You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
Someone above mentioned fat. The interesting thing to me about the use of old grease in a closed system is that restaurant grease can be used to run a diesel engine. Not only that, Diesel originally designed the engine to use peanut oil! Can it be that the petroleum barons found a way to screw George Washington Carver as well as the fieldhands? A diesel engine could probably work on hempseed oil, too. (The richest plant oil known, with the most-preferred birdseed.)
Regardless of the above bit of Green propaganda, Zubrin said internal combustion has the best mass-to-power ratio, and methane will be abundant. Whether it be Diesel, Wankel, or Ford, on Mars it'll be Bio-Powered. Or there WAS life on Mars, and the Texans own the oil rights. (Isn't petroleum just dead trilobites and tyrannosaurs?)
I posted this on another thread, but it bears on this subject, too:
My personal take on the subject of a future Martian ecosphere would be to utilize those very plants and animals which we find so hard to control on earth: the weed species. By this I mean all the so-called "invasive species", as well as all of the human-introduced "feral" species.
This would include all the "pests" commonly associated with people and their colonization of any area: cats, rats, dogs, pigeons, flies, fleas, ticks, spiders, ants, beetles, termites. Plants would include dandelion, clover, English Ivy, kudzu, crabgrass, purple loosestrife, thistle. For aquaculture, I recommend algae and carp (and tiger mussels).
Let's face it, if it's hard to kill, if it'll "grow anywhere", that's the stuff we want on our side. People were originally foragers, and ate lots of companion animals and bugs, too. These people will be explorers. They will be somewhat inured to hardship. They will need a source of protein which is not a major drain on their oxygen resources. Small mammals and birds are called for. As well as insects.
Not only are such animals as dogs, cats, and pigeons useful animals, in that they can be trained to perform useful work functions, they are easily handled by humans. Insects, too, perform many useful functions in the field and garden (pollinators, soil conditioning, etc.).
Further, our colonists will need a source of raw nutrients, besides just protein. What do doctors constantly tell us we never get enough of? Why our green leafy vegetables, that's right, the bitter greens, the salad greens, the primitive greens. What better source than LED-grown fresh young dandelions? And after the clover and the crabgrass has kicked the crap out of the Martian soil for us we can thank it, by (hopefully) choking it out with primitive grains like buckwheat and alfalfa. I think we'll have to work our way up to your cattle and apple trees.
One last note. An eminent entomologist who was also a theologian was asked if his many years of study of the processes of Nature had given him any insight into the character of the Creator. His reply was: "An inordinate fondness for beetles". I suggest we take a couple dozen varieties along to our new home, as well.
For more on Man and his pests, see Twain's "Letters From the Earth."
Last thought for tonight. Concerning building domes and greenhouses, Robert Zubrin mentions both inflatables, and pressurized domes made of Kevlar (like an arena cover) with Plexiglas geodesics over them (for cosmic ray protection).
These seem to be fairly clever solutions. Are there other ways to make a bubble?
The first thought that came to my mind was a soap bubble. The inherent flaw in that idea is that it pops.
Okay so instead of soap (which is rarified grease) we use grease itself, or wax (another semi-rendered grease). I've already stated above that I don't think that building a transparent dome will do you much good on Mars. You don't need a clear bubble, like a soap bubble or a glass bubble. That material may be too pure, too brittle.
But it's the method of working the material that intrigues me. In low ambient pressure, under 38% Earth-gravity, just how big a soap bubble can you blow? How big could you grow a glass bubble by forcing hot gas inside? Of course ambient temperature would play a huge role, but on midsummer day on the Equator?
I think that since plastics are really just another form of grease (a complex organic molecule that acts as a lubricant as a gel or a smooth, hard substance when solid), that this could prove to be the way domes are raised on Mars, by blowing giant soap bubbles of a special, waxy polymer, to optimum size, thickness, clarity, color temperature, radiation blockage, or any other necessary parameters.
If you think they'll blow away in the withering Martian wind, remember that it's so much thinner than on Earth (I believe Zubrin said a 60 mph wind would feel like 6 knots or something to that effect). Thoughts?
One more point about greenhouses. I don't believe that they will necessarily need to be transparent. Between the low Martian air pressure and gravity, what goes up may stay up, for a while.
This means that outside the greenhouse, incident light will be greatly scattered before even arriving at the greenhouse barrier. Inside the greenhouse, if we are capable of producing a warm, wet climate, water vapor will be similarly hanging in the air for much longer than it would on Earth (even if the dome is semi-pressurized, for plants, or has 5 psi shirtsleeve life-support atmosphere, that is still less than 14.7 psi). Lastly, have you ever been inside a greenhouse on a cold day? Condensation covers all the interior glass surfaces where the outside air touches them. And Mars ambient average temperature is a lot colder in the winter than Brooklyn.
I believe some sort of low-tech wax-paper/izing glass/visqueen type product could be used if farmers could work in the low pressure plants can grow in. Less internal pressure in the dome could mean building bigger domes. More soil conversion, quicker terraforming. Since plants live on CO2, exposing them to some of the rigors of the Martian atmosphere may not be detrimental.
I think it might be a question of providing the workers with compression fabric clothing, like a luge suit, to keep their skin and fluids in place (full body power shorts). They could also wear very lightweight breating apparatus, as their CO2 and water vapor would be vented to benefit the plants.
My personal take on the subject of a future Martian ecosphere would be to utilize those very plants and animals which we find so hard to control on earth: the weed species. By this I mean all the so-called "invasive species", as well as all of the human-introduced "feral" species.
This would include all the "pests" commonly associated with people and their colonization of any area: cats, rats, dogs, pigeons, flies, fleas, ticks, spiders, ants, beetles, termites. Plants would include dandelion, clover, English Ivy, kudzu, crabgrass, purple loosestrife, thistle. For aquaculture, I recommend algae and carp (and tiger mussels).
Let's face it, if it's hard to kill, if it'll "grow anywhere", that's the stuff we want on our side. People were originally foragers, and ate lots of companion animals and bugs, too. These people will be explorers. They will be somewhat inured to hardship. They will need a source of protein which is not a major drain on their oxygen resources. Small mammals and birds are called for. As well as insects.
Not only are such animals as dogs, cats, and pigeons useful animals, in that they can be trained to perform useful work functions, they are easily handled by humans. Insects, too, perform many useful functions in the field and garden (pollinators, soil conditioning, etc.).
Further, our colonists will need a source of raw nutrients, besides just protein. What do doctors constantly tell us we never get enough of? Why our green leafy vegetables, that's right, the bitter greens, the salad greens, the primitive greens. What better source than LED-grown fresh young dandelions? And after the clover and the crabgrass has kicked the crap out of the Martian soil for us we can thank it, by (hopefully) choking it out with primitive grains like buckwheat and alfalfa. I think we'll have to work our way up to your cattle and apple trees.
One last note. An eminent entomologist who was also a theologian was asked if his many years of study of the processes of Nature had given him any insight into the character of the Creator. His reply was: "An inordinate fondness for beetles". I suggest we take a couple dozen varieties along to our new home, as well.
For more on Man and his pests, see Twain's "Letters From the Earth."
Pages: 1