Final Project
Allison C.
Legislator:
Kent Grusendorf, Representative
It took me a long
time to find one specific topic that I was interested in
and could research thoroughly but my searching ended
when I came across the subject of terraforming Mars. Why
I did not think of this sooner I do not know since it
was the last topic in the last chapter. Most people have
never heard the word terraform before. Terraforming is
simply the process of converting Mars into a planet
similar to Earth in which humans will one day be able to
live without life support. One thing I like about
terraforming is that it truly is a unique subject. Its
only boundaries are how far the imagination is willing
to go. A new millennium has started, and new technology
to keep up with the increased speed of humans is well on
its way.
Our capabilities
in some areas are reaching limits never thought
possible. If this continues then we really have no
limits. Some scientist or common man for that matter may
only be one step away from the perfect idea that
launches our development of the terraforming of Mars.
Many people have already developed calendars, clocks,
etc. For example, Tom Gangale developed the Darian
Calendar while others such as Frans Blok, Alan Hensel,
as well as myself just changed the names of the months
that Gangale proposed.
After researching
the Darian Calendar I just stared in amazement at how
one man could come up with such a complicated system by
himself. Tom Gangale's system consists of twenty-four
months, each composed of twenty-eight sols. A sol
is like an Earth day, except that it is 24.6 hours or
twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes, and 35.244
seconds long. The human body would need a little bit of
time to adjust to this difference, but in the end I
believe it to be to our benefit since our biological
clocks run through a twenty-five hour cycle.
Undoubtedly, 24.6 is closer to twenty-five than
twenty-four. The Martian year consists of 668.5921 sols
per year; a year being the length of time it takes a
planet to orbit the sun. Since this is not a precise
whole number, we have a problem similar to the fact that
Earth's rotational period around the sun is 365.25 days.
Our solution is to simply add one day every four years,
in which a leap year occurs. Gangale has developed a
similar solution. Since .5921 is not a nice number like
.25 (one-fourth), each decimal place has to be taken
care of individually. First, the .5 must be taken
care of. This is achieved by making every odd year a
leap year of 669 sols. Every even year (also known as a
common year) has 668 sols except for those divisible by
ten. In ten calendar years there would be 6686 sols as
opposed ten Martian tropical solar years composed of
6685.921 sols. Therefore, every year divisible by 100
would have to be 668 sols as opposed to 669 sols.
Furthermore, every five hundred years would have to be a
leap year. This can be expressed much more simply
mathematically. The intercalation formula is as follows:
(Y-1)\2 + Y\10 ? Y\100 + Y\500.
Gangale has
divided the Martian year into twenty-four months. These
months are named after the zodiacal constellations.
Since there are only twelve of these, the Latin and
Sanskrit names are used. I appreciate this naming system
because most people are familiar with the zodiac enough
to gain a basic understanding of the reasoning behind
Gangale's concept. Those not familiar with the zodiac
are opened to something they knew nothing about but
which plays a part in our society today. The first month
of the year is Sagittarius, followed by Dhanus,
Capricornus, Makara, Aquarius, Kumbha, Pisces, Mina,
Aries, Mesha, Taurus, Rishabha, Gemini, Mithuna, Cancer,
Karka, Leo, Simha, Virgo, Kanya, Libra, Tula, Scorpius,
and Vrishika. The first day of the year is the vernal
equinox. Spring in the northern hemisphere lasts for the
first 194 days of the year, followed by 177 days of
summer, 142 days of autumn, and 156 days of winter. The
southern hemisphere would be the exact opposite. The
first day of the year would be the autumnal equinox with
194 days of autumn, 177 days of winter, 142 days of
spring, and 156 days of summer following. Of course,
Mars has an entirely different atmosphere from Earth.
Summer in Mars is not the time to swim and hula. It's a
time to wrap up in blankets and sit by the fire with a
nice warm cup of cocoa. In fact, every day on Mars is
like that. Due to a thin atmosphere, what little heat
makes it all the way out to Mars (it's quite farther
from the sun than earth) will most likely just bounce
off the surface and be lost in space. For this reason,
terraforming Mars will have to consist of some kind of
greenhouse effect to create an atmosphere on Mars thick
enough to keep the sun's heat in.
Another thing I
like about Gangale's plan is that he kept one week at
seven days. This will make it much easier on people who
have to adjust to a new climate. Also, instead of using
some exotic names, he uses the names of the days of the
week in Latin, which many languages today are derived
from. Chances are most people are at least a
little familiar with the names. The days of the week
starting with the equivalent of Sunday are as follows:
Sol Solis, Sol Lunae, Sol Martis, Sol Mercurii, Sol
Jovis, Sol Veneris, and Sol Saturni. I can easily see
the similarities between these Latin roots and their
Spanish cousins with which I am familiar.
One unique
question Gangale had to consider was ?When exactly is
the first year?? Gangale decided on July 1976 when the
Viking 1 spacecraft landed on Mars. Another day
suggested includes January 1, 1707, the most recent time
when the Martian vernal equinox fell on the first of the
Gregorian year. Of course we never even thought about
Mars then so I do not see the need for the years to date
so far back. If man wants to track unmanned vehicles
under a Martian calendar, then I agree with Gangale: the
?Sol 0? should be when the Viking 1 landed on Mars. If
there is no desire to track unmanned vehicles on the
Martian calendar, then ?Sol 0? should be the day man
first steps on Mars.
