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I see you've got one on!
And yes you could easily apply PV film to a sun shade for a power boost.
Yes, we certainly need to experiment there but I am concerned that results obtained at 17% gravity won't be applicable to 38% gravity. I suppose I am concerned about negative results which won't be applicable to Mars. I suspect that at 38% gravity a lot of physiological effects on animals and plants will be replicated on Mars. I'm not so sure about on the Moon. This is purely a hunch.
However the moon is certainly a good place to test ISRU, habitats and artificial hydroponic cultivation.
So what do we want/need to make on Mars?
I'm writing this in the context of a minimalist six person mission to Mars with a follow up second mission of similar size after 2 years. I am planning for energy abundance. This assumes a good surplus of electric power.
So what industrial processes and goods will we need to provide for.
MISSION 1:
1. We'll need to derive oxygen from oxygen bearing rocks, or from splitting water.
2. Splitting water will produce hydrogen.
3. We need to derive carbon from the atmosphere.
4. Methane to be made from combining hydrogen and carbon.
5. Preferable to derive nitrogen from nitrates so as to create a good earth analogue atmosphere.
6. Water mining (mining of permafrost) or water manufacture from hydrate rocks.
7. Mining of various metal ores and gas producing ores (will require prospecting).
8. Smelting of ores.
9. Steel production: production of various sizes of steel rod.
10. Bamboo crop production.
11. Fashioning of bamboo using wood lathes and compressor to create
containers, tools, furniture etc.
12. Use of iron, aluminum and carbon and other materials to make electric motors.
13, Polymer production: either through combining hydrogen and carbon or by crop growing, to produce appropriate oils.
14. Manufacture of hydroponic farming gear e.g. trays, rock wool, tubes,
hanging chains, steel rods, farm tools etc.
15. Use materials to fashion useful basic vehicle e.g. a wheelbarrow. Or a hand guided motorised trolley.
16. Use "sandbags" and the Ecodome method of construction to build a couple of experimental buildings on the surface with inflatable tent to go inside perhaps. Could be used for food storage.
17. Glass and ceramics production to be started.
18. Commence creation of soil base.
MISSION 2
All of the Mission 1 activities will continue of course.
1. Construct an electric vehicle, unpressurised. Possible an electric trike.
There are bamboo framed bikes and trikes on the market .Bamboo may be a good material to use. Not clear how it stands up to extreme cold on Mars.
2. Production of bricks, cement etc. - range of construction materials. Use to build a surface habitat.
3. Production of light bulbs and electric cabling.
4. Complete substantial soil manufacture, mixing the soil base with organic material, chemicals produced in the colony's lab, bacteria and nutrient solutions.
5. Solar panel production to be attempted. Probably be quite a crude low powered version. More experimental than anything.
6. Turbines and steam engines.
7. Chemical batteries.
8. Clothes manufacture - using cotton and linen.
CONCLUDING POINTS
None of the above will involve large scale production. All told, we are probably only talking about a few tonnes of material for a six person mission.
The colony would have access to digger, lathes, smelters, automatic glass blowers, computer controlled machines, presses, grinders, polishers, gas cylinders, inflatable gas tanks, etc all imported from earth.
I'm particularly interested in comments on whether the split between activities is properly prioritised although many will be taking place in parallel. However, essentially this can be thought of as "serial production". So we make on thing, store it and then move on the next thing we have to make and store that. Then later we might go back to store A and store B and combine them to make C which we again store.
In this way we gradually build up our store of products and purified materials.
Martian -
You can't just will jobs into being. Essentially space jobs are not productive in themselves at the moment, although they do help the USA and other countries maintain themselves at the forefront of technology which makes their labour much more productive generally in the economy.
When you look at what wealth is, it is essentially what we value. Any economy (and essentially earth is now a global economy, not a national one) has to be built pyramid fashion. There has to be food either grown locally or imported. The other necessities of life have to be provided for: housing, plumbing etc. Raw materials need to be gathered. The government and business administrations need to be in place. Investment is the ability to command resources. Poor countries always have investment problems. Just like poor people, they are too poor to put aside money to undertake long term projects.
