Talk:Colonization of Mercury

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Colonization of Mercury is impossible. The average surface temperature is 353.9°F, way too hot for human life, or any kind of life for that matter, to exist. --Revolución hablar ver 01:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The average temperature does not mean anything. There are some places on Mercury in polar areas with eternal ice and no sunlight.--Nixer 01:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

How cold are the polar regions? --Revolución hablar ver 01:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

167 K in flat areas, less in shaded craters. See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/ice/ice_mercury.html, which has references to journal articles. Mercury's axis of rotation in almost exactly perpendicular to its orbital plane. That means the solar energy per unit area at latitude L is reduced by cos (L). So temperature goes up gradually as you go away from the poles. Also you can do a lot to manage temperature with simple reflectors.

I edited the article to make it clear that only polar colonies are being considered, added references and removed the verify tag. --agr 05:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if that will make a difference - Mercury has no atmosphere to provide convection or to block IR/UV, so while the surface temperature will be lower due to a reduced angle of incidence, anyone actually standing in sunlight at the poles will still have their skin (or more to the point the skin of their suit) raised to 353.9°F. Then again, you could surround the entire colony with a giant reflector, and put radiators on the inside to keep the radiated temperature in the compound at whatever level you like. --Acehunter 18:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sun

Idly, I wonder how much bigger the Sun appears from the surface of Mercury than it does from the Earth's. I know the Earth is four times bigger in the lunar sky than the Moon is in ours. LeoO3 15:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Should be a little over six times as big (in area) It's about 0.4 AU from the Sun, so ratio of cross-sectional area would be (1/0.4)^2 = 6.25.

Wait - actually the semimajor axis is about 0.387, so it's a little more: (1/0.387)^2 ~ 6.68 times as big. - Reaverdrop 17:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to both! What an overwhelming sight that must be. LeoO3 17:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere that it would appear about 3.5 (I get about 2.6 times bigger diameter) times as big as on Earth. bob rulz 08:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

From inside a polar crator the sun would never be visable (See from Mercury article) but Earth and Earth's moon would occasionally rise above the rim and Venus would usually be brighter than it appears from Earth because most of the disk of Venus would be in full sunlight. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would typically be almost as bright as they appear from Earth orbit, but would often be below the crater rim. Mars would be signifcately dimmer as it would typically be about twice as far away, as Mars is from Earth. Neil Ccpoodle 22:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a pole star for Mercury and the Moon?--agr 09:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Roughly yes: Omicron Draconis.

BTW, full Venus as seen from Mercury would shine at negative eighth magnitude! This is the best view of any planet in our Solar System from any other. Double sharp (talk) 11:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

More information from Mercury Article?

Found the following in the Mercury article talk page... you may be able to merge this into his page, though it is unreferenced... -- Nbound 02:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Potential for human colonization

A crater at the North or South pole of Mercury might prove to be one of the best locations for an off-Earth colony, as the temperature would remain almost constant (at around minus 200 degrees Celsius). This is because Mercury has negligible axial tilt and essentially no atmosphere to carry heat from its sunlit portion. It would thus always be dark at the bottom of a crater at the planet's pole, even a shallow one. Human activities could warm the colony to a comfortable temperature, and the low ambient temperature would make waste heat disposal easier than most locations off Earth. I added the above speculation about a year ago and have since posted it on several forums without getting significant rebuttal, nor confirmation. As far as I know this remains an idea originated by me. It seems reasonable, as Mercury has too little atmosphere and perhaps too little magnetic field to allow high radiation levels on the floor of craters near the poles. (The shielded side of Earth could have deadly ionizating radiation, due to our circulating atmosphere and strong magnetic field. Our Sun could blast us with a CME = coronal mass ejection that killed all Earth humans) - Stong sunlight is often available at the top of the polar crater rims, with minus 133 (minus 200?) degrees c on the crater floor which is a condition allowing the harvest of vast amounts of solar energy. Geothermal heat is also likely as little as one meter below the crater floor. One of the largest and most dense planetary core is only a few kilometers below the crater floor. giving protection from radiation less penetrating than nutrinos from about 45% of the galaxy. Supernova are rare, and near term appear to be negligible hazard to Earthling humans, but we might be in for an unpleasent surprise. - The jet of radiation from a black hole or other compact star is also a near term (but low probability) source of killing radiation, which could last several rotations of any planet other than Venus and Mercury. Neil Ccpoodle 20:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