One problem that
has not yet been tackled is the set up of one sol. How
will it be divided? It cannot simply be twenty-four
hours of 3600 standard seconds each. Many proposals have
been submitted for everything from a ten-hour day to a
twenty five-hour day. I believe the best solution would
be to keep the twenty-four hour day and change the
length of a second, minute, or hour. For example, there
are 24.65979 hours in a Martian sol. To
accommodate the extra .65979 hour we can make a second
equal 1.02749125 standard seconds. (A standard second is
that which we use on earth). Justification: 24
hours x 3600 seconds = 86400 seconds per day on
earth. 24.65979 hours x 3600 seconds = 88775.244
seconds per sol on Mars. 88775.244 /86400 = 1.02749125
seconds. In this case, there would still be sixty
seconds in one minute, sixty minutes in one hour and
twenty-four hours in one day, only one second would be a
little longer than one second on earth.
Another way to
fix the problem would be to keep a second equal to a
standard second but change the amount of seconds in one
minute. Justification: 24 hours x 60 minutes = 1440
minutes per Earth day. 24.65979 hours x 60 minutes =
1479.5874 minutes per Martian day. 1479.5874/1440 =
1.02749125 minutes. Therefore one minute would have to
equal 1.02749125 Earth minutes or 61.649475 seconds. The
problem with this method is that there is nothing to do
with the .649475 second. They could accumulate for the
day and watches could be fixed at the end of the day,
but this could be too much trouble. A third way to
correct the problem would be to change length of an
hour. 24.65979 hours / 24 hours = 1.02749125 Earth hours
or 61 minutes 38.9685 seconds. This would also present a
problem due to the extra .9685 second. Another way to
approach the problem would be to change the number of
seconds in one minute instead of the length of one
second or the number of minutes in one hour, but each of
these will always have some kind of fraction left over.
I believe the best way would be the first example:
lengthening a second to 1.02749125 standard seconds.
Martians would eventually get used to the longer second.
We do not measure anything smaller than a second in
every day life, not to mention that it is almost equal
to one second exactly. Consequently, many people would
not even notice the difference.
Frans Blok
developed the Rotterdam system. He keeps the Darian
Calendar in his plan, but changes the names of the
months to Adir, Bora, Coan, Deti, Edal, Flo, Geor,
Heliba, Idanon, Jowani, Kireal, Larno, Medior, Neturima,
Ozulika, Pasurabi, Rudiakel, Safundo, Tiunor, Ulasja,
Vadeun, Wakumi, Xetual, and Zungo. These crazy words
actually do make a lot of sense. Here is Blok's
argument: alphabetical order convenience, last letters
spell r-a-n-i-l-o four times (four seasons), odd months
end in consonants, even months end in vowels, d
indicates the first month in a group of four, u
indicates fall/winter in the northern hemisphere, and
other characters are ?free.? This is a good system, but
I am not very fond of it because many of the words are
hard to pronounce, and I ask, ?Who is going to notice
which months have a ?d? in them off the top of their
head?? His names for the days of the week are as
follows: Axatisol, Benasol, Ciposol, Domesol, Erjasol,
Fulisol, and Gaviosol.
My favorite
naming system is that of Alan Hensel. His system is very
simple but works wonderfully. His names for the months
are Vernalis, Duvernalis, Trivernalis, Quadrivernalis,
Pentavernalis, Hexavernalis, Aestas, Duestas, Triestas,
Quadrestas, Pentestas, Hexestas, Autumnus, Duautumn,
Triautumn, Quadrautumn, Pentautumn, Hexautumn, Unember,
Duember, Triember, Quadrember, Pentember, and Hexember.
The base of each word (either vernalis, estas, autumn,
or ember) refers to which season it is, written in
Latin. The prefixes (du-, tri-, quad-, pent-, or hex-)
refer to the sequence of the months in groups of six.
All prefixes are Latin except for pent- and hex-, which
are Greek. The Greek are used here because if the Latin
quint- were used, the months could not be abbreviated
with two letter (quad- also starts with q). The Latin
sex- is supposedly not used because ?if there were sex-
months, they shouldn't be the shortest months of the
year!? (Gangale).
After researching
other people's names, I decided to try making a system
of my own. Unfortunately, I loved Hensel's system so
much that I do not think I could ever top it, but since
I spent some time coming up with a system, I might as
well explain it. The names of the months are as follows:
vernalis, vera, vemaner, vet, vequelle, vor, estas, et,
everano, ete, esommerlich, etor, autumnus, atoño,
automber, autet, absinken, autor, ember, emet, envierno,
ehiver, ewinter, and etmor. The main fault I find in my
system is the difficulty one may have remembering all
those names that sound almost the same. Fortunately, it
makes more sense than it looks. The beginning of each
group of six (beginning of each season) is the Latin
name for the current season in the northern hemisphere,
i.e. vernalis, estas, autumnus, and ember. The months
containing ?et? are every fourth month. The last
month in a season (contains twenty-seven days versus
twenty-eight) contains ?or? and is shorter than the
other months for the most part. All other months are the
name of the current season in Spanish, French, and
German, respectively. Some modification has occurred to
keep months starting with the same letters (invierno has
become envierno). This may keep a sense of
internationalism in the air, but may also lead to
countries such as Russia to wonder where ?their month?
is. Of course, adding Cyrillic letters to the Phonetic
alphabet does not sound like a calendar I would want to
memorize, considering most people do not even know how
to pronounce the letters.
Although many
people have attempted to make a timing system for Mars,
I believe the best choice would be Tom Gangale's. After
looking at a couple other designs, his seems to be the
easiest to adjust to as well as easy to learn.
Conversions from Gregorian time to Darian time would
take practice, but it is one step that we cannot skip,
and one action that makes us one step closer to Mars.
Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/fra_nl/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fwb/rgbmars.html
http://www.jps.net/gangale/mars/calendar.htm
