New Mars Forums

“A Thermoelectric generator, or TEG (also called a Seebeck generator) is a solid state device that converts heat (temperature differences) directly into electrical energy through a phenomenon called the Seebeck effect (a form of thermoelectric effect). Thermoelectric generators function like heat engines, but are less bulky and have no moving parts.”

“Thermoelectric generators have a variety of applications. Frequently, thermoelectric generators are used for low power remote applications or where bulkier but more efficient heat engines such as Stirling engines would not be possible. Unlike heat engines, the solid state electrical components typically used to perform thermal to electric energy conversion have no moving parts. The thermal to electric energy conversion can be performed using components that require no maintenance, have inherently high reliability, and can be used to construct generators with long service free lifetimes. This makes thermoelectric generators well suited for equipment with low to modest power needs in remote uninhabited or inaccessible locations.”

I know that nuclear fission and solar power are probably the first choices for power on Mars, which got me thinking about good possible redundant systems once things get to be more established on the Red Planet. The things I like about the TEG is that they seem to have high reliability with no maintenance but they seem somewhat inefficient and more for low power uses which I imagine there might be on Mars.

A question I have is whether it is possible to exploit the large temperature swings on Mars and produce energy by use of TEG technology or some hybrid thereof?
Also, is there a way to collect falling cosmic radiation, harvest the heat off it, and couple it to TEG technology?

I was wondering if anyone could recommend any good books about Mars and the science that would be most applicable/useful for understanding Mars and Mars colonization etc. I was thinking that some sort of beginning physics but not sure where to start..

I took a tour of Mesa Verde Ruins years ago and the tour guide explained how the inhabitants farmed and on what crops they subsisted on as well as other interesting things. One thing that I found especially interesting is the story of how he and a friend decided  to try to live only upon what they grew on their land. Each of the men had five acres and a water well and each worked together and rotated crops etc. Sadly, they both had to give up as they could not grow enough food to live upon. He made a point that many people had to grow different things and then share back and forth etc. within the Mesa Verde Settlement. If ten acres of prime land and endless water with clean air produces such dismal results how much harder will it be to grow enough food on Mars. I would guess that to just be able to plant and harvest on five acres on Mars one would need a massive amount of infrastructure in place first. The infrastructure I suppose could happen but not with just a handful of scientists or astronauts. Masons, Electricians, Plumbers, AC, Steel workers, Heavy Equipment Operators, and much more would need to make the trip as well. Supplies and equipment would have to be in place and a more sustainable and safe habitat would have to be constructed within 40-50 days before food shortages or air problems began. Reserves of air, water, food, first aid, and more would need to be stock piled and in quantities well  above estimates in case something goes wrong for each building phase etc. and for all contractors, astronauts, scientists, and so on. Cost to build a decent sustainable, safe, and large enough habitat that would allow for a proper foothold (within the next 50-60 years), probably at least 4-6 billion here on earth, but on Mars I would estimate 5 trillion on up. If a small manned mission that is basically a short stay and minimal exploration, costs 4-5 hundred million it's easy to extrapolate out from there. Small amounts of work done by small amounts of people done over long periods of time on one seriously inhospitable planet probably doesn't equate to very good productivity/results and I would think that the short visit/stay cycle would never be overcome. Essentially stuck starving on five acres.

"A new, extremely black material can turn water into steam using only sunlight, without the need to bring the water to a boil. Made of gold nanoparticles tens of billionths of a meter wide affixed to a scaffold pocked with tiny channels, or “nanopores,” the material is a deep black color because it reflects very little visible light. It is 99 percent efficient at absorbing light in the visible spectrum and parts of the infrared spectrum, researchers report April 8 in Science Advances.

Thanks to its highly porous structure, the material floats on the surface of water, allowing it to soak up the sun’s rays. When light of a certain wavelength hits a gold nanoparticle inside one of the nanopores, it stirs up the electrons on the surface, sloshing them back in forth in an oscillation known as a plasmon. These plasmons produce localized, intense heating, which vaporizes the water nearby.

The wavelength of light that excites a plasmon depends on the size of the nanoparticle. So in order to take advantage of as much of the sun’s output as possible, the group interspersed a variety of sizes of gold nanoparticles in the pores, which could therefore absorb a range of wavelengths."

