I posed this to an EM friend and he estimated 1,000,000 Amp-turns would be required. Never checked his math but that current seems plausible with a good superconductor, plus it's cold on Mars!
I love everything about space exploration, but I'm not naive enough to believe its the solution to our problems here on earth. One might argue its a distraction from our ongoing global humanitarian crisis.
People everyday are dying from lack of food, water, shelter, etc...
What time & money is spent on solving the galaxies mysteries, could be brain power backed capital used to solve our dire terrestrial affairs. IMHO...
Food for thought...
This is often repeated but makes no sense at all. The time and resources humanity as a group spends on those activities corresponds to 0.1% of our output. Infinitely more is wasted on mundane stuff like manufacturing cars, golf carts, office jobs or reading online forums.
There are 7 billion people on earth. That gives us a bit of leeway to multitask. We can have activists and rocket scientists solving different problems.
I suggest you read this: https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-space/
> "In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center ... Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth. Stuhlinger soon sent the following letter of explanation ... later published by NASA, and titled, “Why Explore Space?”"
"learn to help each other solve problems"
The most important problem we need to solve, is how to survive in the universe, where any large rock falling from the sky can wipe out our civilization, if not the whole mammalian branch.
We don't have to abandon efforts to improve human life on this planet while trying to expand to more than one.
One thing to watch out for though, is that it's only half of the rationale behind escapism: we're concerned about our own stewardship of the Earth, but there's a very real concern that a disaster could happen to it that's not of our own making. An asteroid, for example.
Mars would protect us from several categories of these, and becoming multi-stellar would protect us from several more.
Mars will build up to sustainability, while on earth we try to cut back to sustainability.
If we dont fix the problem in the core before we colonize other planets, we will become a interplanetary virus working as a parasyte and killing our host with time.
It's the only place we can inhabit, so we should focus on protecting it.
Only in the sense that a climbing harness is also a single point of failure.
There are only two ways to get things done.
1. Companies develop/supply a "product" because they can profit from it.
2. Companies are forced or subsidised by governments to supply a "product" they wouldn't otherwise be able to do for a profit.
It seems that only option 2 would be applicable here.
Not polluting is something everyone in the world has to buy in to.
The first option seems much easier to organize.
So no, cleaning up isn't easier or we wouldn't be fucked right now. By the time we get to Mars as a colony we will, by necessity, have the tech to produce clean energy and will not be able to rely on oil. Thus starting fresh without polluting from the onset - something that was impossible on our own world.