Is Curing Cancer the Appropriate Step? (Preparing for a World without Cancer)

Since 1971 when then President Nixon declared war on cancer society have awaited the breakthrough that would render the elimination of cancer as a societal and psychological boogie man. Interestingly the pursuit of this accomplishment has developed a certain type of viewpoint of how the future would operate after success with few individuals discussing how the world will change in both a positive and negative way. As counter-intuitive as it may seem would identifying a completely effective cancer treatment leave the world worse off than not identifying one at all?

At first thought almost everyone would find the above question preposterous citing both qualitative and quantitative rationalities for its ridiculousness. For example the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 estimated the annual costs of cancer to society were 201.5 billion (77.4 billion in direct medical costs and 124 billion in indirect mortality costs);1 those costs increased further in 2010 to $290 billion (154 billion in direct medical costs and 146 billion in indirect mortality costs).2 In 2007 cancer was responsible for approximately 13% of all human deaths globally (7.9 million)3 and in 2008 cancer killed another 7.6 million4 with overall occurrence rates increasing due to general increases in global life expectancies, changes in diets and lifestyles in the developing world, and changes to the environment. In addition there is the emotional damage that cancer afflicts against individuals who do not even have the condition (friends and family) that is not calculated in the mortality costs, regardless of whether or not the afflicted dies, raising economical and societal damage further.

Initially one may assume that the enormity of these numbers should dispel any individual arguing that a cure for cancer would be a bad thing, but the problem is that those numbers are only viewed through a positive lens not through a realistic lens. For example modeling economic costs associated with any condition or disease is currently simplistic and heavily dependent on certain assumptions. There are three common methods for estimating costs associated with various health conditions: Cost-of-illness (COI), Value of Lost Output (VLO) and value of statistical life (VSL).2

COI is the most common analysis method to calculate economic impact of an illness and assigned costs based on the sum of direct and indirect medical costs associated with the illness. Direct medical costs are sub-categorized as: diagnosis, drugs, hospital stays, surgeries, etc. Indirect mortality costs are sub-categorized as: transportation, income losses, pain and suffering reduced productivity, education, etc.5 Note that productivity losses (associated with indirect mortality costs) are typically modeled through the human capital approach, which calculates the potential production by an individual based on average wages adjusted for household productivity.5

The human capital approach is not the only method for calculating productivity, some analysis also use the friction cost method instead. Friction cost estimates the indirect costs of an illness relative to the amount of time it takes the employer/society to substitute the production lost from the individual who has taken ill.6 Basically costs are estimated by multiplying the number of days required for recovery by income and including an elasticity element for annual labor time versus labor productivity.6 Normally there is some form of time boundary (typically some number of days) associated with friction cost pertaining to the average expected recovery time for the illness. If recovery exceeds this boundary condition the excess costs are not counted towards the estimated production costs/losses. For example suppose person x contracts disease y that has an average recovery time of 30 days. If person x is not available to work for 17 days the productivity losses from all 17 days are counted. However, if person x takes 43 days only the first 30 are counted. This condition frequently results in lower estimated costs for a given disease because it typically does not encapsulate the more severe and costly cases of the disease.

COI also has two analysis “viewpoints”: prevalence or incidence. Prevalence estimates costs over a specific time period normally averaged to an annual cost, but does not focus on costs over the duration of the illness.5 Incidence estimates costs over the expected lifetime of an illness. Savings born from prevention strategies are derived from incidence-based analysis because of their timeline estimates over cross-sectional costs.5 While incidence estimates provide more information, they also require more assumptions and information, which can increase the probability for more inaccuracy in the results.

VLO estimates costs based on the impact on GDP with regards to lost capital, production, efficiency and other factors that affect commerce.2 VSL is categorized by two difference analysis methods: the human capital method and the mortality risk method.7,8 The human capital method calculates the present value of future income forgone due to death (similar to the method for COI). However, this method does not include intangible psychological elements on the family and friends of the deceased and ignores the non-working members of society who do not significantly act as human capital in the labor market.8 The mortality risk method calculates what costs members of society are willing to incur to change mortality risks from given illnesses. For example the World Bank classifies VSL as how people’s preferences affect the measurement of change (increase or decrease) in human well-being relative to the change in mortality risk based on the amount of money they would pay.9 Basically how much money would a person pay to reduce the chance of dying from disease A from 40% to 30%?

The reason these three methods exist is that they all examine economic costs relative to illness from different perspectives [public versus private (COI) or individual versus social (VOL) or some aspects of both (VSL) over different time periods]. However, because of these different analysis perspectives, along with complications due to co-morbidities, it is difficult to compare these methods directly.

Regardless of method calculating the possible savings from indirect costs is tricky. First of all productivity losses are more than likely overestimated because unlike past instances the current labor market functions on a shortage of jobs, not a shortage of labor. Of course some may argue against this point citing some of the higher paying jobs that have been vacant for years, but these jobs are highly specific demanding high education and experience levels, which are not available to a vast majority of the population, thus these jobs are radical outliers. Most modern vacant jobs are lower paying, but have high levels of competition including many individuals who are overqualified. Thus, most of the production from labor that is lost to cancer is more easily replaced now than in the past making the savings from curing cancer less than expected.

Another question is how the overall economy will be affected by the redirection of indirect cancer costs. For example current indirect cancer costs are high scale with a narrow focus (i.e. large amounts of money applied to a small section of the economy). If cancer is cured the indirect costs will be diverted more than likely at a smaller scale due to greater sector spread. Will this change in fund distribution result in a net gain or net loss for the economy? The loss of large-scale funds in the cancer treatment industry will result in job loss and contraction in this industry. The concern is that will the redirection of the funds be too scattered to significantly promote job growth in other fields, thus resulting in a negative economic impact? One counter-argument is that the new survivors will spend their money bolstering economic activity. While possible the real validity of this counter-argument is contingent on what happens to the assets owned by these individuals in probate and raises the question of whether government or private control of funds provides better stimulation to the economy.

Another concern is the increasing intracountry global inequality gap. While globalization has decreased the inequality gap between developed and developing countries, it has increased the inequality gap between rich and poor individuals within both developed and developing countries. Assuming that the general death total associated with cancer remains similar over the next 10 years as cited from 2007 figures above, then if a cure for cancer is discovered in 2015 over the next nine years 71.1 million people who should have died will live (and that does not include any offspring these individuals may have).

Note that the above estimate is probably on the low side because the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2030 at least 13.1 million worldwide will die from cancer.4 Based on the existing inequality level most of these survivors will not have vast amounts of wealth (this assumption makes sense because 70% of all cancer deaths in 2008 occurred in low- and middle-income countries),4 but instead will compete with other individuals for a pool of resources that is at best static and worst declining. This competition could place a greater strain on a vast majority of parties including those who developed cancer, but did not die, lowering the quality of life of a greater number of individuals.

Some may argue that while the savings born from indirect costs may be inaccurate and possibly non-existent, the savings from direct costs are certainly real and substantial. Direct cost savings are real, but more than likely will not be useful to society. The reason for this judgment is the commerce arrow that governs cancer treatment. When individual x develops cancer and receives treatment (note that second part) most of the time he/she has health insurance where after paying a deductible the insurance company will pay for a vast majority of the costs associated with the cancer treatment (80-100%, depending on the specifics of the plan). This payment will typically go to a hospital (most doctors do not own their own treatment centers, etc.). The hospital uses some of those funds to purchase elements of the treatment from various companies. Overall most of the costs associated with cancer treatment are born by the insurance companies, whether or not those costs are passed on to consumers is unclear, but is definitely a possibility.

If a cancer cure is developed, the direct costs of treating cancer will significantly drop reducing the amount of money that insurance companies pay to hospitals. Therefore, insurance companies will gain most of the savings from a cancer cure. However, the benefit to society from a standpoint of direct costs depends on what the insurance company does with these saved funds. There are ten common actions that a company can take with their earned profits:

1) Keep it on their balance sheet to pay for future expenses (i.e. suppose next year is not profitable);
2) Pay off existing debt;
3) Invest in new equipment or other modernization upgrades to increase production and/or lower costs;
4) Issue a dividend or increase the dividend to stockholders;
5) Hire more employees;
6) Increase wages and/or pay bonuses to various employees;
7) Buyback stock;
8) Invest in other companies either as a passive investment or a takeover;
9) Provide some benefit for the consumer (in the case of insurance this would most likely be reducing premiums);
10) Donate the money to a charitable cause;

There is little reason to suspect that insurance companies would pledge profit neutrality where insurance premiums would be lowered to correspond to the savings garnered by the cancer cure versus current cancer treatment. Whether legitimate or not the failure to lower premiums would be justified through arguing the prevalence of other chronic conditions like high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol. Anything else that could be done with the saved money that would benefit society directly or even indirectly like donating the money to charity, increasing stock dividends or hiring more employees seems even more far-fetched than lowering premiums.

With the most likely use of the saved funds going into the coffers of the insurance company to be used for CEO bonuses and other frivolous actions to bolster the already wealthy (modern reality dictates that this will happen) the newly saved direct cancer costs will not be reinvested into society at any real magnitude. Any rational person realizes that with decades of empirical evidence against it, supply side economics (a.k.a. trickle down) does not work thus increasing CEO bonuses is rather irrelevant to societal economic benefit. In addition other economic changes would lead various hospitals to lose millions of dollars (it stands to reason that they charge more for cancer treatments over the elements used in those treatments) and the medical companies that provide current cancer treatments will more than likely lose money as well because longer-term treatments yield more revenue than shorter-term treatments (which is what a cancer cure is assumed to be). Whether or not these losses will result in further expanded economic damage to society through things like a cutback in the existing workforce is unclear.

It is also important to address the fate of money devoted to researching a cancer cure. A vast majority of the money that funds cancer research comes from the government through the National Institute of Health (NIH), somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 5.6 billion.10 Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that this money could be directed elsewhere from the NIH general fund to other worthy grant applicants. However, whether or not this will occur is unknown because of possible future cutbacks in NIH funds. For example some members of Congress may simply decide to eliminate a large amount of past cancer funding from the NIH in an inaccurate and foolish attempt to “cut government pork/waste”. While it is difficult for a legislator to cut funds for cancer research from a public relations standpoint, the public would not be so resistant to a cut in cancer funds that would have been redirected to say Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or something else.

The money derived from charitable organizations like the National Cancer Society is less likely to be recovered. Clearly the development of a cancer cure would heavily limit the continued functionality of such organizations. Most people who donate to cancer charities do so because of a personal connection to cancer, either they had it or know someone who has/had it. Therefore, it is unlikely that these individuals will donate to other charities if such a personal connection does not exist, they do not have a “charity donation quota” that needs to be met each year. Overall it stands to reason that most of the government funds for future cancer research will be directed to other medical research (unless Congress gets involved) and most of the private funds that would have gone to cancer research will not go towards other medical research. Some of these private funds could be invested in the economy yielding positive results, but the extent of benefit for such investment is unclear.

Part of the economic analysis associated with the possible societal influence of a cure for cancer is based on the assumptions that the cure would be widely available and will treat most, if not all, of the major forms of cancer. Initially it could be argued that the widely available assumption is not appropriate. However, the reasoning behind including this assumption is as followed. In the developed world it stands to reason that major insurance companies would cover the cost of the cure. This reasoning makes sense on two fronts: first, it is highly probable that a cure for cancer will cost less than the existing standard cancer treatment, thus it makes direct business sense for insurance companies that cover existing cancer treatments to shift coverage plans to cover the cancer cure.

Second, from a public perception standpoint any insurance company not providing coverage for a cancer cure would more than likely be basically ostracized from the marketplace with consumers avoiding that company in favor of one that does provide cancer cure coverage (recall that the assumption for this discussion is a cancer cure not a cancer vaccine thus people will still develop cancer). For the developing world it seems likely that various NGOs and charities will cover a majority of cancer cases with significant cost parameters.

So the general summary of change to society with the development of a cancer cure like treatment is as followed:

- Approximately 7.6 - 7.9 million people per year no longer die (assuming that the cure is available to all and that estimate may be on the lower end if cancer rates and deaths increase in the future which they are expected to);
- A vast majority of the direct costs associated with cancer treatment becomes increased profit for various insurance companies that will not result in an increased benefit to society;
- The growth/loss transfer to the general economy associated with indirect costs is unclear due to the simplistic level of modeling associated with cost replacement in the models themselves;
- The increased population will increase strain on existing resources, especially in developing countries, which have the majority of cancer deaths, as well as increase competition between individuals more than likely decreasing the quality of life of a larger number of individuals;
- There may be a contraction in employment at hospitals and other medical service companies, especially in high healthcare cost countries like the United States;
- Redirection of government grants and other monetary awards, both public and private, from cancer research to another medical condition/treatment should occur for government funds (again depending on how Congress acts), but not for private funds;

Understand that this blog post is not suggesting that the medical research community stop pursuing better cancer treatments, including one that may result in a cure, but instead is raising the important discussion point regarding how society may change in response to a cure. These changes are important to consider because of the momentous influence cancer as a physical disease and a psychological condition has on modern society. Cancer is in a rather unique position as a disease because while technically increasing age increases probability of development, no other disease permeates human health along all age groups at such a level of scale. Most other major diseases only afflict the elderly population. Therefore, eliminating this influence of cancer will cause significant change that must be accounted for and properly addressed to maximize the efficiency of curing cancer.

Overall it is troubling that no one really discusses these potential changes. Perhaps society is functioning under the belief that a cure to cancer is still decades away so addressing potential problems stemming from a cure is not necessary or that there will be no problems stemming from a cure. Neither of these explanations makes sense because there will be problems and even if a cure is delayed by decades developing a thought methodology to analyze how society could change is beneficial. Therefore, there are no excuses for the lack of attention being paid to possible negative societal changes that could be brought on by the development of a cure for cancer. As a starting point the most pressing issue for study is how the increased population will increase competition and possibly negatively influence society as a whole more so than if cancer is not cured.

Citations –

1. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2012. Atlanta: American Cancer Society; 2012, page 1.

2. Bloom, D, et Al. “The Global Economic Burden of Non-communicable Diseases.” Harvard School of Public Health. World Economic Forum. 2011.

3. Wikipedia Entry – Cancer. 2013.

4. World Health Organization Fact Sheet N-297. Cancer. January 2013. In conjunction with Globocan 2008, IARC, 2010. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/index.html

5. Corso, P, Soyemi, A, Lane, R. “Part II: Economic Impact Analysis. Cost of Illness.” Center for Disease Control and Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.