A base elsewhere would have to be able to deal with many weeks of continuous intense solar heating followed by many weeks without any external heating at all. This would not necessarily be as difficult as it may first seem. Facilities could be buried under several meters of loose-packed regolith, which in a vacuum would serve as effective thermal insulation as well as a radiation shield. Similar approaches have been proposed for bases on Earth's Moon, which has two-week-long days followed by two-week-long nights. Due to the lack of atmosphere to conduct heat, a thermal radiator hidden in the shadow of a sun screen would be able to reject heat into space even at the height of the Mercurian day. Alternatively, the base could use a heat sink during the day to store up heat for disposal during the night. Protecting mobile vehicles or robots against solar heating might prove much more difficult, however, which may limit the amount of surface activity that could be performed during the day.

What about robot-only colonization ?

All these "colonization of ... " articles seem to be about colonization with and by humans. Is it just accidental that there is no consideration of colonization with robots or would that be separate articles? When saying robots I'm not thinking of human-like robots from science fiction books but of fully automated factories and minig sites. 84.160.255.160 10:34, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Colonization is by definition by humans. Otherwise it would be exploration. Nixer 12:32, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't dare to call minig, steel milling and the prodution of solar panels, structural components of space stations and the like, done on a permanent base, exploration. 84.160.231.225 14:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, without people it is certainly not colonization. siafu 17:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a quote from FAST COMPANY: "...An entirely energy self-sufficient robot 'colony'...". According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, ELEVENTH EDITION (C) 2007, a colony is one of a number of things depending on context, including a group of things with common characteristics situated in close association. It seems possible to me that colony can refer to a robotic installation. - Fartherred (talk) 17:39, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Ocean colonization

Why is the "space colonization" boxes entry for earth empty? Would it be good if it pointed to Ocean colonization? 84.160.255.160 11:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC) Some other possibilties are Underground colonization, Underground city, underground living, most of which are already articles in Wikipedia. Neil Ccpoodle 00:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Terraforming Mercury

Why was terraforming mercury deleted? IcarusReborn 16:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

How does digging a hole terraform mercury? Do you have any reference to support this? (I put this in the comment when I removed it) Vincecate 17:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I did, but I can't find it again. I go look. IcarusReborn 16:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Main Picture

Isn't it better to use MESSENGER's first Mercury-picture as the main picture? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wobster (talk • contribs) 16:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

time for travel

Currently in the text is written: "However, entering orbit around Mercury and landing on the surface would take 6 years with current propulsion methods." - but this is the duration of the flight for MESSENGER and BepiColombo robotic probes - optimized for maximum payload of instruments and fuel for operations to be delivered (thus lower energy for transport and longer time). Most propably a human mission will be optimized for speed, so it should be faster than 6 years, but by how much? And what about the return trip?Alinor (talk) 13:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Mercury termination speed

At what speed does the terminator move ? The article says slowly, but not how slowly. Would it be possible to have a vehicle drive around the equator, always staying at a balmy 20 degrees C? Anxietycello (talk) 23:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

It moves at 10.9 km/h, the same as Mercury's equatorial rotation velocity. So yes, that should be no problem. You could probably even stay in the terminator by walking... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 00:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I should add that "no problem" is relative - e.g. the Mars rovers move much too slowly for this (≤0.1km/h). --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Colonies restricted to polar regions?