The USA clearly had a huge number of advantages from the outset. Not least it could easily feed its growing population and then become a huge food exporter (particularly grain). Blessed with essentially good government the country was able to create huge amounts of money that could command resources to be deployed on long term projects.
There is no reason why the rich countries on earth shouldn't devote large sums to space investment. In due course it will be an investment that pays. We are already seeing pressure on earth resources as countries like China and India get rich. We will eventually need to mine those asteroids.
In terms of Mars economic development it has to be remembered that the real monetary costs of production on Mars are lower. You don't have to buy or rent land. You don't have to pay for licences. You don't have to pay for policemen or security guards to protect property. There are no utility bills to pay. No lawyers to pay. No taxes to pay. You don't really have to pay your labour force. They are there already, ready to work. They'll be there anyway, whether they engage in economic activity or not. Their economic cost is effectively zero, as a marginal cost.
These are all huge advantages.
So if for instance we were interested in gold mining, the real cost of the enterprise from an earth-based point of view would be getting the necessary equipment to Mars to allow mining and processing of the gold ore. That - at say $20,000 dollars per Kg. is going to be expensive. Flying the gold home is probably less, since you have a craft going to MArs and coming back. However, they will be essentially all the real costs. Once the gold is back on earth you will of course have to ship it to a recognised entrepot for gold, which might be several thousand miles away from your spaceport.
You could assign some infrastructure costs to the gold mining operation, but then the situation is analogous to a road being built to serve a mining settlement. Often governments build the road and the road will then serve many incidental purposes.
I am quietly optimistic that gold mining will become economic at some stage as the cost of space launches reduces and the price of gold increases (Indians LOVE gold. AS they get richer and richer, they will want more and more of the stuff.)
Martian -
You can't just will jobs into being. Essentially space jobs are not productive in themselves at the moment, although they do help the USA and other countries maintain themselves at the forefront of technology which makes their labour much more productive generally in the economy.
When you look at what wealth is, it is essentially what we value. Any economy (and essentially earth is now a global economy, not a national one) has to be built pyramid fashion. There has to be food either grown locally or imported. The other necessities of life have to be provided for: housing, plumbing etc. Raw materials need to be gathered. The government and business administrations need to be in place. Investment is the ability to command resources. Poor countries always have investment problems. Just like poor people, they are too poor to put aside money to undertake long term projects.
The USA clearly had a huge number of advantages from the outset. Not least it could easily feed its growing population and then become a huge food exporter (particularly grain). Blessed with essentially good government the country was able to create huge amounts of money that could command resources to be deployed on long term projects.
There is no reason why the rich countries on earth shouldn't devote large sums to space investment. In due course it will be an investment that pays. We are already seeing pressure on earth resources as countries like China and India get rich. We will eventually need to mine those asteroids.
In terms of Mars economic development it has to be remembered that the real monetary costs of production on Mars are lower. You don't have to buy or rent land. You don't have to pay for licences. You don't have to pay for policemen or security guards to protect property. There are no utility bills to pay. No lawyers to pay. No taxes to pay. You don't really have to pay your labour force. They are there already, ready to work. They'll be there anyway, whether they engage in economic activity or not. Their economic cost is effectively zero, as a marginal cost.
These are all huge advantages.
So if for instance we were interested in gold mining, the real cost of the enterprise from an earth-based point of view would be getting the necessary equipment to Mars to allow mining and processing of the gold ore. That - at say $20,000 dollars per Kg. is going to be expensive. Flying the gold home is probably less, since you have a craft going to MArs and coming back. However, they will be essentially all the real costs. Once the gold is back on earth you will of course have to ship it to a recognised entrepot for gold, which might be several thousand miles away from your spaceport.
You could assign some infrastructure costs to the gold mining operation, but then the situation is analogous to a road being built to serve a mining settlement. Often governments build the road and the road will then serve many incidental purposes.
I am quietly optimistic that gold mining will become economic at some stage as the cost of space launches reduces and the price of gold increases (Indians LOVE gold. AS they get richer and richer, they will want more and more of the stuff.)
Ok. It's a spaceship and pyramid combined. Measuring about 3 miles across!
