New Mars Forums

Referring to the previous post, not a bad plan, but I think that covered canals such as have been mentioned where Hydrogen would be injected to dissolve in the water, would also absorb CO2 and O2 and N2, from the atmosphere, and along with other nutrients should allow the production of large amounts of biomass.

In some cases, perhaps food from air and energy.

And some setups may be able to extract water from the air at the same time.

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A little bit of swearing in the very beginning, from the guy in the red coat.  So you can silence that if you like.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE  Quote:

Some hope of delivering Oxygen to Low Earth Orbit from the Moon, so interesting.

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I hope I will not annoy you Calliban.

Can you speak to any method to turn an Orion propulsion system into a reactor?

I have some notions which may have a small chance.

For instance, it is obvious that if you had an ice body which you did not mind contaminating, you could periodically set off
nuclear bombs, to store heat into water.   There could be places on Mars for such.  Korolev Crater for instance.

But that is not what I want to ask about, it just indicates that a pulsing nuclear reactor based on actual bombs might be possible.

What I have in mind is a metal shell, with a thick inner liner of Carbon.  Vacuum within.

Upon setting off a bomb, it would be more like setting one off in space.  Heat and Magnetics I presume.  Not so much of a pressure wave.  So, I anticipate some of the Carbon vaporizing immediately before the blast wave hit, so that would cushion it as the Carbon Vapors would be pushing towards the center of the sphere, and the blast wave would be pushing outward from the center.

Carbon is hard to come by near orbits of the Moon, so maybe Silicon would work?

The Vaporization for both is at a very high temperature.

The infrared from the explosion should mirror back to the center early in the explosion as the shell would act like a mirror.

It is possible that the sphere would need to be wrapped in space elevator worthy cables of some kind.

Obviously the bigger the shell, the more it could tolerate a nuclear explosion of this sort.

As I have said, in the starting circumstances before the explosion there would be a fairly substantial vacuum inside of the sphere.

Methods to tap the supposed stored heat, and then to get back in to put another bomb in will need some creative thinking.

Thanks for your tolerance, in advance,

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The direction SpaceX expresses at this time seems to be towards robots as the first inhabitants of Mars, just as now, but I will presume that a modification(s) of Optimus would be at the heart of that.  In support of that I will assume many Starships will land on Mars with hardware and those will stay on Mars for the most part.

This then supposes that the first human arrivals will not be required to set everything up.  At the very least there could be a supply of water for life support if not for fuel.

Also ships that have landed could be set up to cook tanks with Oxygen and CO, perhaps in gas state.  That would require a power supply, and of course the ability to process CO2 into O2 and O2.

It is possible that if these materials were available, then some sort of precision fermentation could be achieved, where, some sort of basic food stuffs could be accumulated.

Before the humans arrived, perhaps this much could be done.

Small scall mining of ice would have been demonstrated, and the potential to increase the mining assessed.

So, this might be a minimum startup situation, where some Oxygen and CO as fuel is stored, and some potable water is available, and maybe some bulk food is ready for use.

So, if a dual ship method was used, I have one particular version to consider in this post.

OK, this may contain some practicality issues:

So, if two ships could be linked and put under spin.  One would have its main propellant tanks to be habitable.

That one would have the highest synthetic gravity at the furthest extension in a tank, from the Barycenter of spin.

In one possible case the Lander would have the heat shield and flaps, to be able to land on Mars, but the Orbiter, might not have those and will need large enough header tanks to get into orbit of Mars.

This would allow simultaneous habitation of Mars itself and perhaps setting up some orbital structures.

Granted this is going to be a load on propellants, to get such a mass into orbit without aerobraking.

But if two ships could be supposed to host a total of 200 humans, the "Population" could be spread out into the tanks of the Orbital Ship, during passage, and to land then the Lander Ship then needs facilities for 200 people to be landed, and then offloaded to a base on the surface capable of giving them life support.

Maybe a few would go with the Orbiter, maybe there can be an attempt to develop Deimos and Phobos.

Some of this stuff could be swapped around, where the lander might be the one converted to have humans in the propellant tanks.  And then you would have a working Starship in orbit.  Of course then you have to get propellants to it, somehow for it to be of further use.

Just some stuff to consider.

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Very good and thank you (th).

I need to correct something in the post #1:

With a Starship and Starboat linked in rotation, the Barycenter of the rotation would be in the nose of the Starship, so, the Synthetic Gravity in the Starboat would be normal as of the orientation of the Starboat on the surface of a world with significant gravity.

