New Mars Forums

I have made a reasonable clay-like slurry by using random rocks in a rock tumbler.  You can probably get a clay with specific chemical properties by just pre-selecting specific rock types.  You could also pre-test this on earth by selecting rock type that will be common on Mars.

I've been having a few email discussions with Bruce MacKenzie concerning the Trench base.  I'm going to have to rescale everything.  And those vaults are a lot more complicated!  Besides I made a little error in the original rendering, didn't anyone notice the little white dots under the frame? ???

Since the vault will not be pressurized until it is buried I don't think this will be a problem.  Or did you mean something else?

Phobos and Rob S. have mention a couple of issues that I've thought about.

1) Water for the mortar.  Would it be possible to erect a temporary inflatable structure around small sections of the construction site? This could be used to recover the water as the mortar sets as well as being able to warm the site to make it set faster. Once the mortar has setup you take it down and move it to the next section. These inflatables would be at very low pressures and would NOT supply an environment for the construction crews.

As far as the main water supply, I think the site selection will be in a location where an aquifer has been found to supply a larger base.

2) Making the whole base out of poured concrete.  This sounds possible, except the need for mold material, and the huge supply of concrete that will be needed.  We have this capability on Earth  and yet we still use brick for a lot of construction.   Maybe someone else has good reasons, pro or con, about this subject.

3) Retaining walls for the berm.  Ok, here is where I'm just winging it!  I was just trying to render the Underhill concept.  I'm fairly certain that the high retaining walls where the airlocks are placed is WRONG.  If you can tell me a better way to design this I'll try to replace the flat walls that I'm currently using. 

The slope of the main berm might be wrong as well, but I don't think it will need a retaining wall to hold it in place.  The berm will be just regolith dumped over the vaults.  The lower gravity of Mars might allow the steeper slope of the berm.

4) Laying bricks in a space suit.  I think most of the actual bricklaying will have to be done by robots.  This will be such a labor intensive job that I can't believe we'll devote that much marsnaut time to such a task. 

5) The trench habitat in Red Mars.  I have been thinking about how to render this next!  Why wouldn't you just dome over the whole trench?  In Red Mars they glassed it in from the lip of the south wall to the BASE of the north wall. Wouldn't it make better sense to just glass over the whole thing?  If you erect the  superstructure for the "dome" before you do any digging then you could use it as a support structure for an automated dragline to do most of the excavation.

By the way if anyone has any ideas of how to improve the designs I've done than please let me know!

Thanks.