6. Hutubessy, R, et Al. “Indirect costs of back pain in the Netherlands: a comparison of human capital method with the friction cost method.” Pain. 1999. 80:201-207.

7. Johansson, P. O. (2001). Is there a meaningful definition of the value of a statistical life? J Health Econ. 20(1):131-139.

8. Viscusi, W, and Aldy, J. “The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates Throughout the World.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. 2003. 27(1):5-76.

9. World Bank. “The Effects of Pollution on Health: The Economic Toll, in Pollution Prevention and Abatement Handbook, World Bank, Washington, DC. 1998.

10. National Institute of Health. Estimates of Funding for Various Research, Condition and Disease Categories (RCDC) between 2009 and 2014. April 2013. http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx

Methane, Siberia and Bubbles

One of the more dynamic issues regarding the progression of global warming and its ability to induce detrimental effects on society is the role of methane trapped in permafrost on land and methane hydrates in the ocean and their release into the atmosphere as surface and ocean temperatures increase. Methane garners such attention because some are concerned that once a significant and consistent amount of methane starts to discharge from natural sources a runaway effect will begin dramatically increasing the probability of detrimental environmental damage. Unfortunately the estimates surrounding this “tipping point” vary considerably with large uncertainty because no one actually understand how the environment will respond once these methane sources start emitting methane.

While surface permafrost trapped methane is important because the ocean is absorbing most of the initial additional heat created by the combustion of fossil fuels the near-term focus should be placed there. Due to millions of years of methane accumulation1-3 and sea level change during the last glacial maximum it is known that large amounts of methane are trapped in hydrates (a form of methane in a clathrate molecule containing water ice) on or beneath the sea floor; however, the actual amounts in both quantity and stability are unknown (methane estimates range from 700 to 10,000 Pg of C).1,4-6 The stability may be unknown, but more frequent plumbs of methane release, especially around the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) have begun to worry scientists.7,8 The excessive greenhouse potential of large scale methane release should be a concern, thus it is important to determine a counter-strategy to reducing the probability that significant “tipping point” amounts of methane are released from these hydrates.

Typical hydrate formation was driven by pressure as melting temperatures for given compounds increase with pressure. Most of the hydrates that formed over time did so at large ocean depths (a few hundred meters below the sea floor) due to this melting temperature change principle.1 The ocean water column also experiences a reduction in temperature with an increase in pressure. Therefore, most methane hydrates are “protected” by a double security blanket: the higher melting point and the cooler deep ocean temperatures that are further buffered by a sediment layer. There are two types of methane hydrates deposits: stratigraphic and structural with a majority of the formations being stratigraphic, which appear to contain less methane than structural.9

The ESAS is especially important in the issue of methane release because its hydrates are located in much shallower water (45-50 meters) than most others because instead of relying on pressure to induce temperature changes for formation, the ESAS, as well as some other parts of the Arctic, simply used existing lower temperatures as a driver for hydrate formation.1,8 Unfortunately now with the Earth influenced by global warming these shallower hydrates have a much higher probability of releasing methane over their deeper counterparts. Also while some climate scientists have shown concern about the land based permafrost in Siberia, the average temperature of the ESAS bottom seawater is 12 – 17 degree C warmer than the average surface temperature over land based permafrost8,10,11 making methane release from the ocean more probable than release from the land.

Of course methane release from the hydrates is only the first step for producing additional atmospheric methane and aggravating global warming. There are additional “safeguards” even after methane bubbles have formed from the hydrates. First, the production of bubbles associated with melting attempts to destabilize the sediment column, but fortunately the depth of sediment packing prevents such a catastrophic occurrence typically limiting rate of release.12 Second, because the sediment column does not collapse it acts as a physical barrier and typically remains cold enough that the methane bubbles migrating through it results in the dispersion of the bubble.1 Third, free flowing sulfate creates a chemical barrier that can oxidize the methane.1 Fourth, methanotrophic bacteria can react with the methane converting the methane to CO2 (clearly not an ideal situation).

Not surprisingly though these “safeguard” are not able to neutralize all of the released methane. The probability of successful migration is largely dependent on bubble volume as the larger bubbles can create a larger pressure differential between both the sediment and the water versus the bubble at the top and bottom of the bubble.1,8,9 Unfortunately this critical element of bubble volume is difficult to measure or model; this is one of the elements that make it difficult to accurately portray methane release.

Despite the lack of good information pertaining to creating accurate models of methane hydrate release, there is little uncertainty that continued warming of the ocean by releasing larger concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will result in large amounts of methane release from methane hydrates. One of the trickier elements for this situation is that CO2 mitigation is a long-term solution, but not a short-term solution and methane release may be an all-term problem. The reason for this concern is that while reducing CO2 emissions will eventually result in a cooling atmosphere, oceanic release of heat through convection should proceed at a much slower pace maintaining the threat of methane release for a considerable period of time after CO2 mitigation is completed. Therefore, a strategy for mitigating this release probability beyond mitigation of CO2 emissions must be developed.

CO2 emission reduction is a longer-term strategy even if it rapidly occurs because of the physics of ocean heating and cooling. The surface layer of the ocean is warmed by sunlight penetration typically increasing the ocean surface temperature beyond the above atmosphere leading to heat loss. This rate of heat transfer is determined by the temperature gradient of “cool skin layer”, a thin viscous region of the ocean (0.1 to 1 mm thickness) that is in contact with the atmosphere.13,14 Due to the heat transfer between the atmosphere and the cool skin layer water molecules are forced together in a more organized formation limiting heat transfer to conduction only. When dealing with the thermodynamics of conduction temperature gradients are critical.

Addition of excess greenhouse gases to the atmosphere trap heat and redirect random percentages of the heat back to Earth including the ocean surface. This heat only penetrates the “cool skin layer” warming the top portion of the layer changing the temperature gradient.13,14 The change decreases the gradient between the atmosphere and the top portion of the “cool skin layer” and increases the gradient between the top portion and bottom portion of the “cool skin layer”. Due to these gradient changes heat will travel between the top portion and the bottom portion of the “cool skin layer” reducing the probability that heat is expelled back into the atmosphere. Thus the greenhouse gases have to be eliminated (through technological or natural processes) after mitigation to allow the ocean-atmosphere gradient to normalize for the ocean to start expelling heat into the atmosphere on a consistent basis.

There are two general short-term strategies for reducing the probability of methane release into the atmosphere: prevent the methane hydrate from melting in the first place or prevent the methane from reaching the surface and entering the atmosphere after melting. Despite potential protests from certain parties, the execution of these strategies will entail technological techniques that can be regarded as geoengineering. Two strategies come to mind when attempting to prevent the hydrates from melting: cloud thickening and increasing ocean surface albedo. One important aspect of strategy selection is to focus on locality to limit the costs and increase efficiency of the strategy. Such a consideration handicaps the injection of sulfuric aerosols into the atmosphere to promote cooling because over a significant period of time (multiple years) it is nearly impossible to maintain localization of these aerosols due to wind currents, thus the aforementioned two options become the most attractive.

Fortunately because the late fall, winter and early spring temperatures in the ESAS provide no threat to inducing methane hydrate melting any executed strategy would only need to be administered at most five months per year (early May to early October). The chief advantages of cloud thickening is its easy execution utilizing wind-propelled ships with reactants that are not environmentally detrimental and in very limited testing seems to reduce atmospheric temperatures. The chief disadvantage of cloud thickening is that it is a catalytic agent in that it only thickens existing clouds; it cannot create clouds in clear skies. Therefore, while this catalytic element is not a significant problem when considering cloud thickening for a global solar radiation management strategy, it could be significantly detrimental in its inconsistency for a local strategy.

Increasing ocean surface albedo is a little trickier because there are two chief possibilities: increase ice coverage and increase wake formation. Increasing ice coverage is almost a non-starter because it would involve fighting against decades of additional absorbed oceanic heat that has been reducing Arctic ice coverage including in the ESAS. Therefore, the increased albedo must come from something else. One possibility is increasing wake formation. While the process of creating a wake is theoretically simple, propeller generated vortices pressurize air creating submerged bubbles that rise to the surface,15,16 its overall reliability is questionable. For example to create the necessary speed to produce wake from ships would be counterproductive due to negative elements associated with the fueling components of those ships (relying on wind would not be appropriate).

Therefore, instead of directly applying a wake, one can indirectly create a wake through the production of a surface bubble layer. Bubbles require little energy to create, thus the operational costs for such a system are low.17,18 Bubbles increase ocean surface albedo by increasing the reflective solar flux by providing voids that backscatter light.17 In addition modeling the reflective behavior of bubbles is similar to aerosol water drops because light backscattering is cross-sectional versus mass or volume dependent and the spherical voids in the water column have the same refractive index characteristics. Note that ocean surface albedo varies with angle of solar incidence. Common values are less than 0.05 at 12:00, below 0.1 at 65 degrees solar zenith angle and a maximum albedo, which range from 0.2 to 0.5, at solar zenith angle 84 degrees.19-22

Experiments have already demonstrated the creation of hydrosols from the expansion of air saturated water moving through vortex nozzles, which applies the appropriate level of shearing forces creating a swirling jet of water.18 Also by using an artificial two-phase flow smaller microbubbles can be created to the point of even creating interfacial films through ambient fluid pressure reduction.19 Microbubbles can possibly form these films because they typically last longer than visible whitecap bubbles, which rise and bust in seconds. Note that whitecaps are froth created from breaking waves and can increase ocean albedo up to 0.22 from the common 0.05-0.1 values.23

While whitecaps from waves and wakes do provide increased surface albedo, the effect is ephemeral. Microbubble lifespan can be influenced by local surfactant concentration and fortunately the ESAS has limited surfactant concentration that would influence this lifespan, thus granting more control in the process of creating those bubbles (less outside factors that could unduly influence bubble lifespan). For example, if these bubbles are created through technological means additional elements can be added to the reactant water like a silane surfactant that could add hours to the natural lifespan.24 Bubble lifespan is probably the most important characteristic for this form of ocean albedo increase.

Another method for creating microbubbles comes from biomedical engineering or biology arena where microfluidic procedures and sonication are used to enhance surfactant monolayers to stabilize microbubble formation.25 However, there are two common concerns about this method. First, it is used primarily in a laboratory largely for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, not in the field; therefore there may be questions about transition. Second, while sonication increases stabilizing time, it limits control of microbubble size distribution, which limits the total reflectiveness of the bubbles.26,27

An expanded and newer laboratory technique, electrohydrodynamic atomization, generates droplets of liquids and applies coaxial microbubbling to facilitate control over microbubble size. Unfortunately one concern with this technique is that as mentioned above ideal bubble size is in microns, this technique is currently only able to create single digit millimeter sized bubbles.25 However, the increased size may be offset by the increased stability of the bubble (less overall reflection, but longer residence times). Comparison testing will be required to make the appropriate judgment.

Initially the idea of cloud brightening was dismissed above due to its catalytic ability versus an inherent driving reactant ability, but this dismissal was based on cloud brightening as a standalone application in the ESAS. However, cloud brightening could be a useful secondary component to a microbubble system. Another point of note is that over time microbubble surface application will result in hastened cooling of the ocean, especially the surface, which should increase CO2 retention capacity. Basically increasing ocean albedo should result in a very small localized increase in CO2 absorption increasing ocean acidity.

Most of the above discussion has centered on preventing the hydrates from thawing versus preventing the released methane from reaching the atmosphere. The reason for this focus is quite obvious; preventing thawing is easier than preventing released methane from reaching the atmosphere, especially in the oceanic environment itself. There are two main methane “removal” reactions utilized by nature and neither one is appealing for eliminating ocean born methane.

The first and principle method of elimination involves the reaction of methane with a free hydroxyl radical (OH-) in the troposphere or stratosphere creating water vapor and CH3- radical. This CH3- radical usually later reacts with another hydroxyl radical to form formaldehyde. While this reaction almost exclusively occurs in the upper atmosphere transferring it to the ocean in some form will not improve upon the situation. Methane can also react with natural chlorine gas to produce chloromethane and hydrochloric acid (free radical halogenation), but this is another atmospheric reaction that probably cannot be effectively transferred to an ocean medium.

The chief ocean methane reaction involves metabolization by microorganisms known as methanotrophs (or methanophiles). There are two major types of methanotrophs (ribulose monophosphate users and serine carbon assimilators) divided into numerous additional groups, which use two principle reactions with selectivity governed by the availability of oxygen.28 Note that methanotrophs are also located in soils and landfills and aerobic/anaerobic methanotrophs are of different families.28 Both the aerobic and anaerobic basic reactions are shown below (the reactions have numerous intermediates and their efficiency is largely based on what type of monooxygenases (MMO) enzyme is utilized):28,29

CH4 + 2O2 → 2H2O + CO2 (1)

CH4 + SO4(2-) → HCO3- + HS- + H2O (2)

The aerobic reaction is the principle reaction between the two, but has two drawbacks. First, the consumption of oxygen limits its ability to scale and address large amounts of methane release from melting hydrates due to the creation of oxygen limiting factor regions (a.k.a. dead zones). However, this magnitude of this drawback is limited in the ESAS because of the limited amount of life by scale. Second, the reaction produces CO2 as a product, which may be a net detriment overall because of the lifespan of CO2 and increasing ocean acidity. Unfortunately this drawback is not as limited as the first because ocean mixing will de-localize the increase in acidity. The scaling efficiency of the anaerobic reaction is the chief problem with its use because most of the oceanic available SO4 is located near the ocean floor, which limits its usefulness once the methane release concentration begins to increase significantly. Therefore, it does not appear that either relying on existing methanotrophic or other methane-oxidizing bacteria or attempting to increase their numbers will be an effective strategy for addressing methane hydrate melting.

There is a bit of question whether or not methane in the ESAS is a genuine threat. Air sampling surveys have revealed large variability in methane concentrations versus the standard global background concentration of 1.85 ppm with average increases of 5-10%. Some have also calculated a total methane flux from the ESAS of 10.64 million tons of methane per year.30 However, modeling studies suggest that permafrost lags behind changes in surface temperature, thus current outgassing is tied to long-lasting warming initiated by permafrost submergence approximately 8000 years ago versus recent Arctic warming.31 Such a conclusion is possible, but the rationality seems far-fetched due to the magnitude of the time lag.