And I agree with you (th), it may be that several of these assemblies could travel near to each other for reason of mutual assistance, in the case of some types of trouble.

Upon launch from Earth orbit to Mars, the passengers/crew would be in the Starboat and rather cramped.  As the propellants of the Starship were consumed, then the next mode is to purge the tanks on the Starship of vapors, and to then open methods to bring supplies into the tanks from outside.  Perhaps with robots.

This then requires some sort of airlock that will be compatible with the propellant tanks having propellants in them at first.

Then with the exterior supplies brought into the Starship, the passengers/crew could spread out into extra space.

Upon arrival to Mars, presuming a base that was prepared to receive them and take care of them the passengers/crew would get into the Starboat for a small time period and land on Mars.

The fate of the Starship has many possibilities that I have mentioned in post #1.

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I would say not puppet, neither is the UK a poodle as I have heard said.

Alignment was possible but becomes less so now.  We were thinking of getting the UK into NAFTA, but I think they are not interested.  More they may want the commonwealth and to diddle, Europe and North America.

But time will tell, if it allows us to be here to see what will be.

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In the previous post I mentioned heliostats to assist solar panels.

I do not think they have to be very powerful as solar concentrators.  Perhaps they can have a active flex mirror, that can go slightly convex or concave.

I also think that since they would be robots, they may have the ability to protect themselves from bad weather, such as wind, Hail, or Dust.

With humanoid robots nearing stronger utility this is not as silly as it may seem.

It is also not completely wrong to think that solar panels might have some form of active protective animation.

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So, looking at this again:

A circular structure is not mandated.  It could be of a polygon.  Perhaps a Square, or Serpentine.

In the age of animated machines, complex heliostats would be able tilt light to appropriate spots on the covering roof for the solar cells.  The roof could be "Smart", and say that it wants more, or less.

Solar Panels will not want to be overheated, but kept cool, but may handle more light if not abused with too much heat.

Robots that work as Heliostat directors during daylight might be able to do other tasks at night.

This should have value on Earth, Mars, and maybe other worlds.

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It is true that the schemes recent in this topic can be directed to "Wastelands", but also may be very productive in satisfying material needs, in the situations that are already productive and suitable to human needs.

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More of this sort of thing: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … afca040122  Quote:

Just as for others such as P. Zeihan, I have a saltshaker full of grains which I might use from time to time.

I would say at this point that Globalization made some sense in the late 20th Century. 

However, I think it is very important that Americans try to find their own way and to ignore the arrogance that even our so-called friends, may show towards us.

I believe that America is a reservoir of special people.  Not the only place they exist, but a large amount of those that I feel matter.  As an example, I am technically 1/4 Canadian.  Even Canada donated people, and lots of them to America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Americans

One of my sisters' best friends was French Canadian, but American, so it is not uncommon.

The flow is from places where rigid power of the Dominant Man prohibits much of what Capable Man can do.  But even in America we have had problems with Dominant Man.  (Includes female familiar spirits also, as facilitators).

The emergence of new sources of robotic labor, takes away from the motivation for Globalization.  The reduction in our responsibility to protect Europe, is another factor.

So, I mention the linear flow, of the capable from the chains that the Dominants always want to impose.

There is another feature however, power has flowed on another vector, from Spain and Portugal and up the North Sea Coast.  The British had a great run, but they don't even seem to be able to protect their culture from intruders with bad intentions.  Being on their back foot, it is inevitable that we cannot trust them, as they may sell us out to protect some things that are more internal to their interests.

So, for various reasons I think we have to become more America Centric, in most ways.  That does not wash away everything about the past but makes trying to hold onto the past often to be a losing game, I think.

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This I have reviewed before but it is rather a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gcDpM2 … ultiverses

They claim that their process will be 1000 times as efficient a natural photosynthesis to produce fuel.

So, then of course not nearly as many solar panels of other source of electricity will be needed.

Advanced robotics will drop the price of needed hardware, I expect, so this will become more and more practical.

I believe that it has been said that covering 1/7th of the worlds deserts will do the job.

However since other locations than deserts will provide much more water from the air, I expect that these could be done in more humid locations even if the solar power is not as good as a deserts.

Where they propose to use Moxie to make Methane from CO2 and Hydrogen, I suggest perhaps growing things in water using Hydrogen and CO2.

