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Mercury

Mercury photograph by NASA

Mercury has been suggested as a possible target for space colonization, along with the other inner solar system planets of Mars and Venus and Earth's Moon.

Surface Temperature simulation of Mercury
http://luna1.diviner.ucla.edu/~jpierre/mercury/posters/Poster-04/poster-04.html

Permanent and fixed location colonies on the surface would almost certainly be restricted to the polar regions due to the extreme daytime temperatures elsewhere on the planet. Excursions along the surface to the other parts of the planet would be feasible with appropriate measures, particularly along the very slowly moving terminator, which would approximate polar conditions.

Some writers have envisioned a railroad band along the equator of Mercury with a train or even an entire city moving along that railroad at the same speed that the planet rotates, 10.892 km/h, keeping it at the same spot in relation to the sun at all times. The power could come from solar or other internal sources, or could be the expansion of the road itself as it gets more energy from the sun during sunrise.

Another option would be to dig into the surface of the planet far enough for shielding from the Sun, giving a great deal of potential room for many levels underground in the crust. Estimates of the thickness of that crust range from 16 to 22 miles.

Other Websites & Resources[]

Outward Bound: Colonizing Mercury
by Isaac Arthur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4aXmnQzJ0o

Jim Shifflett's proposal for Colonizing Mercury:

https://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html


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