I have marked the following false statement as needing a citation, although it actually needs removal: "Permanent colonies would almost certainly be restricted to the polar regions due to the extreme daytime temperatures elsewhere on the planet." One must consider that there is no significant convective heat transport on Mercury because the atmosphere of Mercury is practically a vacuum. The pressure is about 10^-15 bar. NASA Mercury Fact Sheet So to cool a small area in the equatorial region of Mercury it would only need to be shaded from the sun and from the infrared radiation from the surrounding terrain. A low wall and an umbrella would suffice. A radiator in such a shaded location could reject heat passively at a rather low temperature. The extreme daytime temperatures are not the big difficulty in colonizing Mercury. - Fartherred (talk) 08:19, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for your conclusion? I'm not sure there is a shading material that reflects almost all light without heating itself (and thus, the colony below) too much (certainly not a standard umbrella); also you'd have to consider heat convection through the ground on which the colony stands... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I do not need a reference for the opinion expressed in discussion. The text that I removed had no reference and should not be restored without one. The umbrella would work this way: An outer disk of shiny material such as aluminum faces the sun at the end of an umbrella boom. The back side of the disk is blackened to cool by radiation. The disk is tilted at an angle to the sun direction to increase radiative area exposed to space. A second disk on the umbrella boom blocks infrared from the first disk from reaching the protected area. It is blackened on the side facing the sun and shiny on the side facing the protected area. It is tilted to reflect black sky as seen from the protected area. I do not need to tell you where this paraphrase of research came from. It is all elementary.

I do not need to consider convection through the ground because heat moves through the ground by conduction, not convection. In the vacuum ambient on Mercury powdered dirt would make a good enough insulator that a foot of such insulation would be plenty to protect an installation's foundation. If you think something that contradicts that should go into the article, it should have a reference. Do you challange any text that I added to the article? - Fartherred (talk) 18:19, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

There's no need to feel offended; I don't "challenge" anything, but politely ask for references for your edit to the article, which was apparently based on your "opinion" expressed here. The removed text was indeed unreferenced (and I don't suggest to restore it without reference, but would have waited a bit longer before deleting it), but so is half the article, apparently, as well as your addition. Most of it is reasonable, but I'd like to see a reference for part of the sentence

"So thermal protection of colonists and sensitive equipment would only need shielding from the intense solar radiation that reaches Mercury's surface and from infrared radiation of any very hot region of Mercury's surface."

-for including the word "only", you need to reference that, first, shielding is indeed as simple as you claim here, and second, that ground conduction (not convection, I misspoke) is indeed negligible. (And third, "thermal protection" from the cold during the Mercurian night is also an issue when staying above the ground.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I will eliminate the word only. I believe the rest of the addition that I made is common knowledge. - Fartherred (talk) 00:31, 22 May 2013 (UTC) There are additional improvements that might be made, mainly the references that you refer to. I hope to make a couple of improvements by and by. I was not offended by anything that you wrote. I often unconsciously write the wrong word myself. Improvements in the structure of the article are not something that I do well. Perhaps you are better at that. Thanks for your interest and suggestions. - Fartherred (talk) 01:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

All right then; sorry if I misjudged your attitude. I agree with your "fixed" wording, except that the "from any very hot surrounding ground" at the very end should be removed IMO - insulation is needed from the ground below, not from surrounding ground. And unless you disagree, I'd consider mentioning that the (sub)polar regions, while not the only possible locations, are still easiest to colonize due to reduced temperature differences (and the existence of close-by water ice) - that's also common sense IMO, and the recently added "external link" (proposing underground colonization in a circle around the pole where the temperature is constantly at 20°C) could be a reasonable reference for it. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:17, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Think of heat flow. If a protected area is cooled by radiation to space, the ground under it is cooled by radiation to space. The ground under an installation will not get hot again unless heat flows into it from the surrounding ground. One way to slow that heat flow would be to dig a trench a half meter wide and a couple of meters deep around the around the protected area and fill it with powdered rock, then put the infrared radiation blocking wall of porous brick on top of that. Putting insulation under an installation is one way to slow the heat flow from the surrounding ground but whatever method is used the source of the heat is the same. The sun provides heat directly by radiation to the installation or first heats the surrounding ground which then provides the heat to flow by conduction to the protected area. Just a long path of heat flow through rock is sufficient to reduce the flow to a manageable rate. This is common knowledge in engineering. A source that suggests insulation under an installation to protect it would not change the source of the heat. The phrase, "heat conducted through the ground from any very hot surrounding ground" should stay as it is. If you want to compare this to Earth's moon, you will find that the temperature a meter under the surface is nearly constant for any particular latitude. The external link that you post admits near constant temperatures below 7 meters on Mercury, which is approximately what I would expect in the absence of volcanic activity. So the source of heat flow is not under an installation.