The Brits have been working on a heat pump that extracts so much heat from water that it makes slush.
https://undecidedmf.com/why-ice-might-b … f-heating/
Quote:

So, in a situation where the typical weather of a location was sunny days with less humidity alternated with cloudy days with more humidity, it can make sense to expect that on sunny days you might create a lot of slush to save under the Shade Balls in a canal.  Then on a more humid day the slush would be stored condensation potential, to pull more water out of the atmosphere.

Ideally you could do two other things on the days you have extra "Superpower", you could create useful heat while creating slush, and you could get Hydrogen from water.  Heat and Hydrogen can be stored or immediately used.

Granted there are limits of practicality for that, especially the Hydrogen, but it can be done.

While I am supportive of the notion of extracting CO2 from the air and using the Moxie method with Hydrogen to create Methane, you also could grow "Crops" of microbes in the canal, by injecting Hydrogen and letting the microbes use it and the CO2 dissolved in the water for their growth.

This process would be in the family of precision fermentation processes: https://forwardfooding.com/blog/foodtec … mentation/  Quote:

https://www.causes.com/articles/54550-p … griculture
Quote:

Quote:

This would not exclude some method also to make fuels other than Hydrogen involving microbes.

In the circular canal version I show above I anticipate some method to spin the contents of the canal slowly, perhaps with motorized/mechanized rakes in a system.

A solar roof is also the bounds in part of an air plenum.  A circular canal with Shade Balls in it, will have cold water and perhaps slush in it.  A bit of agitation will keep the shade balls a little bit whetted,  Air circulated from the outside will bring in moisture and CO2.  The cold water and slush abutted to the shade balls layer, will absorb moisture as condensation and also will absorb CO2.

If the heat pumps that create slush have no other use for their heat, then the air exiting the plenum can be used to carry off the heat from the heat pump system.

But cold water and slush are not necessarily optimal for every microbe so I suppose a method to heat water and to conduct CO2 and other nutrients to that heated water could be incorporated into this.

As Auxiliary to the process slush stored in the canal could be used to cool buildings and living spaces.

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And yes lets think about/consider, if a similar process could be safely done in the interior of Antarctica and Greenland.
If possible then the process would need to keep the ice cold or even cool it more.

That is not so easy.  Needs some thinking.  But that is a whole lot of surface area that sunshine shines on.

Possibly translucent solar cells with reflective foil under the solar cells, to reflect lots of unused energy into space?

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I guess that if a device is to operate in the interior of a large land mass or a seashore, these are two basic things.

In an interior desert moisture is going to be most available at night, at least as Relative Humidity %.

If on a coast, then usually the greater evaporator will be the water off from the shore.  And in the day, winds tend to bring air into land from the sea.  And in the night winds tend to bring air from the land out to sea.  So often day winds may carry more moisture.

But of course, if a land has a large evaporation as from a rain forest, then night air may be moist. Land>Sea.

I am presuming that in the future any water resource, is going to have value.

An air flow can be used to extract CO2 as well.  I have hinted that I think that water might be a route to catch it.  But these other people have suggested limestone on a conveyor belt, using absorption of CO2 and then heat to extract the CO2.  It may be that that is the best way.  I am not capable of properly evaluating that.  So, I do not want to have my ignorance lead people down the wrong pathway.  But there could be a path though water.

One way to capture CO2 could be in water, and then some way to extract the CO2.

Cold water tends to be able to absorb more CO2.

Here are some ways to extract CO2 from water: https://www.deloachindustries.com/blog/ … from-water  Quote:

https://news.mit.edu/2023/carbon-dioxid … ation-0216
Quote:

Here are some more methods suggested: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/10 … echnology/  Quote:

I could suggest a biological method, where, microbes could be fed Hydrogen into the water of the canal.  During the process of condensing water vapor from the air into the canal, CO2 will be provided to the microbes.

So, then if the microbes would be a thing you would harvest, you might recover some path to a fuel.

Rather than making Hydrogen and storing it, you would only make the amount of Hydrogen that is safe to avoid explosive or fire events.  So, if your power is solar, then you would most likely make your Hydrogen in the daytime.
In more cases than not, the time to absorb moisture and Co2 into the water would be at night, but not always.
For night operation of fans, then some sort of power is needed, such as from batteries.

From post #21:

Namibia has night fogs, but the interior is desert.  Desert is going to be good for solar during the day though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia

Namibia Fogs: https://namibiatoday.com/namibias-uniqu … 0formation. Quote:

So, your night process could circulate air.  But the day process might be to generate cold water/Slush, and Hydrogen.

Methods to extract the CO2, is according to previous parts of this post, can be various.

I have shown a circular canal, but of course you could have long, linear canals as an alternative.

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