Overall the threat of significant methane release in the ESAS is a legitimate one, but not one that demands immediate strategy implementation. While immediate strategy implementation is not required, strategies to address this melting possibility must be studied to ensure a solid and effective plan when the time for implementation comes, which appears to be soon. Currently local production of microbubbles by some form of floating device (a buoy for example) initially appears to be the best strategy for preventing methane release, but as mentioned future study must be conducted to ensure the validity of this promise.

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Works Cited

1. Archer, D, Buffett, B, and Brovkin, V. “Ocean methane hydrates as a slow tipping point in the global carbon cycle.” PNAS. 2009. 106(49): 20596-20601.

2. Davie, M, and Buffett, B. “Anumerical model for the formation of gas hydrate below the seafloor.” J Geophys Res. 2001. 106:497–514.

3. Dickens, G. “Natural Gas Hydrates: Occurance, Distribution and Detection”
(American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC). 2001. 124: 19–38.

4. Milkov, A. “Global estimates of hydrate-bound gas in marine sediments: How much is really out there?” Earth-Sci Rev. 2004. 66:183–197.

5. Dickens, G. “The potential volume of oceanic methane hydrates with variable external conditions.” Org Geochem. 2001. 32:1179–1193.

6. Holbrook, W, et Al. “Methane hydrate and free gas on the Blake Ridge from vertical seismic profiling. 1996. Science. 273:1840–1843.

7. Archer, D (2006): Destabilization of methane hydrates: a risk analysis. A Report Prepared for the German Advisory Council on Global Change (40pp). PDF

8. Shakhova, N, et Al. “Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.” Science. 2010. 327:1246-1250.

9. Milkov, A, and Sassen, R. “Economic geology of offshore gas hydrate accumulations and provinces.” Mar Petrol Geol. 2002. 19:1–11.

10. Romanovskii, N, et Al. “Offshore permafrost and gas hydrate stability zone on the shelf of the East Siberian Seas.” GeoMarine Letters. 2005. 25:167-182.

11. Flemings, B, Liu, X, and Winters, W. “Critical pressure and multiphase flow in Blake Ridge gas hydrates.” Geology. 2003. 31:1057–1060.

12. Kayen, R, and Lee, H. “Pleistocene slope instability of gas hydrate-laden sediment of Beaufort Sea margin.” Mar Geotech. 1991. 10:125–141.

13. Fairall, C, et Al. “Cool-skin and warm-layer effects on sea surface temperature.” J. of Geophysical Research. 1996. 101(C1):1295-1308.

14. Painting, R. “How increasing carbon dioxide heats the ocean.” Skeptical Science. October 18, 2011. http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=939

15. Reed, A. and Milgram, J. “Ship wakes and their radar images.” Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 2002. 34:469–502.

16. Gatebe, C, et Al. “Effects of ship wakes on ocean brightness and radiative forcing over ocean.” Geophysical Research Letters. 2011. 38:L17702.

17. Seitz, F. “On the theory of the bubble chamber.” Physics of Fluids. 1958. 1: 2-10.

18. Seitz, F. “Bright Water: hydrosols, water conservation and climate change.” 2010.

19. Evans, J.R.G, et Al. “Can oceanic foams limit global warming?” Clim. Res. 2010. 42:155-160.

20. Davies, J. “Albedo measurements over sub-arctic surfaces.” McGill Sub-Arctic Res Pap. 1962. 13:61–68.

21. Jin, Z, et Al. “A parameterization of ocean surface albedo.” Geophys Res Letters. 2004. 31:L22301.

22. Payne, R. “Albedo of the sea surface.” J Atmos Sci. 1972. 29:959–970.

23. Moore, K, Voss, K, and Gordon, H. “Spectral reflectance of whitecaps: Their contribution to water-leaving radiance.” J. Geophys. Res. 2000. 105:6493-6499

24. Johnson, B, and Cooke, R. “Generation of Stabilized Microbubbles in Seawater.” Science. 1981. 213:209-211

25. Farook, U, Stride, E, and Edirisinghe, J. “Preparation of suspensions of phospholipid-coated microbubbles by coaxial electrohydrodynamic atomization.” J.R. Soc. Interface. 2009. 6:271-277.

26. Wang, W, Moser, C, and Weatley, M. “Langmuir trough study of surfactant mixtures used in the production of a new ultrasound contrast agent consisting of stabilized microbubbles.” J. Phys. Chem. 1996. 100:13815–13821.

27. Borden, M, et Al. “Surface phase behaviour and microstructure of lipid/PEG emulsifier monolayer-coated microbubbles.” Colloids Surf. B: Biointerfaces. 2004. 35:209–223.

28. Lo-sekann, T, et Al. “Diversity and abundance of aerobic and anaerobic methane oxidizers at the Haakon Mosby Mud Volcano, Barents Sea.” Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2007. 73(10):3348-3362.

29. Wikipedia Entry – Methanotroph.

30. Shakhova, N, et Al. “Anomalies of methane in the atmosphere over the East Siberian shelf.” Geophysical Research Abstracts. 2008. 10:EGU2008-A-01526.

31. Dmitrenko, I, et Al. “Recent changes in shelf hydrography in the Siberian Arctic: Potential for subsea permafrost instability.” Journal of Geophysical Research. 2011. 116:C10027.

Addressing Improper Patent Litigation

Non-practicing entity (NPE) or patent assertion entity (PAE) are organizations that are most commonly lumped into the debate about patent trolls. Patent trolls are regarded as individuals or companies that have little to no research base, but purchase patents from other companies and then enforce those patents against alleged infringers in an overly aggressive and illegitimate matter because the patent holder has no intention of making commercial use of the patent themselves. Instead the threat of litigation is typically used to extort higher than appropriate licensing fees so the NPE can collect a quick dollar. While some praise NPEs for allowing startups and other small businesses an opportunity to better enforce their patents, enforcing a patent against others with no intention to commercialize or license the patented idea/technology at a fair price defiles the very purpose of the patent and is an inherent detriment on society both economically and culturally. Unfortunately there are too many individuals/companies that care only about their personal finances, not about the positive development of society; therefore, it is important to develop strategies to eliminate the benefits for behaving like a patent troll. Note that it must be understood that not all NPEs are patent trolls.

In addition to providing an unnecessary cultural and creative developmental barrier the quantitative economic costs facilitated by patent trolls are enormous estimated at 29 billion dollars in the U.S. in 2011 (note this estimate does not include opportunity costs only direct capital costs).1 In fact “patent trolling” was thought to make up approximately 61% of all patent litigation in 2011 and 2012.2 However, this economic damage could have been worse if not for the ruling from eBay v. MercExchange in 2006, which eliminated blanket permanent injunctions simply for patent infringement instead reaffirming the necessity of the four factors judgment when determining the level and length of injunction, if any at all.3 This decision limited the ability of patent trolls to “threatened” permanent injunctions as a negotiation tool during possible licensing agreements, which has been thought to limit the boldness of the settlement demands.

Another one of the problems with patent trolls is the structure of their organization limits the “defensive” options of the alleged infringer individual/company. The lack of manufacturing limits the ability to monitor activities by competitors and their existing patents to searching patent databases, thus infringement might only be recognized after significant investment is made in production and infrastructure. Also counter-suits typically lack significance against individuals/companies that generate income from litigation over direct commerce. Litigation costs for these types of plaintiffs are typically less than for the defense limiting mutual assured destruction tactics (i.e. litigation costs bankrupting both parties). Finally patent misuse claims are also difficult because of the necessity of anti-trust violations born from manufacturing dominance, which is lacking for a patent troll due to a limited/non-existent manufacturing basis.

In one attempt to combat patent trolls, in September 2011 the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) officially became law with its central provisions going into effect last March (officially March 16, 2013). The most important features of this legislation are a change in patent prominence from “first to invent” (FTI) to “first inventor to file” (FITF) system, which also eliminated interference proceedings and an expansion of post-grant opposition options for outside parties. While this legislation has good intentions, there is little reason to suspect that it will have a significant impact on reducing improper patent litigation over the coming years and in fact it may create more problems than solutions in the overall patent environment.

For example switching prominence from FTI to FITF demonstrates no real advantages (it is somewhat ironic that this is the system utilized by the rest of the world sans the Philippines). The original idea was to eliminate interference costs and procedures as well as reduce costs and increase efficiency for acquisition of foreign patents. For example FTI focuses on when a patent applicant can prove “invention” of the idea through documentation of when it was put into practice (i.e. prototype construction). If two inventors file patent applications on the same invention an interference hearing is conducted to determine which inventor conceived of the patentable concept first in appropriate form. Basically even if inventor A applied for a patent a month after inventor B, if inventor A created a prototype two years before inventor B, inventor A would be first in line for receiving the patent. Interestingly enough while interference hearings can be expensive they are actually quite rare relative to the number of patent applications filed each year.

Under FITF interference costs are eliminated because the date of idea conception is no longer relevant only the official date of application for the patent matters. Unfortunately this system gives rise to derivation proceedings, which can more expensive than interference hearings. Derivation proceedings are exactly what they sound like, individual/company A has a patent application challenged by individual/company B on the grounds that individual/company A independently conceived of the patentable idea. Most derivation proceedings will focus on the petitioner claiming that the defendant developed the idea from ideas conceived by the plaintiff.

One of the chief problems with FITF is that the need for the inventor to file creates a “race to the Patent Office” mentality, which more than likely will decrease patent quality (ideas must be kept secret for fear of being scooped on the patent) and increase overall work for the USPTO because of fear that similar ideas may cast a broad net eliminating the patentability of other ideas. In these patent office races larger companies with in-house patent lawyers have a huge advantage over smaller companies that have to contract out patent applications to independent patent lawyers. The idea of “best mode” disclosure is also handicapped by FITF. Also new prior art published after the invention date but before the filing date could eliminate the validity of valid patentable ideas. Finally it will be interesting in the future to see if any patent attorneys are sued by a prospective patent holder for filing the appropriate patent application paperwork after a second company despite receiving the material earlier.

Some could counter that FITF eliminates hidden prior art and their ability to unfairly restrict other patent applications. Hidden prior arts are inventions that have no patent application filling, thus cannot be found through a database search, but in FTI would force the rejection of all relevant patents issued before the filing, but after the invention. However, to address this fear by changing FTI to FITF is similar in ridiculousness to how Republicans try to deal with alleged voter fraud through forcing the use of voter IDs. Basically both systems punish millions of individuals/companies for the bad behavior of say seven people because both incidents of violation are so incredibly rare. In both situations there are much better and fairer solutions if one is genuinely interested in actually addressing those rare outliers. Overall changing FTI to FITF was perplexing and more than likely will create more problems than solutions.

Some believe that AIA policy of restricting plaintiffs from filing large multi-defendant lawsuits versus filing multiple serial lawsuits will limit litigation abuse of bad patents. Another element thought to be limiting are executive orders requiring the USPTO to create a structured policy governing more frequent updates to patent ownership and NPEs having to publicly file their demand letters. Unfortunately there are problems with expecting significantly limitation from these new policies.

First, NPEs have already adjusted to the lack of multi-defendant filing capacity by asking for courts to consolidate pre-trial proceedings through multi-district litigation filings (a strategy allowed by the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation), which limits the disadvantages of disallowing multi-defendants. Second, the public demand letter issue is rather irrelevant because NPEs can simply file a lawsuit before sending a demand letter eliminating any detriment born from a public announcement, especially because the threat of a lawsuit is the power behind the letter and lawsuits are much less expensive for NPEs. Third, these changes do not influence the use of “exclusive licensees” as the motivator behind the initiation of infringement litigation.

The expansion of post-grant opposition options also appeared positive initially, but has not produced and probably will not produce the anticipated results. The principle element to post-grant opposition changes is allowing a third party to challenge patent validity. There are three significant elements to this third party challenge potential: 1) pre-issuance third-party submissions; 2) post-grant review; 3) inter partes review. Unfortunately despite these changes the probability that they will reduce the approval of bad patents or litigation involving bad patents is questionable.

First, for pre-issuance third-party challenges it is rare that a third party will have sufficient knowledge of ongoing patent applications, unless that third party is a plant or sponsored by some organization, because such applications are difficult to locate and track. Second, most patents only become relevant after an individual or company begins producing a marketable product, not while a patent is pending. This behavior also limits the effectiveness of the time period (nine months) associated with the post-grant review process. After the expiration of the nine-month initial post-grant review period the AIA allows for inter partes review. However, this type of review is not the same as the current inter partes review in the reexamination process as judgment responsibilities are transferred from the USPTO to administrative law judges on the Patent Trial and Appeals Board and the review standard is raised from “substantial new question of patentability” to “reasonable likelihood” with regards to whether or not the patent will be overturned upon actual reexamination.4 These two changes should reduce the number of inter partes reexaminations granted due to third party request.

Furthermore reexamination requests are typically utilized as supplement to patent litigation not substitution for it. For example in 2008 30% of ex parte reexaminations and 62% of inter partes reexaminations were enacted due to pending litigation.5 Also expansion of post-grant reexaminations could hurt the patent process as companies have greater opportunity to file oppositions for the purpose of wasting time and financial resources of their competitors reducing their ability to compete. A quick side note: ex partes examinations of a given patent are triggered by petition of a third party, the patent holder or the director of the USPTO, but once the examination begins only the holder and the assigned patent agent for the reexamination conduct the reexamination. Inter partes can be triggered similar to ex partes, but third parties are allowed to participate in the reexamination.

Finally one of the most important aspects of these new conditions is there is no change or hastening of the review process itself. While the legislation attempts to install a maximum time period of 18 months for disposition few actually believe the USPTO will be able to conduct an effective review in such a time period. Existing inter partes reviews typically take 34 to 53 months for non-reworked patents without appeals to be settled and five to eight years for appealed cases.6 The demanded “special dispatch” status of inter partes reexaminations is irrelevant because the USPTO is overworked and because the AIA expands inter partes to include discovery and a hearing in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board further increasing the take taken to resolve these types of reviews.4,6

In addition when infringement litigation and inter partes reviews are co-pending federal courts can grant a stay (the probability that a stay is granted depends largely on the court), which eliminates the ability for the patent owner to collect damages from the potential infringer. Thus smaller companies/individuals may be placed under great financial strain and have to declare bankruptcy before a ruling, thereby mitigating any value in eventually receiving redress from victory in the infringement litigation. Overall while some thought the AIA would be useful for battling NPEs most of the provisions in the AIA appear to be more detrimental than beneficial.

