to face the dangers of space, and reap its potential resources for our benefit. Would we be able to colonize the first rock from the Sun? Could it be done?
Because of its closeness towards the Sun, Mercury lacks the "explorer appeal" that surround both Mars and Earth's lunar neighbor. However, Mercury does have several advantages over both the Moon and the red planet, which might make it appealing towards future colonists.
Mercury is one of the few terrestrial worlds boasting a magnetic field, along with Earth and Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This field is critical as it helps filter out harmful rays from the sun, which can be devastating towards the human body.
Although only at about 1% strength when compared to Earth's, Mercury's magnetic field deflects the solar wind about 1000 kilometers from the surface. Despite its size, this small region of covering may be more than enough to protect human explorers.
Another advantage point is that Mercury's gravity is about 38% when compared to Earth's. Although this may not seem like a major issue, gravity plays an important part in our lives and micro-gravity can be devastating towards the bones and muscles of the human body. Since some scientists consider gravity over one third (or 33%) to be acceptable for the human body, Mercury would be one of the few terrestrial worlds habitable in the long term.
Although being close to the Sun has its disadvantages, it does carry with it one advantage - solar energy. Since a day on Mercury is approximately 58 and a half Earth days, the planet could benefit from long periods of uninterrupted sunlight. Solar panels could be constructed around the world, with future communities "borrowing power" from sunlit regions or switching to nuclear power during the weeks of darkness.
Article comments
1 - Adam Crowl
Hi Darnell
One thing Mercury also has is volatiles. It might have active sources of sulphur in its crust - some apparent pyroclastic eruptions have been spotted in the old Mariner X photos. Radar imaging strongly hints at some sort of volatile frozen out at both poles - either ice or sulphur or some mix of the two. MESSENGER will hopefully tell us more, but if it's ice then Mercury's potential for colonisation goes way up.
As for power I suspect a globe circling network of power-cabling will be laid down to provide a continuous supply. And not just for domestic use as Mercury could beam power back towards Earth-space. And fling processed ores via linear accelerators.
An irony might be that Mercury might end up supplying water to floating bases in Venus's upper atmosphere.
Adam
2 - Eric Olsen
fascinating Darnell - thanks and welcome!
3 - Bas Burger
Nice article, but why humans? All the tasks you mention are in no need to be fullfiled by human beings, we have a whole arsenal of remote controlled tools to do all these tasks. All and all I think it's wise to first try and see if we can send something there in a controlled way without damaging the remote tools.
4 - Carl D
Very intresting and informative. i dunno about it being a prison world. people would try to go to prison then, i know i would.
maybe a place where we could sent all our trash?
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gosh, there must be ten humans on the planet to indicate that the experiment oughtn't be trashed altogether. There are men of real faith, like Ahmadinejad, for example...
Looking over the REAL comments to this piece, I notice that Bas Burger seems reluctant to send us human types out to Mercury. Why?
Why send out robots when humans can get all the fun, experience the risk, and the pleasure (if they survive) of telling their grandkids, "I was one of the first people on Mercury." It's not exactly as if these people were being sent to some remote location to clean stairs or something...
The suggestion to use Mercury as a prison planet doesn't quite make sense. Why give someone a longer life by reducng the strain on his heart as a reward for crime? A lot of us would pay for that privilege, in spite of the cost in terms of isolation.
6 - ivo
id be surprised if we will ever get to the point where we reach any of the far planets. Scientists are creating black holes on earth, people are seriously thinking about extra-dimensional propulsion, that sorta stuff. Thing thats prolly gonna happen is us creating a rift in time-space, dooming our planet and everyone. But the concept of colonizing mercury is cool
7 - Jason
using solor power on mercury is the dumbest idea i've ever heard its much more efficient, cheaper and easier to maintain heat pipes to heat up water, which by the way your going to have to ship to mercury in the first place to live, using this steam you can run steam turbines like we do now in coal and nucular powerstations. This authur is stupid.
8 - solja
typical yanks,u aint even finished stealing the oil from the middle east on earth and ur already planning interplannetary piracy on mercury,well i hope all the leaders go there first and fry,then we might just get some peace on this plannet
9 - EBloodmoon
The item I would consider the primary concern was not addressed by the article. With temperatures over 400 degrees Celcius, we'd need to figure out a way to keep everything (including the humans) from melting, bursting into flames, evaporating, etc..
10 - sunscreen
This is all good and well until the first major solar flare. Then I wouldn't want to be anywhere that close to the sun. The only safety from the radiation would be in deep underground bunkers. Not too high a quality of life. Why not live permanently underground on the Earth? At least then you have a chance of the occasional topside vacation...
11 - What's Next In Science & Technology
Reaching any other planet would be an amazing achievement for humans.
I just hope that by the time we get there, we are more in control of our ability to slowly destroy planets.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Colonizing other planets in the solar system would have to be a long range plan done over decades and would require a great deal of financial investment - at first.
The initial steps would be to build an orbiting space station big enough to serve as a launching port to other planets and to be commercially viable.
The second stage would be to construct in space ships that could travel between the planets, so as to eliminate the need for tremendous amounts of fuel needed to launch and descend from Earth.
The next stage would be to develop systems of recycling that would allow a spaceship to travel long distances without carry inordinately large supplies of water and food on board.
Finally, for such an enterprise to succeed, people on the Earth would have to understand that any exploratory mission will cost lives over time and deaths in accidents are not reason to close down or defund projects. Risk is inherent in all that we do, from being conceived and born to rising from our beds to crossing the street to exploring near and outer space.
13 - Jet in Columbus
I learned something today, when I studied Mercury in highschool I was under the impression that the planet didn't actually rotate, like the moon, but always presented the same face to the sun, thus one side would be insanely hot and the other cold, but I always fantasized that there was a zone on the edge between the two that would support life needing only an artificial source of air.
Good article.
I've always considered astronomy sort of a part-time hobby, but like many others considered Mercury a lost cause.
Thanks for giving me something new to mentally explore.
14 - Armin Siljkovic
If it was a prison world, then in a few centuries it would turn out like Australia :)
15 - What's Next In Science & Technology
Perhaps the biggest question scientists should ask is "Why do we want to go to another planet?"
Each planet has its advantages and disadvantages, it depends on what we want to research.
Perhaps the first choice should be the planet which is the easiest to get to. We would learn from the experience and then venture out to the planet which could prove useful for us.
16 - Adam Crowl
Just a few responses. Mercury might have enough of a magnetic field to provide protection against the solar wind, at least regionally.
Secondly, as the nearest planet is Venus and it's even hotter on the surface, Mercury is not such a bad option. One possibility is that Mercury will have rich deposits of minerals that can be used to chemically combine with the dense atmosphere on Venus that makes it so hot. Thus mining Mercury, using the high solar energy to fling big loads of minerals at Venus, and eventually getting a second useable planet out of the deal.
Adam
17 - kruger
thanks you helped a lot with my school work
18 - white prince
thankyou very much. This was a good information.
19 - kate
if the atmosphere is thinner on mercury than it is on earth then wouldn't we destroy mercury's atmosphere faster than we earth's?
20 - STM
"If it was a prison world, then in a few centuries it would turn out like Australia :)"
With even better suntans
21 - Mike Green
Sure, it could be done IF Mercury was exactly tidally locked. Then we could set up permanent bases at dawn and dusk. Since it's not, we'd have to keep moving, which is too hard.
22 - mr snitzel
interesting