What a scientist is quoted as saying about ice on Mercury is that there is a buried layer whose hydrogen content is consistent with nearly pure water ice. The page does not quite claim that the existence of water ice is proven, but the suggestion is rather strong. A colony at a Mercurian pole may be easier than one at the equator, but neither will be easy as noted in the Difficulties section.

The link to Jim Shifflett's web page show's that at least someone thinks an underground colony on Mercury is a good idea. The source is biased however. Jim Shifflett in not discouraged by a 6.5 year trip to Mercury, but thinks there can be no reasonable energy source for a Mars colony. Maybe he has not heard of space based solar power. He writes about solar power at Mercury as an unlimited and inexpensive power source without at all referring to the expense of setting up a solar power plant on Mercury. Use him as a reference but know that he is biased and self-published (as per WP:SELFPUB). - Fartherred (talk) 19:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying about the "surrounding ground", it makes sense to keep the wording then (maybe replace "any" by "the" since there's always hot ground nearby). Actually, the source claims constant temperatures at a depth of only 70 cm (.7 m) below the ground. Shifflett is certainly somewhat biased (flight time is indeed a big problem); but I'd also consider the energy situation at Mercury to be much more favorable than on Mars: I can't imagine space-based solar power transmitted to Mars being as cheap as ground-based (or maybe space-based as well?) solar power on Mercury, due to the much higher (~factor 20) solar radiation there; faster degradation of solar cells due to no protecting atmosphere would be the same problem in both cases. If the water ice is confirmed, I can thus imagine Mercury colonies to be more sustainable (long-term) than Mars ones. (A non-self-published source would indeed be preferable, but I think Shifflet is still better than no source at all.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 12:36, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

A colony installation at the bottom of a polar crater on Mercury would not have hot ground nearby. The rim of the crater would protect such a place from the intense sunlight. Only peculiar formations in the polar area with an angle of incidence to the sunlight of more than about 48 less than about 77 to 85 degrees (depending on the time of the Mecurian year) would have more than the intensity of solar radiation at noon at Earth's equator Earth's orbit.

Are you sure the cited source wasn't changed from 7 meters to .7 meters while I was not looking? I would have thought the heat of the Mercurian day would penetrate further than 28 inches in the more than 2000 hours from sunrise to sunset on Mercury. I would not guess that the surface is a powder over the entire planet. I do think Shifflet is a valuable source. - Fartherred (talk) 18:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

People have tried to get better performance out of solar cells by concentrating the sunlight shining on the solar pannls of satellites. It was found to have no net benefit because the solar cells wore out more quickly. So solar cells on Mercury might be tilted to an angle of incidence of from 13 77 degrees to 5 85 degrees depending upon the time of day to maintain moderate power levels. Sunlight for solar cells in a SBSP installation at Mars could use light weight concentrating mirrors to double the intensity of sunlight. There might be a way to get more power for the amount of equipment in a solar power plant at Mercury, but there is no way yet to get conveniently cheap transportation there. If remote controlled industry is used to develop an extensive industrial base on a captured asteroid in cis-lunar space or on Luna, then large comfortable space liners going anywhere in the solar system would be a possibility. Otherwise artificial intelligence would be needed to develop a Mercurian colony remotely. Supporting a human labor force on Mercury with today's technology until a self sufficient colony in produced would be a daunting expense. - Fartherred (talk) 18:53, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I am getting careless in my old age. Years ago I had other excuses. I have made corrections above. - Fartherred (talk) 06:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

You're right again that polar colonies wouldn't have hot ground nearby, but then you wouldn't need "shielding from the intense solar radiation that reaches Mercury's surface and from the infrared radiation of any very hot region of Mercury's surface" either - the whole polar surface is constantly below freezing point, not only the interiors of craters. So the whole sentence only makes sense for non-polar colonies AFAICS, which I had subconsciously assumed above.

