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Well the best way to find out was underground is by listening to sound waves as they pass through rock. Through the time and the distortion of sound and of course our knowledge from Earth updated to Martian standards we will learn. We already use radar to look for minerals but also we look using changes in magnetism. We know there are Aquifers possibly of non frozen water as we have seen these leak and leave obvious geological features.
Mars has a metallic core as we understand it and it is hot and a liguid it just does not move so no magnetic field. This means as you tunnel down the rocks will get hotter and we can use this possibly through a stirling engine to provide not only power but as a source of heat for Martian domes. Another means of terraforming is creating very large deep holes so the heat could be released to help heat the planet these are called Moholes https://marsproject.com/mohole.htm
And yes im from Scotland in fact im from the Highlands
This is not a project for any initial Mars base it will be for a time where we have done extensive geological surveys of Mars as well as having built up a decent Martian industrial capability. So the drilling machines will have to be made on Mars not sent from Earth.
We will have done it anyway just so we can tap into underground Aquifers.
And it is good to be back
Might I make a recommendation
Building a very high tower is quite an engineering challenge but digging a mile down is a lot easier especially if we just use a large bore machine and pipe. The pipe can then be sealed and the air condensed and a loop created with the air getting heated by undersurface heat.
Of course it would work better with fluids,,
Great to hear that the MS is getting more organised
Still though the need for underwater colonies and there high costs is still to be proved there is a case for floating cities especially to the growing class of people who wish to experiment with different societies and countries. This is a major boon to us the space advocates.
Can I put my bit in.
Nickel is magnetic so are a lot of the metals we find of interest. still we can use a mass spectrometer to look for more interesting metals like the PGM class of metals.
There is a legal case for debris, Debris is the responsibility of the state who launched it or more specifically the state that caused it.
Also to throw something new into this mix and with the changes to the Law of the Sea we have economic areas these are areas apart from a countries border that countries have full control of. We already have sea mining in these areas so it does not take much change in the OST to allow this to happen in that treaty. 200 nautical miles is a large area think 230.15 miles normal
The fact that SPACE X expected to lose the whole vehicle but in the end only lost the upper stage is incredibly impressive
of course the two boosters landing as they did was impressive
There is no actual treaty banning Nuclear power in space. The issue is public fears that an accident could cause chaos especially on launch.
We have launched many RTG power sources and there has been public protests.
Though on the Moon nuclear is not really a concern we have much more effective source of power in the form of Solar but it will be a source of radioactive materials.
It should be noted that French Polynesia has signed a contract with the seasteading institute to build the first floating town.
Im not going into the hows and whys of sea level rise but french Polynesia is mostly a country of atolls and they are getting covered by the sea. The sea steading institute will build the first place where people will live permanently in a floating city.
There has been some changes since we last went through discussions on the Moon and Outer space treaty.
Luxembourg along with some others has put a law through its statute books allowing companies in space to own what they extract.
http://www.spaceresources.public.lu/en/ … ce-law.pdf
Here is space resources copy of the news release
Interestingly it more or less is the beginning of the death knell for both the Moon treaty and the outer space treaty. It will result much sooner rather than later that a revised or new outer space treaty will come out and space resource mining will certainly be there as well as allowing colonisation.
True we will have to actually explore the Moon there is only so much sensors from satellites can do. Still another technique possible on the Moon is to use silicon and Titanium and create mirrors to concentrate light to use it either as a crude cutting tool or more effectively as a means to melt materials.
Solar panels on the Moon are not like the terrestrial version though the ones we will use are inefficient it matters not as the amount of energy available is simply staggering a one metre square panel will generate 300 + watts of power even with our inefficiency.
The Moon does not have an atmosphere so we cannot really pollute it. It has gravity but its low using mass drivers allow us to send materials from the Moon anywhere we so wish. Its close we have very good radio communications. The nature of its orbit allows us large Lagrange points to place stuff.