One proposed solution to addressing patent trolling litigation that has been floated is to invoke a mandatory patent reexamination for all contested patents that are the subject of litigation.4 In this proposal the plaintiffs bringing an infringement lawsuit will be responsible for all elements associated with the reexamination including the fee. Proponents of such an idea believe that the “extortion” effect of trial would be heavily mitigated by the specter of reexamination revoking the patent, thus reducing the probability that bad patent holders attempt to litigate. While this belief is true for bad patents there are a few concerns with such a strategy as well. First, the costs associated with a reexamination are not cheap, ex parte reexamination is $2,250, and an inter partes reexamination costs $8,800.4 Fortunately this cost is not a large issue for most patent suit plaintiffs.

Second, it will delay the ability of the patent holder to enforce his/her patents against infringing parties. As highlighted above both ex parte and inter parte reviews take years to complete, which could significantly handicap start-ups and small businesses against larger competitors. During this delay larger competitors with greater manufacturing, marketing and distribution capacity could completely sweep smaller competitors from the market after copying the patented technology and/or process crippling them to the point that even after reexamination and litigation are completed (5+ years later) the plaintiff company will be unable to recover. This scale effect is also why the elimination of process patents, championed by some, is foolish if one wants to create an environment where smaller companies have any chance to succeed against the “big boys”.

Some proponents have proposed additional safeguards including vacating the mandatory reexamination if a preliminary injunction could be obtained or an initial showing can be made that the patent is being asserted against a direct competitor or potential competitor.4 The one immediate concern is how the second voiding strategy is constructed because while most NPEs initially lack manufacturing capacity to compete with most of the companies they litigate against depending on how this provision is written they could “dummy” up some manufacturing to achieve this second condition, thus allowing any bad patents to skip the mandatory reexamination. Overall for the above suggestion the key question is how can this provision be attained by a small business or start-up that may not have any manufacturing yet, but plans to in the future versus restricting it from NPEs that have no future intention of manufacturing a product that utilizes information from the patent in question?

Third, there is a minor concern about court venue coming out from reexamination where the plaintiff may no longer have the ability to determine venue instead initiating a “race to the court house” mentality. Fortunately this “concern” is rectified in another suggestion later.

Fourth, reexaminations do not have the same level of stringency as court proceedings regarding the types of invalidity that can be applied. For example under 37 CFR 1.552 prior art rejections are only made due to prior art patents or printed publication not on prior use, sale or inventorship. Therefore, reexamination may miss certain issues of invalidity giving both the plaintiff and defendant the false impression that the patent is high quality entering into litigation.

Fifth, similar to the second concern, is that mandatory reexamination proposals will force more work on an already overtaxed USPTO. Some argue that because on average only about 2,500 patent infringement lawsuits are filed each year7 the additional work is minimal relative to the overall number of patent applications filed each year [500,000-600,000 (applications have increased significant in recent years)].8 Unfortunately the problem with this mindset is that the USPTO is already supersaturated in its workload thus even a small increase does not act as a linear increase, but an exponential increase in time allotment.

Some have argued that the USPTO can address these additional issues by increasing fees for these mandatory reexaminations. There are two concerns with such a strategy: first, again small businesses may have trouble paying the fee when enforcing their patents and unable to acquire a waiver. Second, the total additional funds from this increase is dynamic, thus there is no guarantee regarding revenue. What happens if revenue falls short on a given year, will various patent examiners become yo-yos hired and fired on a yearly basis? Overall a mandatory reexamination is an interesting idea, but there are some concerns chiefly how to manage the additional workload for the USPTO and how to differentiate between patents owned by start-ups and patents owned by NPEs with no economic manufacturing intent.

Clearly another means to address future bad patent litigation is to reform the USPTO itself so bad patents are not granted in the first place. While this suggestion is obvious the key to USPTO reform is simple funding. There is not enough money to hire or retain enough quality patent examiners, especially when considering the cost of living in Alexandria, Virginia or surrounding areas. The planned PTO “branch offices” are uncertain in their ability to alleviate patent backlog. Unfortunately U.S. Congress has not demonstrated any desire to increase USPTO funding; in fact as time passes Congress has become more likely to cut funding from the USPTO over increase it. In fact due to a lack of funding the USPTO invoked a hiring freeze in 2009 and has expanded that freeze in 2013 partially due to the Federal Government sequestration resulting in the USPTO facing an approximate 140 million dollar shortfall (requiring further cuts).9

If improving monetary availability is not practical then systematic changes within the USPTO can be administered to reduce the probability that bad patents are left to the court for termination. For example Congress can grant the USPTO the mandate to reject the use of broad/generic language in an application when disclosure only focuses on a very specific improvement to an existing art. The highly criticized “sealed crustless sandwich” patent would have been rejected during the initial examination due to this mandate instead of during reexamination. Also the office could reorganize so that two examiners need to sign off on an application in that one examiner would do all of the standard work and the second examiner would “edit” that work so to speak. A second perspective can see things that might have been missed or ask questions on the methodology of the first examiner. Such editing would be cursory, thus not adding significant time expenditure.

Expansion and reorganization of the USPTO search database would help both examiners and applicants regarding existing prior art and the probability that a patent will be/should be approved. Also the official declaration of specific terms for given subjects (think a glossary of sorts) should dramatically reduce the ability of certain patent holders to hide behind ambiguity to avoid prior art eliminations or expand their patent to cover more than it should.

Additionally Congress could convene various panels of industry experts to review all existing patents in their respective fields to make recommendations on whether or not the patent is legitimately proprietary and suggest whether or not a reexamination of the given patent should occur. Industry, with their mega-profits, could provide the funding for such panels if needed because industry is most affected by patent trolls. Such a process could clarify the legality of numerous patents greatly increasing potential patent litigation efficiency and limiting total patent trolling in those given subjects.

One misconception is that patent trolls prey on the large corporations looking for the big payoff, but because most patent trolls do not want to actually go through the process of litigation about 55% of the NPE defendants have a net worth of $10 million or less.10 The reason for this targeting is officially unknown, but it can be assumed that these smaller companies have less experience and financial resources to actually engage in litigation and are more likely to avoid litigation by signing a large licensing fee. The large costs associated with defending an infringement suit and the uncertainty of outcome are the chief problems with bad patents. For NPEs plaintiff litigation costs are minimized because the lack of manufacturing and business operations limits the necessary work hours associated with discovery and data mining. Counter-suits are not typically available to defendants further lowering costs. Also NPEs consistently employ lawyers who work on contingency versus hourly fees11 in these infringement suits as well as sue multiple defendants with the same patent infringement claim (while they can no longer sue multiple defendants in the same action, litigation “reach” has not changed).

While NPEs use the above strategies to reduce their costs, they also apply various legal strategies to increase the defendant costs. First, NPEs demand maximum discovery even if most of their request is irrelevant.11 Second, they frequently assert infringement against multiple patents, which places pressure on the defense increasing resource expenditure. Third, because the plaintiff controls the jurisdiction due to patent infringement being a federal procedure an inconvenient venue can be selected to increase transportation costs. However, this strategy is typically foregone for selecting the Eastern District of Texas officially because of its expertise in patent issues, but realistically because it tends to favor plaintiffs in patent-based litigation.

A survey by the American Intellectual Property Law Association determined that for smaller companies a claim that would net a most 1 million dollars generally cost $650,000 to defend, a $1 to $25 million dollar claim generally cost $2.5 million and a claim exceeding $25 million cost approximately $5 million.12 With these general benchmarks as expected litigation costs, it is not surprising that numerous defendants sign licensing fees at above market value to avoid these costs; even if the defendant is in the right, the costs of the patent litigation could cripple them.

One means to counter high defendant litigation costs is if the defendant is found not guilty of patent infringement and the plaintiff is found lacking cause to bring the infringement suit in the first place, the plaintiff will be obligated to pay the defendant one and half times his court costs. This idea has been floated before, but usually only the English system of redress is utilized where the loser pays the court costs of the winner. The concern with only limiting the reimbursement to “at cost” instead of some multiplier of cost is that a majority of the charged defendants would have to defend themselves and win for it to provide a negative motivation factor, which even with “loser pays” could still be risky due to the uncertainty of court decisions. Another concern is that recent suggested legislative action (i.e. SHIELD) would restrict “loser pays” to only corporations not individuals. Although difficult to speculate at this time, such a condition could completely mitigate any benefits of such a system in that NPEs could sell patents to individuals associated with the company and then that individual could file the infringement suit avoiding the “loser pays” aspect.

The federal government could also establish a specific loan for individuals/companies at 3% interest to cover court fees pertaining for patent litigation (clearly the loan would need to be evaluated for the bad patent potential). The projected interest related costs should not be significant concern for those defending against genuine patent trolls if there is some form of “loser pays” system because even if there is no multiplier the interest cost will typically be less than the licensing fee demanded by the plaintiff. Another possibility is that the federal government could provide lawyers on retainer (working for the federal government) to mitigate costs for needy individuals/companies (these lawyers would also receive a 3% commission from won cases). This lawyer pool could be an interesting idea because the vast majority of costs associated with patent litigation are lawyer fees.

As mentioned above litigation history has demonstrated that plaintiffs overwhelmingly prefer to select the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas largely because it tends to favor plaintiffs in patent-based litigation. Therefore, one means to discourage patent trolling is to allow for random selection from the venue pool eliminating the ability of the plaintiff or defendant to select the venue for future litigation. Removing the ability of the plaintiff to select what may be regarded as a “home court advantage” would inherently reduce the attractiveness of a frivolous patent lawsuit. Finally one means for the government to “strong-arm” a reduction in bad patent litigation is to force licensing arbitration between conflicting parties to limit the overall extortion and litigation costs. However, such a strategy would have to be carefully constructed because numerous groups would seek to manipulate it in some way if enacted.

The cost of patent trolls and their actions are a drain on society both from a creative and economic standing. However, one must be careful when dealing with patent trolls; while most patent trolls are NPEs, not all NPEs are patent trolls. NPEs can provide a useful service as a middleman to allow smaller companies a better opportunity to enforce their patents. Dealing with patent trolls demands dealing with bad patents. One critical element for addressing bad patents is to neutralize them as bad or obvious ideas before they become patents in the first place hence more vigilance at the USPTO and providing improved resources to allow for this vigilance. However, USPTO reform will not address existing bad patents. Mandatory reexaminations are one means of addressing currently existing bad patents, but the better way may be through litigation with some form of loser pays system and government loaned funds. Overall addressing patent trolls appears straightforward, society simply must be realistic about doing what needs to be done.


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Citations –

1. Bessen, J and Meurer, M. “The direct costs from NPE disputes.” Boston Univ. School of Law, Law and Economics Research Paper No. 12-34 - Cornell Law Review. 2014. Vol:99. Forthcoming.

2. Goldman, D. “Patent troll: ‘I’m ethical and moral.’” CNN. July 2, 2013.

3. Wikipedia – “EBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C.” Accessed August 9th, 2013.

4. Bradford, B and Durkin, S. “A proposal for mandatory patent reexaminations.” The Intellectual Property Law Review. 2012. 52(2): 135-166.

5. Guest Post: Hot Topics in US Patent Reexamination. Patentlyo. http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/03/guest-post-hot-topics-in-us-patent-reexamination. html?cid=6a00d8341c588553ef011168d0dd50970c

6. Reexamining Inter partes Reexam. Institute for Progress. http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/IAMBlogInterPartesReexamWhitepaper.pdf

7. Lemley, M. “Where to file your patent case.” AIPLA. 2010. 401(38): 404.

8. U.S. Patent Statistics Chart Calendar Years 1963 – 2012. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm

9. Welcome Back Fee Diversion: USPTO Likely to Begin Sending Collected Fees back to Treasury. Patentlyo. April 2013. http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/04/welcome-back-fee-diversion-uspto-likely-to-begin-sending-collected-fees-back-to-treasury.html

10. Chien, C. “Patent Trolls by the Numbers.” Patentlyo. Mar. 14, 2013. http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/03/chien-patent-trolls.html

11. Sudarshan, R. “Nuisance-value patent suits: an economic model and proposal.” Santa Clara Computer and High Tech L.J. 2008. 159(25):160.

12. American Intellectual Property Law Association. “Patent litigation costs: Report of the Economic Survey.” 2011. http://www.aipla.org/learningcenter/library/books/econsurvey/2011/Pages/default.aspx

Geoengineering Reality and Debate Misconceptions

One of the most obvious realities that environmentalists continue to deny is the near inevitability that the application of at least one type of geoengineering technique will be required to mitigate the worst consequences of global warming. The rationality behind this denial appears to derive from fear that the application of geoengineering technique x will fail and increase the damage to the environment beyond what global warming will do alone. On its face this fear is understandable, but its viability demands the critical assumption that society can effectively and rapidly reduce global CO2 emissions in the very near future. With CO2 emissions increasing last year to the highest levels in human industrialized history and with almost all top tier developing economies (China, India, Brazil, Russia and Mexico) experiencing positive growth in their emissions the probability of a massive global emission reduction is extremely unlikely. Even the great global recession of 2008 to 2010 only produced a 2.6% reduction in global CO2 emissions between 2007 and 2008, but despite lingering global economic “sluggishness” global CO2 emissions have increased by approximately 10.67% from 2007 to 2011 (most reliable data) because of the above developing nations.1 The fact that in May the global concentration of CO2 exceeded 400 ppm for the first time in thousands of years should further limit optimism. The graph below demonstrate that most of the highest emitters in the developing world are going the wrong direction in absolute emissions by either increasing those emissions or not reducing them (basically remaining stable even through the recession).

Three things to note for the above graph: first, the CO2 emission data was calculated from the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) through either raw data collected from country agencies by the United Nations Statistics Division or calculated from emission per capita information and global census data. Second, CDIAC data and International Energy Agency (IEA) do have some differences due to the way the CO2 emission data is collected, thus the raw data is a little different, but both trend the same way at similar magnitudes.