I'm quite sure that the ".7" was already there when I posted the link ;-) - but it's easy to miss a dot, of course; it's indeed a surprisingly low number.

I 've never heard that solar cells don't benefit from concentration (above which radiation level? Your incidence angles seem to suppose 1–2 times Earth's solar constant), that would indeed greatly reduce Mercury's potential. Our article on Concentrated photovoltaics mentions concentrations up to "1000 suns and more", much higher than unconcentrated sunlight on Mercury, to improve the performance of solar cells on Earth (though maybe you need an atmosphere even for the "active" cooling?). Apparently it's usually just too expensive to do the concentration, but you'd get a factor 5–10 for free on Mercury. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:51, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I prefer to have things written out rather than being required to interpret abbreviations. I will take AFAICS as "as far as I can see". As I see it anything sensitive to heat that sticks out into the sunlight with a small angle of incidence needs to be protected from sunlight on Mercury, whether there is hot ground around or not. The Concentrated photovoltaics article mentions water cooled silicon cells. On Mercury that water would in turn require radiative cooling. - Fartherred (talk) 19:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Shifflet is a good source of what an advocate of the colonization of Mercury writes, but his assertion that solar power at Mercury is "unlimited and inexpensive" is not quantitative information. If a colony is in a polar area the portion of the polar region at more than 1585 degrees latitude is certainly limited and the solar power would be available only on the sunward facing side of that region at any particular time. For unlimited energy, one would need to run a power plant an unlimited length of time. During this time the only thing that would be free would be the sunlight. Maintenance and capital expense would follow ordinary rules for calculation. Mercury does not have a convenient isosynchronous satellite location as Mars does. Space based solar power does not hold much advantage for Mercury. Mercury also lacks a moon as a source of materials that could be used for orbital structures. With solar thermal generation of electric power a mirror orbiting Mars could form just as big and just as hot an image of the sun as a mirror on Mercury. The difference is that the mirror would need to be 4.8 times as large in aperture and 4.8 times as far from the focal point. The larger size of mirror would be off set by the fact that in orbit it could be a rather flimsy structure and still serve the purpose. I see no reason to suppose that such an installation at Mars would be more expensive per watt than one on Mercury. Of course there is a larger minimum size for an economic SBSP plant. - Fartherred (talk) 18:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

A slowly rotating solar cell at the pole could actually produce constant solar power by itself (Mercury's axial tilt is much smaller than the Sun's angular diameter, so the polar region is constantly illuminated by a "half-risen" Sun). You could also have unlimited solar power by putting solar cells at any two points of opposite latitude and connecting them (Shifflet seems to want to colonize the entire circumpolar ring anyway), positioning the cells perpendicular to the sunlight (adjusting every month or so). I don't see Martian space-based solar power as being anywhere near that cheap; apart from the magnification problem, also maintenance would be much more expensive (and less fail-safe) since you'd effectively need a complete spacefaring infrastructure on Mars, while you could repair/replace ground-based solar cells on Mercury with much less technology. (But I'm no specialist on the matter.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

You write: "unlimited solar power" but you seem to mean uninterrupted solar power. These are not the same thing at all. The solar power available on Mercury is certainly limited. Most importantly electrical power is limited by the equipment that a colony has to generate power from sunlight.