I was wondering if a warm suit with impregnated nanoparticles would be a good idea or not? Maybe an emergency suit or an addition to something else. It might be a way to combat the extreme cold.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q … ssu6UAwIDw

Limestone

“The key fact about limestone on Earth is that nearly all of it is made up of the shells of marine life, specifically single-celled plankton. Limestone forms as billions of generations of plankton live and die near the ocean surface where sunlight penetrates. As each old cell dies, its living matter rots away and its remaining little shell of calcium carbonate drifts down to the bottom. They mount up like snow, as millennia pass, and the older plankton snowfalls compress under the younger, eventually hardening to solid rock.”

Calcium Carbonate on Mars
“The discovery of calcium carbonate on Mars conjures up images of red, alien seas filled with life. Perhaps if we’re lucky some of them scuttled on tripod legs. I hope for H. G. Wells’ sake they did. But the reality is probably not so romantic. Limestones on Earth are mostly from plankton, but a few formed by direct chemical precipitation from water, without the involvement of life. Such chemical limestone deposits are usually associated with evaporite rocks, which form just like their name sounds; by water drying up. Inland seas and lakes sometimes dry away as a result of changing climate, and leave behind all their salts as layers of different minerals, including rock salt, gypsum, borax, and limestone. When harsh alkali winds blow across Earth deserts, the alkali comes from windblown evaporite dust and grit.”
“Carbonates found by Phoenix might come from either a big wet sea, or a little dying sea. A little dying sea is more likely, especially considering that Phoenix also found evidence of perchlorates in the sand. Perchlorate is a highly oxidized form of chlorine, and is the active ingredient in laundry bleach. Perchlorates contain chlorine, which is also a component of sea salt (sodium chloride). A drying sea would lay down layers of rock salt and carbonate, more or less adjacent physically. Exposed for ages at the Martian surface, chloride salts would naturally oxidize to perchlorate under the relentless, unfiltered glare of solar and cosmic radiation. Limestones laid down by plankton don’t usually contain any chloride salts.”

Concrete
“Concrete is a composite material which is made up of a filler and a binder. The binder (cement paste) "glues" the filler together to form a synthetic conglomerate. The constituents used for the binder are cement and water, while the filler can be fine or coarse aggregate.”
“Cement, as it is commonly known, is a mixture of compounds made by burning limestone and clay together at very high temperatures ranging from 1400 to 1600.”
“The production of portland cement begins with the quarrying of limestone, CaCO3. Huge crushers break the blasted limestone into small pieces. The crushed limestone is then mixed with clay (or shale), sand, and iron ore and ground together to form a homogeneous powder.”

Roman Concrete

“By analyzing the mineral components of the cement taken from the Pozzuoli Bay breakwater at the laboratory of U.C. Berkeley, as well as facilities in Saudi Arabia and Germany, the international team of researchers was able to discover the “secret” to Roman cement’s durability. They found that the Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock to form a mortar. To build underwater structures, this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater then triggered a chemical reaction, through which water molecules hydrated the lime and reacted with the ash to cement everything together. The resulting calcium-aluminum-silicate-hydrate (C-A-S-H) bond is exceptionally strong.”
“By comparison, Portland cement (the most common modern concrete blend) lacks the lime-volcanic ash combination, and doesn’t bind well compared with Roman concrete. Portland cement, in use for almost two centuries, tends to wear particularly quickly in seawater, with a service life of less than 50 years. In addition, the production of Portland cement produces a sizable amount of carbon dioxide, one of the most damaging of the so-called greenhouse gases. According to Paulo Monteiro, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and the lead researcher of the team analyzing the Roman concrete, manufacturing the 19 billion tons of Portland cement we use every year “accounts for 7 percent of the carbon dioxide that industry puts into the air.”
“In addition to being more durable than Portland cement, argue, Roman concrete also appears to be more sustainable to produce. To manufacture Portland cement, carbon is emitted by the burning fuel used to heat a mix of limestone and clays to 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,642 degrees Fahrenheit) as well as by the heated limestone (calcium carbonate) itself. To make their concrete, Romans used much less lime, and made it from limestone baked at 900 degrees Celsius (1,652 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower, a process that used up much less fuel.”

Roman Volcanoes and Ash

“Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south. Etna is an active basaltic volcano, the activity of which is dominated by effusive eruptions that represent a continuous threat to a large populated area.”

“Mt. Fuji and Mt. Etna, for example, are dominanted by basaltic lava flows, whereas Mt. Rainier is dominated by andesitic lava, Mt. St. Helens by andesitic-to-dacitic pyroclastic material, and Mt. Lassen by dacitic lava domes.”