Also both estimate methodologies typically only focus on emissions from fossil fuels and manufacturing processes (like cement), not from land use or forestry, etc., although this information is known to some extent. In addition recall that these values are only relevant for CO2 emissions, they are not CO2 equivalency figures, which would include other greenhouse gases like methane. Three, although the numbers for Brazil are more sporadic and lower than other countries, Brazil is still incredibly important to consider because it is the third-largest emitter of total greenhouse gases globally with a vast majority of those emissions derived from agriculture and forestry activities, most notably the destruction of rain forest to expand agricultural lands.2 Unfortunately after a brief period of reduced forest destruction the last few years have seen a significant increase in deforestation in Brazil.

Unfortunately in addition to their own personal denial, despite the above trends and data, some geoengineering opponents do not argue honestly when debating the virtues and vices of possible strategies. There are three common misconceptions that are utilized by these opponents to mar candid debate. The first misconception is when discussing solar radiation management (SRM) techniques opponents commonly use language that could insinuate that the cessation of the strategy, for whatever reason, will result in a greater than expected temperature increase versus if the technique was not used in the first place. While such a message may not be the intent of opponents the use of language requires specific word choice and with their selections opponents are either being unjustifiably lazy or are genuinely attempting to sabotage the debate.

For example common word use in describing the above problem is as followed: “if the SRM system fails then the Earth will warm even faster…” The actual meaning of this statement illustrated by the graph below; note that the actual numerical values in the graph are fictional and only the general trend in surface temperature change is important.

From the example graph for the first 10 years of the SRM deployment surface temperatures increased only 0.1 degrees whereas without SRM deployment surface temperatures increased 0.7 degrees. Once SRM deployment is stopped, for whatever reason, surface temperatures increase at a faster rate versus its rate of increase without SRM at all. However, there is no significant empirical or theoretical evidence to suggest that temperatures in the SRM scenario will increase to a higher maximum point than temperatures in the non-SRM scenario. This distinction is left somewhat ambiguous in the language used by geoengineering opponents. While the accelerated warming seen in the SRM scenario can be more detrimental to the environment than the gradual warming seen in the non-SRM scenario if the maximum temperature is inherently detrimental the rate of warming over that time period (15 years in this case) is irrelevant. Basically if plant/animal x cannot survive at the maximum temperature a non-consistent rate of increase does not matter because plant/animal x is going to die anyways. Finally this scenario of course assumes that the SRM technique fails in the first place.

The second misconception involves disparaging various geoengineering techniques because no single one solves all of the environmental problems created by global warming or human pollution in general. Therefore, because no geoengineering technique solves all of these problems no technique should be utilized at all. This foolish rationality is commonly demonstrated when opponents point out that SRM techniques will not have a direct rectification effect on ocean acidification. When there are multiple problems in a given scenario it is irrational to not administer a strategy that will potentially solve some of the problems solely because that strategy will not solve all of the problems, especially because in most situations a panacea solution does not exist. Even CO2 emission reduction may not be a panacea solution because of the rate in which reductions are required versus how fast these reductions will occur in reality in relation to positive environmental feedbacks.

The third misconception used by geoengineering opponents is that emission mitigation and geoengineering are mutually contradictory to the public in a way that pursuing one eliminates the desire or need to apply the other. In the recent past Joe Romm of the blog Climateprogress has seemed to push this mindset. Rational individuals realize that geoengineering is akin to a tourniquet; it is designed to ensure that the victim does not die from blood loss or infection due to a major wound until reaching an appropriate operating theater to properly repair the wound via surgery. The tourniquet is not designed as an alternative to surgery, thus it will not replace surgery similar to how geoengineering is not designed as a replacement for reducing CO2 emissions. However, when one receives a major wound not using a tourniquet is quite risky largely relying on dumb luck and positive circumstance to avoid heavy detrimental outcomes including death. Currently the Earth has a major wound and is bleeding profusely. Based on existing global emission rates it is difficult to envision a scenario where a “tourniquet” will not be required.

Some may argue that although China’s CO2 emissions increased between 2012 and 2013 the increase was very low (relatively speaking) and their government has acknowledged the severity of the pollution and emission situation thus reductions will occur in the near future. However, there are two problems with this attitude. First, it does not appreciate the fact that in the past China has produced questionable figures regarding their national carbon emissions undercutting certain values found in more provincial areas versus urban centers.3 This discrepancy in reporting makes it more difficult to trust figures produced by China, so even if it starts reporting carbon emission reductions will those reductions be genuine and how expansive will they actually be? Second, the above attitude does not consider that the scale difficulty in emission reduction is not linear. From arbitrary point x the first 30% is the easiest, the next 35% is rather difficult and the last 35% is incredibly hard based on existing technology and economic/resource availability; this exponential difficulty curve is even sharper for emitters as large as China and to a lesser extent the United States.

The attitude of quick emission reduction also rejects the reality that close to half (estimates vary widely) of the global population is still energy impoverished and despite the best hype (and in some cases outright lies) of its supporters, solar and wind are still more expensive energy options than natural gas and coal because necessary storage mediums and rare earth cost curves, among other things, are not included in cost evaluations; thus while global energy use has approximately doubled (largely thanks to China and India) between 2000 and 2010 (most recent figures) only 14% of that increase came from renewables and a majority of that was hydroelectric not solar or wind.4 So the amount of energy consumption that renewables have to replace has actually gotten worse since 2000 not better.

Unfortunately solar and wind supporters tend to get distracted by the high % increase values forgetting that those % increases are relative and their large values are due to low absolute energy origin points. They also confuse nameplate capacity with operational capacity where operational capacity is the actual amount of energy utilized by society and are commonly 20-30% of the nameplate capacity from wind and solar energy sources. In short those who believe that all society needs to do is rapidly deploy wind and solar infrastructure to solve global warming have not performed a complete and effective analysis of the global warming problem and are operating on flawed blind faith (such a solution could possibly work, but there is no solid theoretical evidence to suggest that it is the best solution or it would work while avoid large detrimental side outcomes).

It is interesting that geoengineering opponents have an incredible level of optimism regarding the ability of the global community to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions despite contrary evidence, yet have an incredible level of pessimism regarding the success probability of any geoengineering technique despite contrary evidence from nature itself that geoengineering can work successfully. The reality of the situation is that genuine scientifically controlled short-term geoengineering studies exploring various strategies need to be designed and applied to develop a better understanding of the potential outcomes beyond simple theory. For example the United Nations could spearhead a program to deposit a constant concentration of sulfur aerosols (typically sulfur dioxide) into the atmosphere over the period of six months and analyze atmospheric and surface changes during the experiment and for at least one year after its conclusion. Obviously due to wind currents it is irrational to hope for complete isolation, but the short time frame will limit unintended consequences from drift. Overall analyzing appropriate application methodologies for various geoengineering techniques is not defeatist, irrational, unnecessary or foolish, it is reasonable, intelligent, practical and a proper action by individuals who actually care about protecting the environment for future generations.

==
Citations –

1. Drawn from C. emissions data pursuant to those years;

2. International Energy Agency. “CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion Highlights.” 2012.

3. Guan, D, et Al. “The gigatonne gap in China’s carbon dioxide inventories.” Nature Climate Change. 2012. 2:672-675.

4. Walsh, Bryan. “Nuclear Energy is Largely Safe. But can it be Cheap?” Time Magazine. July 8, 2013. http://science.time.com/2013/07/08/nuclear-energy-is-largely-safe-but-can-it-be-cheap/#ixzz2ZblqJrSH

Building a Habitat for Colonizing Mars

Leaving the confines of Earth to colonize Mars will be a daunting task with numerous new challenges. Questions range from how to design the appropriate flight plan to arrive safely on Mars to the psychological makeup of the traveling astronauts. One important question that has evolved recently is the design of the initial Martian habitat. The most important element when considering habitat design is to establish the purpose for the mission to Mars. Early on in the quest to travel to Mars the principal goal was for scientific purposes, largely establishing whether or not life had ever existed on Mars or currently exists on Mars. However, over time this motivating factor has begun to shift towards developing a permanent human presence on Mars. Clearly habitat design will demand different boundary conditions between a mission designed to last 6-18 months and a mission designed to last indefinitely. This post will apply a permanent stay boundary condition in the discussion regarding Martian shelter design.

One of the first issues in Martian colonization is the preparation element. One concern with current preparation is the nature of how the “need” methodology is designed for Martian colonization simulations conducted on Earth. Most colonization simulations take place on Earth in remote locations like various deserts (Mars Desert Research Station) or in Arctic areas (Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station) and are undertaken with the correct spirit and attitude, but appear to have significant design problems. The characteristics that are correct involve the isolated environment and limited resource availability and capacity. However, the usefulness of a simulation stems from the commonalities that can be demonstrated between the actual environment and the simulated environment. In this mindset these colonization simulations fail at least on the following levels, if not more:

- The task schedule described in these simulations for the participating crewmembers seems inaccurate relative to what colonists on Mars will be doing. In simulations tasks revolve around maintenance of machinery, simulated research and shelter-based chores. There is no construction of additional shelter elements, which will comprise significant amounts of time for colonists or farming. To be fair some simulations were conducted with a research mindset over colonization (18-month stay before a return); however, with the current momentum for Mars missions shifting from research return missions to permanent stay colonization, construction of additional shelter elements using Martian based resources (in-situ) and developing an independent food production system should take precedence over research and chores.

- Food consumption is too “well-developed”. In these simulations “colonists” have a wide selection of food available, most of which will not be available on Mars. It stands to reason that there will be some initial variety born from the food transported with the colonists (albeit most of this, if not all of it, will be dehydrated or freeze dried due to the travel time between Mars and Earth). However, this initial source food will be consumed over a brief period of time and less hardy choices will be relied upon for a significant time period afterwards. The “food” study aspects of these simulations do not properly represent starting or transition points. This misrepresentation reduces the probability of collecting accurate information pertaining to how biological functions would change over time and how colonists would have to adjust when consuming significantly fewer calories.

- Modes of transportation operate on diesel or gasoline instead of electricity or methanol as they would on Mars.

- Water extraction and consumption is not practiced in the same manner as will need to occur on Mars. There is no water extraction from simulated ice, no atmospheric extraction, limited water recycling and no experimentation involving water synthesis from the Sabatier reaction. Consumption is managed a little better with personal hygiene restrictions, but unclear parameters regarding actual biological consumption.

These are just some of the limitations that create problems in developing an accurate understanding of the physical, mental and psychological elements that will be required for colonizing Mars. Without addressing these concerns conducting similar future simulations may be more harmful versus not performing any simulations at all because it is more dangerous to create a targeted strategy born from inaccurate boundary conditions and situations than not create a targeted strategy at all.

While both food and water consumption and development strategies will be discussed in much greater detail in another blog post it is important to note that there are questions to whether or not colonization proponents are overestimating the ease of water use, thus underestimating the probability of water stress and shortage for Martian colonists. It is to be expected that water use for personal hygiene will be restricted (showers will be allowed every x number of days based on a rotating schedule baring emergency, dish washing could use UV treated sponges verses water and soap, etc.). Water use will also have to be rationed for personal use (both direct consumption and in food preparation) and this rationing will need to be effectively measured for too many seem to believe that biological water expenditure will be similar to that on Earth, which does not appear to be effective reasoning. Numerous external vehicle activities (EVAs, although one could rename this exercise as ECA (external colony activities)) and multiple hours of exercise per day will place an excess workload on colonist, which should demand greater water and food consumption over the minimum survival amount, a value that most calculations utilize.

Energy for the colony should be derived almost entirely from electricity with the best option being some form of small modular nuclear reactor with breeding capacity. Such a reactor will not produce significant waste so disposal will not be a major issue and the reactor will be able to provide a near 100% capacity rate, something that no other energy medium situated on Mars can achieve. Reactor location is still tentative because of uncertainty relative to how radiation could negatively impact colonists versus the necessary length of transmission lines. If there is a concern regarding potential radiation exposure then reactors can be placed in a nearby crater to offer partial shielding.

Solar power is a popular selection for some colony advocates, but it really is a non-starter because of inconsistencies derived from day-night intermittency, CO2 fog at higher latitudes, dust storms, lower absolute solar radiance on Mars versus Earth, among other things. The only way solar would work is with large amounts of energy storage and only batteries would be available in the short and mid-term significantly limiting storage options and viability due to weight considerations because these batteries would have to be sent from Earth. In addition these batteries would have inconsistencies in their energy storage rates because of the demand for redundancy (most energy consuming elements for the habitat operate 24/7 to ensure survival), but only unused energy can be stored. Finally there are potential oxidation and maintenance issues as well.

There has also been some concern about solar panels being strong enough to withstand wind gusts on Mars, but with the lower atmospheric pressure Martian wind velocities rarely exceed a 4 m/s equivalency on Earth. Thus, only the abrasion resistance is important due to sand particles traveling up to 32 m/s.1,2 Lifting the solar panels above the saltation point (20 cm) can increase abrasion resistance, but the panels will still have to be cleaned constantly creating additional external environment work for the colonists and consume additional resources.3 Therefore, based on all of these issues any proposal to utilize solar power as a primary source of energy is highly questionable. Note that these low equivalency wind velocities as well as its own intermittency eliminate the viability of wind power as well.

Use of solar power as a secondary source of energy is also highly questionable because of intermittency issues. For example in the event of a failure of the small modular reactor for solar to be an adequate backup energy provider the failure would have to occur during the day with clear skies under limited energy demands. Basically the conditions for the successful administration of solar power as a backup source are too narrow to justify its use. If one could develop an effective Martian energy storage system then solar as a backup could become viable, but currently such an infrastructure is not viable due to its dependency on Earth batteries.

The debate between an underground shelter and an above ground shelter is worthwhile for each has advantages and disadvantages. The chief advantage of an underground shelter is additional radiation and dust storm protection. However, the chief disadvantage is digging through the regolith to develop the appropriate underground region to house the habitat. Drilling through the regolith is difficult for two reasons: first, there are almost no easily available fossil fuels on Mars so operational times for drilling equipment would be almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels sent from Earth. One could use methanol as a fuel source, but that would complicated and require large amounts of prep work before sending colonists. Second, Martian regolith is heterogeneous with fragments of glass, coral and other obtuse shaped miscellaneous objects which can significantly interfere with the drilling process by damaging drill bits and other important machine elements.4

Fortunately there are two possible strategies to avoid this problem of regolith drilling. First, regolith does have various iron oxides strewn through it, which opens the possibility of using an electrical attractant or magnetism to thin a significant portion of regolith within a localized area possibly, but not likely forgoing the digging process entirely.4 The chief concern with this method is isolating the regolith to the specific target area due to iron oxides being widely spread throughout all of the regolith.