But the Moon does not have to have a large human population telerobotics would allow people in offices here on Earth to motivate there telerobotic drones to build and manufacture on the Moon. Power supply on the Moon is potentially in multi terawatt capability and with the ability to move this power around to where we need it expect any science or industry project to be made on the Moon.
The materials to make the in situ solar cells are heavily based on silicon Aluminium oxide and Iron also needed is calcium and Titanium. This creates not that great a solar cell but what it lacks in efficiency it gains on ease of manufacture and its robustness. Its so tough it will survive for a very extended time on the Moon and very resistant to all hazards. And there is a lot of access to sunlight so poor efficiency is simply resolved by the amount of light they will receive.
The materials needed are what makes Lunar regolith so no issues in making literally miles and miles of them. The Japanese even have plans to make a ring of them all around the Moon and using microwave transmitters transmit back to power the Earth.
We do actually have a rover designed to simply drive around and create fields of these very basic solar panels and it has been built and tested.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-00l.html
Im sorry that this link is over 16 years old but it still applies
I agree that we can use the Moon to create an industry base that can propel us to the whole solar system.
I honestly believe the Moon will be mostly the industrial power for this planet and like the Industrial age of Scotland each advance will provide more advances to promote more industrial capability and more advances.
The issue is we can make a very tough resilient solar cell on Mars and the Moon but and its a big but its efficiency is very poor.
On the Moon this is not an issue but on Mars and its darkness we have an issue.
We will have super efficient solar cells but this is in the longterm not any initial or medium term bases.
We will have to rely on other power sources and there is certainly options there even if we have to use an RTG even though we are running out of materials to build them.
We can use ISRU on the Moon in fact if we want to make something of space we will need to do this.
One great advantage for the Moon is the capacity for electrical power making a very simple solar cell from lunar material has been tested and made into an automated process. This simple solar cell may well not be super efficient it does not need to be. A frames of these cells can be made into large arrays and electrical power in such large amounts allows a whole series of engineering and chemical and mineral extraction processes not efficient here on Earth. Ion Sputtering for an example.
Im sorry that is wrong the USSR and its successor state Russia have completed many Mars Missions.
Distance is an issue. The USA and ESA have both a history of Martian Failure.
Its the technology to make the cells we will not have.
We certainly can make a basic solar cell from martian regolith. But we will not be able to make one capable of powering a martian base
There is a certain degree of confidence needed to go to Mars I just don't believe any public space agency has it at the moment. Especially with the Mars effect in which we have lost almost 50% of missions sent to Mars.
I know when it comes to energy the Moon or Mars there is not much difference. Still the Moon is a lot closer and in cases of emergency and in communications this matters
I would have thought with the worlds supply of rare earths lasting only a few years and the Moon literally covered in them in the mineral KreeP would have been more of there interest.
And wow a thread over a decade old im still involved in
My concern for solar power on Mars is the lack of light Mars is equivalent to our dusk due to distance. The efficiency factor we have for the panels on the rovers are very expensive and not something we are going to get on mass produced local panels for the earliest base or colony.
So we will need large solar farms to provide power and that is not an issue there is a lot of room but we do have a dusty atmosphere and I can see maintenance and repair of damaged panels will be a very time consuming function.
One of the first things we need for Mars is a rudimentary GPS and Communication satellite net to be installed before we start sending more than initial probes. We are not talking the need for the global system we have here on Earth but enough to allow us to land on our previously determined base site.
Space X uses the ability to feed data to the lower stages to land rockets on its barges with enough fuel to land so can we on Mars. Actually we will have a beacon based on radio detection to improve landing accuracy at your Mars base.
Well since we last talked on this post the Japanese HIIA has launched a further 20 times and one of those is the very successful SELENE mission to map the moon. It also gave us the Google map of the moon.
This means the HIIA is as reliable as the Arianne 5 and the Atlas V
And the much more capable HIIB is the one carrying the HTV spacecraft to the ISS
And the HTV is designed to support an L2 Human Outpost