Mars and Earth Volcanoes
“The most common form of volcanism on the Earth is basaltic. Basalts are extrusive igneous rocks derived from the partial melting of the upper mantle. They are rich in iron and magnesium (mafic) minerals and commonly dark gray in color. The principal type of volcanism on Mars is almost certainly basaltic too.[12] On Earth, basaltic magmas commonly erupt as highly fluid flows, which either emerge directly from vents or form by the coalescence of molten clots at the base of fire fountains (Hawaiian eruption). These styles are also common on Mars, but the lower gravity and atmospheric pressure on Mars allow nucleation of gas bubbles (see above) to occur more readily and at greater depths than on Earth. As a consequence, Martian basaltic volcanoes are also capable of erupting large quantities of ash in Plinian-style eruptions. In a Plinian eruption, hot ash is incorporated into the atmosphere, forming a huge convective column (cloud). If insufficient atmosphere is incorporated, the column may collapse to form pyroclastic flows.[13] Plinian eruptions are rare in basaltic volcanoes on Earth where such eruptions are most commonly associated with silica-rich andesitic or rhyolitic magmas (e.g., Mount St. Helens).”

“The largest and most conspicuous volcanoes on Mars occur in Tharsis and Elysium regions. These volcanoes are strikingly similar to shield volcanoes on Earth. Both have shallow-sloping flanks and summit calderas. The main difference between Martian shield volcanoes and those on Earth is in size: Martian shield volcanoes are truly colossal. For example, the tallest volcano on Mars, Olympus Mons, is 550 km across and 21 km high. It is nearly 100 times greater in volume than Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the largest shield volcano on Earth. Geologists think one of the reasons that volcanoes on Mars are able to grow so large is because Mars lacks plate tectonics. The Martian lithosphere does not slide over the upper mantle (asthenosphere) as on Earth, so lava from a stationary hot spot is able to accumulate at one location on the surface for a billion years or longer.”
“On October 17, 2012, the Curiosity rover on the planet Mars at "Rocknest" performed the first X-ray diffraction analysis of Martian soil. The results from the rover's CheMin analyzer revealed the presence of several minerals, including feldspar, pyroxenes and olivine, and suggested that the Martian soil in the sample was similar to the "weathered basaltic soils" of Hawaiian volcanoes.[17] In July 2015, the same rover identified tridymite in a rock sample from Gale Crater, leading scientists to believe that silicic volcanism might have played a much more prevalent role in the planet's volcanic history than previously thought."

I hope this hasn't already been discussed too often but I have a few questions and comments. I was reading some various posts by Louis, Void, KBD512, and others about walling off narrow canyons and using them for habitation and other purposes and I found these ideas really practical and ingenious. I think that some drawings and plans ought to be designed and discussed more. Anyway I started thinking about walls and supports and foundations, then started thinking about concrete (which I haven't checked out yet on the posts but imagine have been already discussed) and I have posted some of the info above, and where to make it. Would the narrow canyons by the Volcanoes in the above picture work for what you are talking about? And do you think that the type of calcium carbonate on Mars would work for cement if not would the volcanic ash from Tharsis work for making the cement? And as a side note would any of the volcanic soils be good for growing crops due to radiation?

I was wondering about the Mars core and how it ties into terraforming. Is a spinning core essential to all the other live planet processes and cycles for example the water and air cycles or soil and atmosphere creation etc? For the environment to be self sustaining is a spinning core a necessity? Did Mars have a spinning core, and if so how did it stop, was it a major impact and if this is the case would another impact stop the core again, if it was somehow started again? Another interesting question is if it is possible to start the core with out blowing up or damaging any settlements in the process and what are these logistics, blast off a nuke for atmosphere and/or core spin and then colonize or the reverse etc, I think Zubrin wants to get there first and work out atmosphere stuff later but maybe the first trip should be a nuclear/atmosphere enhancement? I don't know if it has been discussed yet but I think that for long term habitation a central issue is going to end up being how to detect and stop impacts from ruining all of the hard gains made, be it settlements, mines, or the starting of the core for that matter. This I think is going to be paramount to any serious surface habitation and probably for underground living as well, though probably not important if habitation is always going to be on the small scale or Mars is just going to be visited for short stays every so often, or Mars is just going to be robot central.