The colonize a planet idea will not work until you can put the entire colony, 200 or more people, regenerative life support system and all industrial equipment on board one space ship and send the whole shebang to Mercury or Mars at once. A complete spacefaring infrastructure must be included or the colony could not get to the planet's surface. The colony ship would need to be maintained en route or all of the colonists would die before reaching their destination. So the ability to maintain structures in free space, like SBSP satellites, would already be in hand. The regenerative life support system has been talked about for many years but the details are yet to be worked out. The completely self replicating industrial system is something people have only one of. It is on Earth. A smaller version that none the less would be very large and complicated would be on the colony ship, also with the details still to be worked out. The most reasonable way to get such a colony ship is to develop industrial infrastructure on Earth's moon from which exports can be made to cis-lunar space by some electric launch system or another much more cheaply than they can be made from Earth, once the market is developed. Sending a half dozen colonists at a time until there are twenty-four colonists on the target planet and having them dress in space suits and rub rocks together to try to expand the colony will not work. That seems to be the Mars One idea and I have not read anything Shifflet wrote that makes any improvements upon it. A complete self replicating technology is needed for any colony on another planet, no special discounts for Mercury.

Mercury is deeper in the sun's gravity well than Earth and the difference is 6.97 * 10^8 joules per kilogram (6.97 times 10 raised to the 8th power). Earth is deeper in the sun's gravity well than Mars and the difference is 1.52 * 10^8 joules per kilogram. The ratio of these differences is a 4.58 times larger energy difference to be overcome in transportation between Earth and Mercury than between Earth and Mars so I will estimate that transporting anything or anyone to Mercury will cost 4.58 times as much as transporting the same thing or one to Mars. That is not even adding an extra cost for the lack of any atmospheric braking to slow down at Mercury. Clearly solar power at Mars will be much cheaper than at Mercury. - Fartherred (talk) 02:18, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I have fixed another typo above. The cost ratio estimation above refers to initial colony installation, and is made on a very shaky basis. The cost for expanding an existing colony or the rate at which it might expand goes into an area for which I have no data. - Fartherred (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I have acted on your suggestion above and added a comment to the article about colony structures in polar regions involving less difficulty those elsewhere. I also revealed the increased confidence that there is ice in polar craters. - Fartherred (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

This is an essay

I looked into the references and, while some of them speculate on resources, none speaks of colonizing Mercury. The whole page seems an essay using a few references to create a WP:SYNTHESIS on a WP:POV. BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I was pretty sure that a quick web search would pull up credible information on the colonization of Mercury, however, even further search using my university's article search turned up zero sources which directly related to the colonization of Mercury. This is not a topic being considered by any notable organization as feasible in the foreseeable future. The original author of this article appeared to have laid out sections to form an argument for its possibility, and the format has not changed but many contributors have expanded the individual parts of this person's opinion without regard to the primary subject's validity, giving it the appearance of a serious topic. As I am new to Wikipedia I must ask, what is to be done in this situation? Should this article be deleted after more than a decade of existence? UnitTwo (talk) 07:23, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

There are procedures to deal with this. Unfortunately, it is easier to create an assay than it is to delete it. CHeers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I removed the PROD template as the article has been kept at AfD in the past and is this not eligible for WP:PROD. The next step would be either to improve the article or renominate it for AfD. Articles that were kept in 2006 would not necessarily be kept today, and I have to agree that there does look to be some WP:OR/WP:SYNTH here. I haven't conducted a thorough enough search for sources myself to determine if it's a notable topic, but a new AfD might be in order. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:12, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Hello. There is no way to improve on a topic that has not been assessed formally in the literature. I have no idea on the 'red tape' required for the deletion of this article. Could you assist please to start the AfD? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BatteryIncluded (talk • contribs) 22:59, 27 November 2015‎

@BatteryIncluded: Ok. I'll nominate it. A couple tips first: first, try to remember to end your posts on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). That signs your post. The {{ping}} template doesn't actually notify the person like it's supposed to if you don't sign when pinging. Second, I'd recommend using WP:TWINKLE. You can enable it in the Gadgets tab of your preferences. It streamlines many common tasks, including nominating for deletion -- and it would pop up a warning before adding a PROD like you did if it didn't qualify. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:37, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colonization of Mercury (2nd nomination). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I thank everyone that helped address the synthesis and eventual delete/merge of this article. Enjoy your Friday! Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2015 (UTC)