Second, the underground shelter can be centralized in a lava tube that already has an eroded surface opening so no digging is necessary. In such a scenario a crane/elevator system may be needed to safely lower objects sent from Earth down into the shelter area. Unfortunately while this second possibility sounds promising no organization has even attempted to land a rover in an lava tube, let alone succeeded, thus the prospects of successfully landing a habitat structure (inflatable or not) in a lava tube is a bridge too far in optimism at this point in time.

Another concern with building an underground shelter is the potential for a lack of similar elevation water availability. Some lava tubes double as ice caves, which would have significant sources of water, but where these ice caves are located exactly is not entirely clear.5 Therefore, without identifying at least one easily accessible ice cave, underground shelters would more than likely have less atmospheric and regolith based water sources available versus surface shelters. The best subsurface colonization site would demand three elements: 1) easy surface-subsurface access, preferably from a pre-existing natural opening; 2) a source of ice, which can be converted into drinkable water; 3) sufficient ceiling height and outer area to allow for habitat expansion; unfortunately such goldilocks sites are far and few between at the moment.

For surface-based sites there are three popular locations for initial habitat construction: within the equatorial region of 30 N to 30 S, the edge of the southern polar cap and the northern polar cap.3,6,7 One of the concerns with the reasoning that went into determining these habitat locations is the contradiction between the operations of the habitat and colonists versus the features of the habitat location. In the past when these locations were considered the mission objective was a short stay for scientific purposes; however, how do they rate when the mission objective is changed to a permanent colony? For a permanent colony only two elements are of critical importance: water availability and dust storm frequency.

Other elements of consideration can be easily compensated for depending on the design of the habitat. For example sunlight exposure through changes in inclined angle of incidence is irrelevant if artificial lighting is used. Due to the general sunlight patterns on Mars, the development of an artificial lighting system is appropriate because one will be required anyways to ensure continued flora growth. Other individuals believe that close proximity to sites of scientific interest is important; that belief may be important if individuals were not colonizing Mars, but instead simply traveling for the purpose of research, but in the case of colonization scientific study is far down the list of important considerations for the initial habitat.

While sites closer to the equator will foster external environments with greater temperatures and will reduce internal power requirements for heating, potential water availability decreases as the habitat moves away from the poles. Therefore, colony planners appear to have an energy-water tradeoff decision. Using small modular nuclear reactor(s) to power the colony, energy becomes much less of an issue versus water, thus with regards to this issue the initial colony should be situated closer to one of the poles. Humidity is also an important consideration for it will influence the rate of atmospheric water extraction as well as biological cooling within the contained environment of a space suit during external activities.

Another important factor is the frequency and intensity of dust storms. Dust storms have a higher probability of occurrence in the regions of Hellas, Noachis, Argyre and the Syria, Sinai and Solis Plani in the Southern Hemisphere and in the regions of Chryse-Acidalia, Isidis-Syris Major and Cerberus in the Northern Hemisphere.2,3,8 In general the greatest storm activity takes place between latitudes 20 S and 40 S.8,9 Therefore, based on storm activity potential a colony site in the Northern Hemisphere appears superior to the Southern Hemisphere.

Finally while a polar location appears superior to an equatorial location, a polar landing from Martian orbit is more difficult and offers fewer orbital support options. Therefore, test flights will have to generate an appropriate dynamic for landing successfully otherwise a more equatorial location may need to be selected by default to ensure the safety of the colonization crew. Also note that while targeting has improved from 62 by 174 miles (100 by 280 kilometers) for the 1976 Viking mission to just 4 by 12 miles (6 by 19 km) for the Curiosity rover,10 colonization may demand further improvement due to the limited ability to move the habitat after landing. Overall despite the landing concern the best surface colonization site appears to be near the pole on the Northern Hemisphere.

There are numerous types of habitat design, but with the advancement of plastics and deployment technologies, inflatable habitats seem to be the superior design type. The chief advantage of an inflatable habitat is high space to weight ratio. Increasing the amount of space available for the first habitat is obviously important for psychological and flexibility reasons without significantly increasing launch costs. Another advantage is the lack of complexity in the deployment and functionality for inflatables removing the possibility of requiring secondary structures within the habitat for structural support further reducing costs associated with excess weight despite the fact that various light-weight metals like aluminum would likely comprise these secondary structures.

The chief problem with an inflatable habitat is that it will more than likely provide significantly less radiation shielding either inherently or over time. For example one means to address this concern is to dope laminates into the plastics that makeup the habitat; laminates make excellent shields against debris and even radiation, but when they absorb energy they delaminate, which can create structural abnormalities that are difficult to identify and repair, thus making the doping risky.11 However, this radiation problem can be alleviated through augmenting radiation shielding with additional elements like regolith or human feces.

If an inflatable habitat is utilized space compression will allow for the implementation of a tiered system creating a 1st and 2nd floor. The figures below illustrate one possible layout that can be applied to these two floors incorporating the rooms discussed above.

Figure 1: First Floor of Possible Martian Colonization Habitat

Figure 2: Second Floor of Possible Martian Colonization Habitat

Key:

Floor 1

1 – Outer Hatch
2 – Grey Room/Airlock
3 – Inner Hatch
4 – Primary Life Support Area
5 – Infirmary
6 – Ladder to the 2nd Floor
7 – Secondary Sleeping Quarters
8 – Kitchen
9 – Water Storage
10 – Primary Food Growth Chamber
11 – Filtration/Secondary Life Support Area
12 – Machine Shop
13 – General Meeting and Group Planning Area

Floor 2

1 – Communication Room
2 – Refrigeration Storage
3 – Secondary Food Growth Chamber
4 – Ladder to the 1st Floor
5 – Meditation Room
6 – Sleeping Quarters
7 – Bathroom / Evacuation Area
8 – Research Area 1
9 – Research Area 2

There are two points of consideration for the above figures. First, there are no dimensions on the figures because creating dimensionality requires continuous hands-on experience and access to various habitat structures for testing, something that is not available to me, thus to apply dimensions in any real detail would be rather arbitrary. Second, lacking the dimension specifics may have created what some would argue is an unrealistic expectation to the “carrying capacity” of the habitat. However, the above figures represent elements that could be present in the habitat creating a debate forum between parties for a hierarchical classification of importance among these possibilities. One point of reference is that the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station has an internal volume of approximately 416.6 m^3, which is a good starting point for debate, but realistically this is probably the minimum volume that should be used. Finally the lines in the figures do not represent physical barriers (walls), but instead are include as space demarcation elements.

One critical aspect of shelter design and operation that has been explored in simulation conditions is the organization and functionality of the crew.12,13 Due to the isolated nature of the crew and the proposed diversity of their assignments it seems important that there be a common area where group meetings could be conducted for debriefs and meals could be fixed and consumed to decompress and bond. Note that these meetings are not designed to be formal. The connections established and reinforced in these group activities will be important to reaffirm trust as well as reduce stress and simple errors during the course of the colonization. It is not surprising that trust is increased when people hear about other people doing a good job at their assigned tasks as well as discuss problem solving strategies with other colonists.12

This group meeting dynamic appears in some simulation environments, but is foregone in others for individual reporting to the commanding officer, a tactic that is less efficient. Overall consistency and casualness are key elements for developing psychological stability and normalcy for new Mars colonists. Also it would also be useful if the central area had a large message board, either a tablet computer or standard white board, that would be used as a display listing the planned activities for the given day and other important announcements.

Formal reports will be required on occasion, but should be limited to only scheduled reports, baring emergency, to limit unnecessary work and also limit stress. For example the only daily report would be the engineering check-in report, which would detail the technical status of all primary life support systems. Informal reports and briefings during meals should suffice for most of the day’s activity.

Expected formal weekly reports would entail:

- the Commander's check-in report (on crew’s overall health, performance and main habitat system status);
- science reports (experiments and preliminary results obtained);
- EVA reports (after each EVA: on duration, range, activity, results, interpretations, etc.);
- Commander’s future report detailing the necessary tasks to be undertaken over the next week;

As mentioned above initial colonization must focus on survival over science. Mars is not going anywhere nor is the environment going through a state of radical flux, therefore, holding off on scientific endeavors for at least six to nine months after landing is rational and appropriate. In fact the first three to four months after landing on Mars easily could involve doing very little “outside of colony work” for immediate tasks would involve required routine operational establishment, life support deployment, exercise, establishing a food growth system and allowing the body to acclimate to the ambient conditions of the Martian habitat including new levels of food and water consumption, which should be significantly diminished from those enjoyed on Earth. A secondary important task after landing would be establishing an autonomous security control system to track any potential external wall breaches and other problems with recycling or synthesis systems to reduce the amount of redundancy involved in colonists checking for these problems during the average day.

Obviously any habitat will require an area devoted to food growth. Numerous individuals envision constructing greenhouses inundated with natural light, but the viability of such a design is questionable. First, the use of natural light to cultivate flora is complicated by the longer Martian day and compounded with the reduced intensity of light exposure, which is approximately 48% versus that on Earth based on distance from the sun and thickness of the atmosphere. Therefore, there are longer consecutive periods of darkness and a longer, but weaker period of light. Some argue that there are numerous occasions of photosynthetic saturation on Earth for various plants, thus less intense natural light would act similar to more diffuse light and would not be a significant detriment to growing plants on Mars.14 Unfortunately light derived photosynthetic saturation is largely a product of long duration exposure to direct sunlight at optimal angles and is rarely a limiting factor to growth of plants on Earth and would be nearly irrelevant on Mars.

Instead of creating an exteriorized greenhouse environment to grow food, lighting can be provided through light emitting diodes (LEDs) at specific wavelengths to encourage growth. Some studies have been conducted regarding the potency of non-while light on planet growth finding that monochromatic red or blue, depending on the particular species, work the best.16-19 There are conflicting reports regarding the usefulness of exposure to monochromatic green light.20-22

The trickiest part to growing most food on Mars will be soil management. Unfortunately native Martian soil will be unable to reliably support food growth for years even after the initiation of a dedicated terraforming program. One solution is to transport soil from Earth to Mars and use that soil as a base inside the habitat (with appropriate temperature and pressure) for a food growth environment. The concern with this strategy, beyond cost, is the base construct of soil is more than just dirt and during the sojourn from Earth to Mars important organic compounds and supporting bacteria more than likely will be lost or altered in such a way that the soil is no longer useful. One potential means to circumvent this problem is cryogenically freezing important bacteria samples prior to takeoff and thawing them for soil insertion during the greenhouse seeding process.

Another popular solution is to forego soil use altogether and grow food through hydroponics. While hydroponics manages the soil concern of food growth on Mars it raises concerns regarding water use. Even with high rates of recycling, water scarcity will be an issue on Mars and growing food through hydroponics will place further stress on that scarcity. Also although soil is not used, a special nutrient mixture is required and it may be difficult to mass synthesize this mixture on Mars after the initial sample is consumed without having some base to work from that must either be created on Mars or sent from Earth.

Another option for food growth is aeroponic growth. Aeroponics attempts to optimize plant growth through the use of a pressurized water mist doped with nutrients sprayed on the entire exposed root system of the plant. One of the chief reasons aeroponics is successful is it does not require soil, which can provide growth inefficiencies due to poor drainage or lack of porosity limiting root aeration leading to reduced growth. NASA has even suggested that aeroponic-based food production through an ultrasonic technique will result in similar yields to conventional growth at 45% greater rates of growth despite using 99% less water and 50% fewer nutrients. However, this conclusion must be tempered with the fact that the comparison is more than likely (it is not really specified) being made against crops raised through flood irrigation and fertilizer saturation, two common yet incredibly inefficient agriculture techniques, thus the actual benefits of aeroponics over more responsible farming is more muted.

The most significant detriment to aeroponics in normal conditions is a higher probability of pathogenic death due to root exposure, but this concern is somewhat mitigated due to the natural aseptic environment on Mars limiting the absolute probability of exposure. Additional sanitary elements can be added to an aeroponics system to limit contamination from colonists. A secondary problem may be synthesis of additional nutrient compounds for the mist for traditional farming develops nutrients from organic compounds and bacteria.

Significant research has been conducted by NASA and other NASA sponsored outside researchers since the early 1990s resulting in several effective water droplet nebulizer technologies and a low mass polymer aeroponic apparatus.23 Some inflatable growth chambers have also been developed for flora growth in space. With that said some argue that a growing area is not necessary in a Martian habitat because aeroponic structures could be incorporated within various other parts of the habitat resulting in more efficient use of overall available space. While aeroponics is viewed by some as the future of food growth in space no serious long-term aeroponic experiments have been conducted in space, so most of the supposed benefits remain theoretical.

Random deployment of aeroponic systems throughout the habitat seems inefficient due to lighting condition confliction. Regardless of growth medium, plants will benefit from exposure to a different wavelength of light over standard white light. As noted above monochromatic blue and red lights have all demonstrated positive growth influences on plants and some positive results have been recorded for green, typically ordering from red to blue to green.20 Therefore, it stands to reason that all potential crops should be exposed to either a red or blue light source preferably from a LED. However, consistent exposure to red or blue light during wakeful hours could have a detrimental effect on the crew. Due to the possible lighting conflict as well as potential sanitation issues localization of food growth to isolated areas of the habitat principally responsible for food growth is advisable.

A problematic element surrounding potential aeroponic use in a Martian habitat is the lack of experimentation for such a system on Earth. Recall above that numerous “Martian Simulation” experiments have been conducted, but none have extensively utilized aeroponics in an isolated environment to support food production. If aeroponics is viewed as a valid option for providing food on Mars why have these simulation experiments failed to incorporate such a testable strategy?

Depending on the final strategy for food growth on Mars one idea for expanding stability and growth potential is to design a small indentation in the habitat that can be filled with water to develop a makeshift aquatic environment for raising fish and other life. While the specific details regarding what could be grown in such a pool will be left for another blog post two possible food candidates are loach and azolla because the azolla can fix nitrogen and suppress any weed growth while loach can survive in higher toxic environments (like high salt) with little detriment or consumption toxicity. Such a survival ability could be important because there will more than likely be periods where the water in this farming pool will be less than ideal and changing consistently it will be difficult to due higher priorities for water.

