New Mars Forums

"Re:  Grypd's point about power sources.  He's right.  Several of us have made the same argument.  You use nuclear for your 24/7 base load,  and you use solar for daytime surge need over base load.  Very little storage is needed that way.  You oversize your 24/7 base load nuclear just enough to get through the dust storms at reduced overall power demand,  occasionally.   It's a natural fit.  Your 24/7 base load requirement is larger on Mars due to the cold and the life support requirements.  It's not that comparable to the day/night cycle of power demand here.  More similar to Antarctica,  but even that has no power demand 24/7 for creation of oxygen or for growing food.

GW"

I am in absolute agreement with the use of Nuclear for 24/7 power requirements, and Solar as an augmenting source during maximum use times (actually 25/7 !! ). Always refer to my previous thread about Air, Shelter, Water, and Food. As much as I admire Louis for his Green outlook, it just is too risky, given the Probable conditions.

It seems to me that many (most) of the posters to this thread haven't read Zubrin's works on the significance of radiation? In all of his books, he details  cosmic radiation dosages in a quantitative manner, and this age-old "Radiation Will Kill Us All!" story keeps coming back to haunt us. A single trip to Mars will not kill anyone but slightly increase the risk of cancer later in life. We would be wise to send older astronauts who are no longer reproducing in order to prevent damage to the yet-unborn and yet-to-be conceived.

"Entering Space" by Zubrin is a great place to refresh one's optimism.

I wonder if this was the plan by Bezos--delay the funding from NASA to put SpaceX into a financial bind?

Louis--the only person convinced about the total dependency on Solar power here, is you. I'm not opposed to some use of Solar but initially, the use of Nuclear is imperative. We've had never ending discussions about this. Nuclear has one overriding factor in it's favor: transportability and set-up time and labor with no massive project to emplace it before getting the power required for survival of the crewed base. Your dependence on Robotics is simply not happening, because no one has even started building even the simplest ones you envision.
I applaud your enthusiasm, but it's disconnected from reality. You are arguing with professionals like GW; I myself am a Ph.D. Physical Chemist with extensive background in Thermodynamics. I don't know the backgrounds of others here but there are some additional "heavy hitters" in this group.

If we look at which company is succeeding in building rockets that actually work--SpaceX--they are doing it to "old way." Design it--build it--test it--wreck it--rebuild it. Repeat until you no longer wreck it by testing. Computer modeling and simulations are only as good as the software writers and engineers. The real world is a tough place, and simulations are just that...

BO needs to complete the BE-4 engines for ULA, as their first step in regaining some credibility. The Vulcan-Centaur rocket system shows some signs of viability.

The first encounter of a Mosquito with a Messerschmitt Me 262 marked the end for the Mosquito. A wooden airframe was pulverized by the 30mm cannons of the much faster jet aircraft. The structure of the De Haviland wasn't designed for a long life span--it was an expedient design that was cheap to produce in quantities. kbd512 is correct in stating that Aluminum is much better and durable construction material.

I recently read a book that's biographical about Elon Musk. He had as many struggles to get where he is as anyone on this planet. It's HIS wealth, and not some petty tyrannical bureaucrat to decide how and where he spends his fortune. The man did lots of dangerous and shitty jobs while living in Canada, and through his own fantastic talent, has risen to his present wealth status.

That's why I'm as supportive as I am of his efforts at SpaceX. He's possibly off scale, in regards to his intellect.

Here's an excellent presentation by Marcus House on a method of doing an Earth Return w/o ISRU; there are lots of numbers involved and talk about Isp, electricity needed on Mars , and kinda shoots down the exclusively Solar power production using very nicely calculated information. The guy really talks fast so be prepared to watch several times ad stopping to look at the tables he presents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u55zpE4r-_Y

I am not considering the assumption of 99% pure water ice (determined by satellite imaging!) to be correct. i am considering the "worst case scenario. I am thinking of manufacturing copious pure water for all uses, but first things first: enough to manufacture methane and Oxygen for a return trip. I don't want dead astronauts and or colonists because of bad assumptions made based on orbital imaging.

GW-
That's a well argued statement. There is actually commercial equipment available that could be modified to do some of these processes, but not collection of CO2. I'm focusing on the water aspect of things, and as a corollary, will expand into the enormous amount of immediately needed energy. I don't think that Robert Zubrin has given quite enough thought to the scale and complexity of the  necessary process equipment, and correspondingly, the energy requirements.

If I were able to process images, I could do a block flow diagram for the entire water extraction process and the following conversion to Oxygen and the Hydrogen feedstock for the Sabatier reactor.

Louis, you 're thinking too small. I'm thinking of producing water for an entire colony, all in a big system, and this requires 10 20 tons per day of ice prior to processing. We've been taking about just the return fuel processing, and the scale you are talking about isn't close to what I think is needed.

In the long term, we want adequate water for drinking, sanitation and bathing, Aquaculture, Hydroponics, growing of crops. etc.