There are numerous questions associated with potential changes in sleep patterns on Mars. Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) use small-individualized compartments, similar to phone booths, to ensure personalization and space constriction. However, on the ISS the microgravity conditions allow these units to be vertical because with insignificant localized body forces the astronauts are able to sleep in any position without negative biological effects. On Mars gravity is only 1/3 that of Earth, but still significant enough that effective sleeping will more than likely require lying down. This requirement limits the usefulness of the phone booth designs utilized on the ISS. Two other options are ceiling/wall hammocks or using the floor of the inflatable habitat as an air mattress of sorts. While hammocks are viewed as a popular option there is a question of how much body, especially back, support they offer over the long-term. Thus, either long-term testing of hammock sleeping in a reduce gravity simulation environment (simulations typically utilize patients sleeping a an angled incline (30-45 degrees) has to be conducted or sleeping on the floor should be used due to uncertain safety concerns.

Another issue with sleep methodology is that experts acknowledge that sleeping environments must remain as homogenous as possible to increase probability of consistent high-quality sleep. Basically physiologically the body and mind must generate an understanding that this “area” of the environment is reserved for sleep not machine work, cooking, laboratory study, etc. Due to the shorter duration of stay (normally 3-9 months) on the ISS, astronauts can get away with more disrupted sleep patterns whereas colonizing Mars will demand a more stable sleep pattern, thus colonists should have some form of personalized sleeping quarters.

Sleeping quarters will need to have opaque shielding over the walls to eliminate any outside light sources, use LED lighting and will also more than likely have to be soundproofed in some manner because of the constant and excessive noise produced by the life support system. Not surprisingly colonists will sleep in shifts to ensure that multiple people are awake over a given time period to handle any emergency situations. Despite the planned shift sleeping the life support system will have a centralized yellow alert alarm that will act similar to a smoke detector when alerting colonists to a potential problem and a red alert alarm system that will act similar to a tornado siren to breach the soundproofing. In addition because of the soundproofing it may be beneficial to have a rudimentary intercom system between the main meeting area and the sleeping area.

As alluded to earlier there is the concern of noise pollution in the habitat, both during the day and night, due to the constant operation of the motors and pumps corresponding to life support function, other machine systems and in-situ processes. One possible strategy to deal with excess noise is to isolate the source limiting the resource and time requirements for soundproofing for all other necessary areas of the habitat. While this strategy could be effective, it typically does not consider the secondary redundant life support elements. Fortunately secondary life support elements should not be a large problem relative to noise production because they will only be on-line if the associated primary element is off-line. Also there will also be sources of external noise like dust storms, which will make soundproofing sleeping areas a high priority. Final designs will have to select between soundproofing the primary life support area, the sleeping area or both.

Whether or not private rooms will be made available or sleeping arrangements will be partnered to save space is a decision that will need to be made before the mission commences. A practical way to determine if partnering is a plausible idea is to have potential candidates sleep in the same room during isolation tests to determine whether specific sleeping habits are tolerable. If yes, then partnering is possible. Finally different forms of LED lighting could be incorporated to improve sleeping capacity and duration both during the process of falling asleep or/and during waking hours. Soft blue-enriched white light is thought to be the best option so far based on existing research.24

Another important element in habitat design that a number of people seem to neglect is whether or not to include a specific area for medical treatment. One response for this exclusion is that such a space is not necessary because there are only a limited number of medical conditions that could befall an individual on Mars versus Earth. For example the lack of pathogenic microorganisms nearly eliminates the possibility for infection (recall that all individuals and equipment will be sterilized prior to launch and the landing area should be thoroughly sterilized via UV bombardment). However, the reduced gravity will increase the probability of bone and muscle injuries due to apoptosis and bone degeneration. The additional demands of exercise could also increase the probability of muscle injury. It is difficult to apply experiences in exercise and the corresponding rate of injury potential from the ISS to Mars because of the difference in intensity of the exercise and the duration required due to length of stay. Therefore, it is unclear whether or not bone/muscle injuries can occur to such an extent that will require surgery (ACL tears, bicep tears, etc).

Without a prepared environment what will happen if someone needs an operation? Can another area of the habitat be prepared accordingly to create an appropriate operation theater? It is difficult to envision the creation of an appropriate area for surgical and other advanced medical procedures from the manipulation of another area largely because of the methodology in handling the blood and sterilization procedures required for successful surgical practice. Note that the probability of an individual sustaining an injury that requires surgery early in the colonization process is unlikely, but the probability of such an injury will increase with time. Therefore, the construction of an appropriate and stable location to conduct surgeries should be high on the priority list of habitat add-ons after initial deployment, but may not be required as a part of the initial habitat design.

The gray zone is the preparation area for EVA activities and separates the internal habitat from the external Martian environment (think of it as an expanded airlock space). Entry and exit will take place through pressurized hatches with the one leading to the surface of Mars denoted as the external hatch and the one leading to the internal habitat denoted as the internal hatch. There will be obvious safety precautions so that both hatches cannot be open at the same time (basically if one is open or opening the other cannot be opened) to ensure the purity of the internal atmospheric pressure by preventing disruption of the colony pressure, temperature and oxygen environments as well as the infiltration of dust that could damage instruments and other machinery. When designing this space the most important elements are airlock volume, airlock-suit interaction, power consumption, compression ratio, pump down rate and thermal cooling rate/method. Of course when the external hatch is opened there will be atmospheric mixing between the gray zone and the Martian atmosphere including the incursion of dust. To address dust in the gray zone a system of blowers will be used to transfer dust to a separate internalized compartment that can release the dust back into the Martian atmosphere.

There are numerous detrimental effects that afflict Earth-born humans in a significantly reduced gravity environment including, but not limited to: 1) Renal stone formation; 2) Diminished immune response; 3) accelerated bone and muscle loss; 4) changes to cardiac and vascular function and architecture.25 Clearly since Mars is a significantly reduced gravity environment these changes will afflict potential colonists although not at speeds equal to those experienced in space itself. One of the chief strategies for reducing the impact of these negative outcomes is a rigorous exercise program.

The lack of gravitational force near to what humans experienced during birth and early stages of development influences bone mineralization, reabsorption, matrix formation due to the lack of the “recognized” external body force that the bone structure developed around.26,27 These problems significantly increase the probability of osteoporosis. On the ISS force applied during foot exercises are dramatically reduced (25% for walking and 46% for running) versus the same exercises on Earth28 and one must expect a slightly reduced reduction on Mars. However, since these changes appear dependent on gravity, both from a standpoint of magnitude and direction, if muscle contractions are large enough intense exercise can act as an effective countermeasure.29,30

Exercise systems currently in use on the ISS are designed for saving space in that the equipment folds into the wall, similar to a Murphy bed, which is smart design. A similar design will need to be utilized for the Martian habitat as well, although a direct copy design could be difficult for an inflatable environment. However, the equipment should be upgraded to higher quality harness systems to increase musculo-skeletal loading. The loss of both slow twitch and fast twitch (type I and II respectively) muscle fibers, with slow twitch losses occurring much faster, demands more effective treadmill systems as well.31,32 In addition to treadmills, various resistance bands, at various levels of resistance, will be utilized as a light-weight, but effective means for tensile strength loading. A lingering question regarding exercise is whether or not a separate room should be reserved for this equipment versus incorporating it into another room?

Most would immediately answer that due to space considerations secondary incorporation would be a better choice over creating a specific space reserved for exercise. However, where would such incorporation take place? Clearly foldout equipment would need to be placed away from sleeping areas, life support, research areas, any areas designed for food growth and more than likely the communication areas (due to desires of privacy and quiet when talking with family, friends and associates on Earth). For most habitat designs this leaves the central meeting room, the gray area and the machining area.

The machining area may not be a practical decision because of necessary work on various tasks. Recall that each colonist will have to exercise a certain amount (usually 2-3 hours) per day to reduce detrimental effects from the limited gravity and it would not be advisable to skip specific sessions. The capriciousness of use for any type of machining or repair, its typical critical nature and unknown time allotment required for the repair will create situations of conflict with scheduled exercise times. The gray area suffers from a similar problem although EVAs can be scheduled creating less uncertainty in time confliction, thus this problem is not insurmountable. Fortunately the general meeting area does not have these types of problems and by default is the best place to incorporate the exercise equipment if it is not given its own area. This hybridization is rather easy to organize with appropriate scheduling assigning specific time to colonists and avoiding exercising during meal and meeting times.

One of the interesting debates concerning habitat development is how to address the psychology of living on Mars. Some believe that incorporating windows will be an important element to maintaining a healthy psychological makeup by providing a connection to the outside world.33,34 However, would such a strategy really provide said benefit for Martian colonists? Having a connection to the outside world/nature is only relevant when there is meaning behind that connection, i.e. when it provides inspiration or support. Any Martian colonists looking out a window will only see a barren rather monochromatic landscape unable to support life… how can such an experience provide benefit? There is also the belief that pictures of nature provide positive psychological benefits, which research supports.33 However, the research focused on individuals in isolation who would later leave that isolation, Martian colonists will not leave Mars, so would this reality lead to such pictures causing psychological detriment over benefit due to colonists lamenting about what they left behind?

Another strategy to produce a connection to nature could be a meditation room. One viewpoint towards food production, which will be expanded on in a later blog post, is for colonists to develop a simple aquatic farming system. The system would consist of a small pond with specific types of fish, algae and other simple life. Periodically this system would be farmed for food and could provide some rudimentary waste neutralization. In addition to providing food such a pond could act as a basis for a more Earth-like environment in the habitat. Some transported soil could be added to the pond environment to allow grass seeding, flowers and/or a very small garden as well as a pump system for the pond to produce a small waterfall (this could also provide better oxygenation of the pond itself); such features would produce an environment that would have a positive psychological effect on colonists.

In addition to providing a “little bit of Earth” on Mars, the room could provide a specific environment for individuals to regain focus and concentration after a bad day or persistent psychological deterioration due to task monotony. Such an environment would improve psychological, mental and physical health improving survival probability across the board. The space used for such an environment would not be significant in the habitat itself or could be “outsourced” to an externally constructed environment built after landing.

However, despite the outlined potential benefits of any of the above systems or others that were not mentioned, one could argue that these techniques to foster psychological benefits are superficial. They only provide benefit to the psychologically weak who are unable to cope with leaving Earth and settling on Mars. Pick the right colonists and adding such psychologically associated features would be a waste of time, space, resources and money. Whether or not this assessment is correct is debatable, thus leading to the aforementioned statement about the debate that will surround any psychological support elements being added to initial habitat design.

While one general goal of a colonization mission should be to mitigate as much critical communication between Earth and Mars as possible with the proper occupational and training selection of candidates, it will be important to design an effective facility to properly carry out interactions between Earth and Mars. The principle reason that one needs to limit critical communication is that there will be an 8-18 minute delay for radio communication depending on the proximity between Earth and Mars in their orbits.35 Video communication will be even longer, which will further limit the effectiveness of real-time support, thus colonists should have the experience and knowledge required to address situations that would have critical time constraints. This time delay also basically eliminates a practical Internet between Earth and Mars for it will take approximately 18-40 minutes to register a single mouse click.36 Cache storing is possible, but it will require a lot of additional work for little benefit.

However, communications between Mars and Earth will also involve non-critical information exchanges either on a professional level (official progress reports to a Mission Control-type organization) or causal/personal level (exchanges between colonists and family/friends). The feasibility and reliability of this communication will be based on two separate elements: inclusion of Ka-Band frequencies (18-40 GHz) relays and incorporation of new Mars-orbit satellite relays focusing on X-band frequencies (7-12.5 GHz).

A secondary important issue to judge communication between Mars and Earth apart from the time delay is the line of sight (LOS) problem where the Sun will produce significant levels of interference potentially eliminating most standard forms of communication for long periods of time. This problem will demand, but not require, modification of the Deep Space Network (DSN). One means for modification is launching numerous satellite relay points various Lagrangian Points. This modification can also provide an early warning system for various types of solar radiation. Unfortunately basic maintenance of the DSN has been generally deferred since the 1990s, thus it is questionable whether or not any improvements will ever be made.

The communication room could also double as a form of entertainment room with a large lightweight projector screen and two or three lightweight computer tablets. The tablets should be loaded with numerous different computer games from simple games like solitaire and scrabble to more complicated games like real-time or turn-based strategy games. The variety of games installed can be determined by gathering survey information from the colonists prior to takeoff. These games should be installed onto the computer so that they do not require Internet access because as mentioned above Internet connections on Mars are very improbable in the first few decades.

While research will be a secondary element in the primary stages of the colonization, it is practical to consider the design of scientific research areas in the habitat. The three most important research subjects on Mars will be biology, geology and chemistry, all requiring significantly different and sometime contrasting study environments. For example geologist will require low illumination and dust availability versus a particulate free and high illumination environment for biologist. Some of these elements are so contrasting that lab sharing is an unlikely solution. Also limiting the number of scientific tools could be a double-edged sword for fewer tools mean less clutter and maintenance, but would also demand more strict cooperation between researchers when using these tools. Overall it appears that research importance should trend from biology as the most important to chemistry then finally geology, so preparations should reflect this importance.

The first colony should have a rudimentary form of machine shop that can be used to facilitate repairs on damaged habitat features or EVA suit parts. For example EVA suits themselves will eventually become unusable, especially if exposed to additional impact damage produced during dust storms. How will damaged EVA suits be replaced? Expecting a “new” shipment from Earth is unrealistic, thus colonists will need to have materials and knowledge to make necessary repairs. However, there needs to be very strict coordination between Earth and the Mars colony regarding re-supply for EVA suits that sustain so much damage that they cannot be repaired. Also a machine shop should store the necessary tools to repair various habitat systems and life support elements.

In addition to the machine shop colonists must create an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) processing area. Fortunately the major ISRU elements (water and oxygen) can be funneled through the life support system where other ISRU elements (various metals and building materials) can be synthesized in an area external to the primary habitat. Most previous Martian return mission or colonization plans have focused on ISRU to synthesize fuels, both for space travel and surface travel, over other elements. For a colonization mission using electrified modes of transportation with methanol as an emergency backup, there should be less focus on synthesizing fuel from ISRU processes. The need for producing fuel is also diminished in the interim of a colonization mission due to less need for scientific exploration. Instead the focus will be on producing complementary water, oxygen and additional masonry building materials.

Concerning ISRU processes one of the most common proposals for a Martian mission is to use electrolysis on available water, largely derived from settlement at one of the poles, to produce hydrogen and oxygen. While this strategy is used on the ISS, it has never made much sense on a long-term scale for Mars colonization because of the high value of water, the almost non-existent ability to re-supply from Earth and the limited benefit from the produced elements due to other existing synthesis strategies. Hydrogen has little value in initial habitat settlement of Mars. Some view hydrogen as a potential energy source through the use of fuel cells, but this idea makes little sense because there are numerous more efficient means to power the habitat and transportation vehicles, like small modular nuclear reactors, which eliminates the need for fuel cells.

Using hydrogen as a transportation fuel source is also contingent on vehicle design. Hydrogen synthesis is only relevant if methanol is going to be utilized as a transport fuel for rovers. The idea revolves around using electrolysis to create a feedstock of hydrogen for the Sabatier reaction to partially recover some water and produce methane, which is later converted to methanol. However, transport rovers that utilize electrical batteries can be used over hydrocarbon/methanol-based rovers. One could argue a concern about a loss of the battery crippling an electrical rover, but similar crippling events could also come from the loss of various other machine parts utilized by either hydrocarbon-based rovers or electrical rovers, thus the seriousness of such a concern is mitigated by the random fail probability that embodies it. The goal of designing a transport rover is simply to reduce this fail probability to as small a number as possible while maintaining efficient operation. Overall it seems more probable that running out of a methanol fuel would be more troublesome than having a battery malfunction in probability of occurrence. Without any use as a fuel, either for electricity or transportation, production of hydrogen derived from water electrolysis loses its principle purpose.

Oxygen is another product of electrolysis and is an essential element for survival. Unfortunately oxygen production through electrolysis is inefficient because it involves the consumption of another important resource. A secondary method for creating oxygen would involve simply splitting the abundant CO2 in the atmosphere into carbon and oxygen. Such a process will take large amount of energy, but fortunately this energy would be available from a small modular nuclear reactor for it will produce much more energy than the initial habitat will need to survive. Oxygen concentration can further be supplemented through plant and cyanobacteria photosynthesis. However, it is important to note that photosynthesis derived oxygen will more than likely not be sufficient alone. The above analysis has mitigated the importance of electrolysis for the express purpose of synthesizing hydrogen and oxygen, thus there is little point to utilizing it during the colonization of Mars.

Early in Martian mission designs there was the potential need for a cryogenic storage area to store methane, hydrogen and other gases that would be utilized as potential rocket fuel to coordinate a return mission back to Earth. For a colonization mission the importance of the cryogenic storage area is reduced, especially if transportation is electrified over hydrocarbon-based. Any synthesized and/or collected hydrogen will be almost instantly inserted into a Sabatier reaction bed for the purpose of synthesizing water. Methane and other hydrocarbon-based gases do not need to be stored for any legitimate purpose.

However, the colony must have some form of refrigeration capacity for storing food as the efficiencies of harvesting food will not be maximized to the point where there will be zero potential food waste without a refrigeration system. Refrigeration will also be needed to store medical samples and generate ice for dealing with minor injuries. Also it is important to note that water treatment and recycling systems will be mandatory for any habitat, but it must be acknowledged that the lower Martian gravity will increase the rate of time for particles to be taken out of suspension in the recycled water. Realistically this increased time should only significantly affect passive filtration systems, but dependence on active filtration systems will increase energy demands, thus simulations need to be run to determine which system should be incorporated for a given specific process.

An additional element that has been noted in simulations with habitat operation is that storage space is highly coveted for scientific samples from biological and geological study, scientific instruments and personal items.12,13 On Mars storage will not be such a large concern in the interim because there should be a very limited level of scientific exploration/analysis for the first several months. During the process of acclimation one goal may be the construction of an external storage “shed” type structure apart from the initial habitat to alleviate future storage stressors. Digitizing documents would also be standard, not only to save space, but simply due to a general lack of paper.

One potential problem with habitat construction could come from the electrically active atmosphere. While the nature of the concern is strictly theoretical due to a lack of Martian exploration and lack of electrical charging measurements, differential charging in relation to electrified dust (recall that regolith possesses iron oxides) could create electrical discharges between different objects that could damage electronics or interfere with communications at inopportune times.39

The internal habitat environment should have a single atmospheric pressure eliminating the need for internal airlocks ensuring a more simple and efficient build as well as easier travel within the habitat. Despite a single atmospheric pressure, internal gas partial pressures can be adjusted appropriately (CO2 dominating in greenhouse areas and O2 in other areas of the habitat).

All of the primary life support elements should be located within same general area with secondary redundant life support elements individually spread throughout the habitat in case something happens to the core area housing the primary life support elements. The equilibrium values that will be generated by the life support systems will be set prior to launch based on estimated necessities for survival. The ISS has demonstrated a good standing for most of the life support elements that will be utilized on Mars.

Another consideration regarding the placement of primary life support and even secondary life support units is addressing possible radio frequency and electrical magnetic field interference (RFI and EMI). Sufficient RFI will interfere with communications, which given the specific windows of operation for an early Martian colony losing communications with Earth could be crippling. EMI originate largely from power distribution systems due to their large currents and can have a devastating effect on microcircuitry. RFI shielding typically consists of metal membranes or foils whereas EMI neutralizing actually involves simple physical separation of generators and targets. Overall to avoid RFI communication systems should be within their own room and properly shielded.

Although it is a topic that is uncomfortable to discuss what happens if one of the colonists experiences a psychological break and becomes unstable and potentially homicidal? In this potential scenario there must be some form of security measures applied to protect the life support system from sabotage. However, this security must also be lenient enough that if a colonist perishes through non-malicious events that it does not prevent surviving colonists from accessing the life support systems when necessary.

One possibility would be to control the security system from Earth, but would the frequent communication blackouts that occur between Mars and Earth create life or death problems? Unfortunately this system is handicapped by the emergency situation during a communication blackout because any override system would defeat the main purpose of having security control on Earth in the first place. One possible way around this dilemma is to only have the emergency override active when the signal from Earth is down. A second security possibility is to require two positive voice and retina identifications to enter the life support chamber. It is highly unlikely that two individuals would experience psychological breaks at similar times and conspire together to eliminate the rest of the colonists.

There are two aspects of temperature control in a Martian habitat. First, there must be external thermal insulation and reflective foils to eliminate the colder influence of the outside environment, which will frequently be too cold for human survival outside a space suit. Second, there must be a form of internal thermal control to reject or reprocess waste heat to eliminate temperature spikes inside the habitat. This secondary element will normally be controlled by the life support system and there is less need for a secondary redundant system backup because if life support fails there will be bigger immediate concerns than additional waste heat in the habitat.

In additional to controlling temperature, internal moisture control also will be an important element. Increased water vapor will come from colonist perspiration and flora/fauna (depending on the type of insects and/or fish raised in the habitat). If not controlled the excess water vapor will condense on colder surfaces within the habitat. This water condensate will increase failure probability for microelectronics and increase oxidation rates for various metals and other composites. One method to address condensation would be to utilize atmospheric condensers or humidifiers to pull water from the air and water condensate from solids while remembering to strategically place these units away from areas with agents, which require water consumption. On a side note fire elimination will more than likely involve an extinguishing chemical versus water.

Concerning the layout of the habitat shown above in figures 1 and 2, placement of the infirmary on the first floor is entirely practical because most serious injuries will take place either during EVAs or when exercising (both activities occur on the “first” floor and moving these individuals up or down a ladder is unnecessary and could aggravate the injury. First floor placement also makes sense for the purpose of equipment transport. Some form of secondary sleeping quarters should also be made available on the first floor to accommodate injured individuals for it makes little sense to locate the infirmary on the first floor to limit unnecessary transportation to those suffering from certain injuries, but then expect those same individuals to engage in that transportation for the purpose of sleeping and rest.

Due to the heavier equipment that will be transported for the purpose of exercise placement of the exercise area on the first floor is appropriate for weight barring and some of the associated jarring movements, which will occur during exercise. Also as mentioned placement on the same floor as the infirmary is important to lessen injury in transportation. Locating the machine shop operation on the first floor also makes sense again for transportation reasons because most of the operations in this room will involve elements that either originate from outside the habitat (various gases and materials) or interacts with the ambient atmosphere (EVA suits).

The general design of the habitat is to concentrate most of the noise and work production on the first floor due to ease of movement and continuity. Therefore, with most of the habitat-produced noise taking place on the first floor it would make sense to locate the sleeping quarters on the second floor to limit noise infiltration. In addition the sleeping quarters should be placed as far away proximity wise from the primary life support system. In the figures the sleeping quarters are placed in close proximity to some of the secondary life support systems (located on the first floor), but it is more important to ensure a sufficient distance between the primary and the secondary life support systems versus distance between the secondary life support system and the sleeping quarters because in most situations, hopefully all situations, he secondary life support system should not be producing any noise, thus close proximity to the sleeping quarters will not be an issue.

The research area is placed on the second floor to reduce noise and foot traffic in efforts to improve efficiency. Transportation of exterior objects for study is less of an issue because objects will be smaller and lighter. The research area will also be split into multiple sections because as stated above different types of research will demand different types of environmental conditions that could contrast with each other.

Due to collision dynamics of dust and other particles in the atmosphere all organic matter would be best shielded by plastic with additional doped agents for radiation protection; however, structures that will not house organic matter for a long period of time or at all can be constructed from more traditional methods like bricks. Most early brick housing on Earth involved the use of adobe bricks, which are basically dried blocks of sand and/or clay. One of the chief advantages of adobe bricks if their high thermal mass, which provides resistance to rapid environmental temperature changes similar to those that occur on Mars between the day and night. However, unfortunately the Martian day is typically not warm like the Earth day (-50 C versus 10-30 C), thus the thermal properties of abode bricks to store heat with a slow release time has limited usefulness. Another concern with using bricks is the optimal process on Mars involves kiln-like treatment (very high temperatures usually stemming from a chemically generated fire in an oxygen rich atmosphere, i.e. vitrification). Despite the inability to benefit from its thermal properties and the extra processing steps, adobe brick construction is more than likely still the best method for early additional external construction.

Another method of building construction involves either rammed soil cement or cast soil cement. Rammed soil cement is a rather old and widely demonstrated technique that involves mimicking the natural process of sedimentation with soil mixing with water and cement before being shoveled into the proper shape. Applying a significant amount of force and tamping the mixture finish the brick.4 Cast soil cement uses a soil, water and gypsum slurry mixture that is used in wall molds and later dried.4 The gypsum mixture is used to stabilize the slurry. Unfortunately there are two problems with both of these synthesis techniques. First, both require the use of large amounts of water to create appropriate scale sized buildings and water is a pressing resource on Mars. Second, it would be difficult to create these bricks without extensive external work periods, which may not be appropriate in the current Mars environment. Water consumption is also a strong reason for the prohibition of concrete as a building material.

Processing raw materials on Mars for habitat augmentation will be an important element in increasing comfort and safety. The silicate, calcium oxide and other oxides (sodium and potassium) within the sand on Mars can be used to create glass (thermal fusion), but the iron oxide will have to be removed first otherwise the glass will become black glass, which has reduced strength and purity. However, the lower gravity will require a greater processing time during the molten stage to allow for complete bubble removal.38 Glass fibers can also be added to concrete and other building material to improve tensile strength.

The chief problem with glass is without augmentation from laminates the glass will more than likely be too brittle to stand against changes in pressure differentials, which could occur at any life support malfunction or hiccup.11 Basically if the glass is too brittle then if the pressure of the habitat changes in any significant manner the glass could break. However, the concern with laminate doping in glass, as mentioned above, is that laminate absorbs impact energy, which can lead to delaminating resulting in the increased probability of microfractures in the glass eliminating the advantage of the laminate doping in the first place and again these microfractures are difficult to identify without destroying part of the structure, which defeats the entire point of inspecting the structure.

The primary electrical components will range from macro-structures like high voltage and amperage breaker panels and transformers for power conditioning to micro-structures like microprocessors and transistors. Typical building codes for electrical systems should be applied where switch panels have unobstructed access within a secure unit, transformers exist outside the building to reduce fire probability and resultant damage and other major power conditioning equipment is separated from main living areas. “Cold plating” equipment (placing it outside the pressurized environment/habitat) is a debatable issue. Such a strategy is utilized for the International Space Station, but for a Martian colony placing necessary equipment in an isolated secured area of the habitat may be more appropriate because of greater lead times for EVA preparations between Mars and the ISS.

Finally one of the elements that some supporters seem to forget is that it is difficult to imagine a “cheap” Martian colonization mission because of necessary redundancy. With the element of uncertainty and the inability for rescue (remember that Biosphere 2 had numerous catastrophic failures that were remedied due to nearby support), redundancy is the key to increasing safety probability and generating a successful mission. Redundancy encompasses two features: “like redundancy” (multiple copies of the same element) and “unlike redundancy” (single copies of multiple elements that perform the same general function). For example at least two elements for each life support system should be included in the initial colonization habitat unit. Due to necessary redundancy, planning for a colonization mission to Mars must demand intelligent and practical decisions involving where to spend money without cutting corners. The real “cost prohibitive” aspect of a Martian mission would be to do it again because the first one failed due to not properly supplying the initial habitat. This reality is why strict scrutiny needs to be applied to all proposals, but especially those who expect to only spend 4-10 billion dollars on an initial Martian colonization mission.

Overall there are a number of issues that need to be addressed when designing and deploying a suitable habitat for Mars colonization and obviously that discussion must go into greater detail than this post. Some groups optimistically believe that a colonization mission could take place as early as 2020, but such a mindset is dangerous with the lack of long-term information that currently exists regarding habitat construction and functionality. While it is incredibly difficult to address all of the important issues on Earth due to the differences in gravity, one significant current concern is that most of these manageable issues are not being properly addressed in Earth based “Martian simulations”. It seems that most of these simulations are concerned with only addressing one or two elements, if any at all, which could be a mistake because results derived from these simulations may be significantly impacted by creating inappropriate control conditions, which will not be seen on Mars, especially in food supply/growth. Theory should always be addressed rationally; it would be very helpful for further consideration of Martian colonization strategies if simulation studies were designed to incorporate more Martian-like characteristics. Numerous questions still remain, but addressing these simulation issues would be a significant positive step in creating a more accurate simulation experience and developing better preparatory information concerning a Mars colonization mission.

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