You'll still need batteries with a nuclear reactor for many applications e.g. vehicles, back packs etc.
But batteries aren't a huge item. I'm thinking in terms of taking along the equivalent of 12 car batteries for 6 people - about 500 kgs' worth. That's a lot of battery power. In itself it could probably keep the habitat running on low power for several days.
More important though is to take along the means to make and store methane which can then be burned to produce motor power which can then be used to generate electricity, run the habitat and farm zone and recharge batteries.
Compressed air is another good way of storing energy.
We'll need to take inflatables to line trenches for gas storage, a steam engine, and turbines for driving generators or compressing the air.
This is pure instinct on my part but 1/6th gravity doesn't seem enough. Whereas over one third, nearly 40% does. However, we could experiment on the moon with joint weights for the human body to simulate 1G.
OK, I'm not looking at an atlas here but I query that 25% figure for Alaska. Sure you haven't been taken in by Mercator projection which used to make Greenland loom so large.
Here's another one for you: to which continent should we assign Greenland?
No one ever seems to refer to it as part of America.
A third of 8 gallons = 2.6 gallons! Why would you need that much either? That's about 20 pints of water. You only need to drink about 8 glasses a day - probably the equivalent of 2.5 pints. You've still got 17.5 pints left! You can brush your teeth in a glass of water. There's no need to take a shower everyday. Hygiene wipes can be used most days - in fact I think that's what astronauts use.
Where can all the water be going? Obviously there is the need to flush toilet - but I don't think that happens in space either. Clothes washing would certainly use water. Some may be used to mix with dehydrated food.
I really do struggle to see where all the water is being used.
Anyway, the other relevant issue here is of course recycling water .Someone a couple of years ago brought out a very cheap water filter which even removes viruses and bacteria. I am sure we can achieve 90% plus recycling.
It makes one rather suspicious of NASA figures. I had the same feeling when I saw they allocated two tonnes to medical equipment. Are they taking a hospital with them? It would seem. I start at the other end of the scale and work up: "OK we got the aspirin. That should do it!"
Good points there Gregori. LOL about the nuclear boners!
I think the development of ultra thin PV film could be the crucial development. Such film already exists - it's coming off the production lines now. If this film can also be made "brittle proof" for Mars conditions, then we could simply spread it out over a large area say 10,000 square metres. My calculations suggest we could generate something like 400KW average for 24 hours a day from such an area with a mass of one tonne or possibly less.
MOre than enough for a six person mission - and allowing for lots of small scale industrial activity.
I was thinking about igloos yesterday. Certainly something to consider. Suitable material could be transported from the poles perhaps.
Going back to my original point though, when I thought there might be a serious radiation issue (not convinced since reading Robert's post) - I was thinking of a cover for outside working. You can't have an all around igloo or all around tent when you are digging a trench - you need an arched cover.
HOwever, as indicated, I feel the health threat may have been exaggerated and that space suits will provide adequate protection.
There appears to be a 4% increase in pressure at the Dead Sea which is 400 metres below sea level.
Not sure if that's any help. Can you equate that to Mars? Mars pressure is 0.7% that of Earth's I think so, we are talking of a 1500% increase to get to earth pressure. Which would equate to a depth of 375x400 metres on the model of the Dead Sea differential = 150kms I think. Quite a way!
Of course I have no qualifications for this sort of analysis so someone might wish to check this out!
Gaetanomarano -
Absolutely right in my view. I think Space X will crack it. No space programme has ever been successful without initial failures, so the fact that they had some control problems does not detract from the speed with which they have worked and the fact that the rockets got so far.
It's interesting (a) that Elon Musk has said publicly that his goal is Mars colonisation (b) that he appears to have retained the facility at a Pacific island which is an independent nation, so as to reduce interference from the big powers, should that be necessary.
I think he has going to knock the spots off NASA. We shall see!
Yes, that is essentially the approach I adopt. However not everythign can immediately be supplied through ISRU. Some minerals are in short supply on Mars. Some industrial processes e.g. steel rolling do apparently have to be large to work properly (to deliver the right molecular structure I believe - so we may need to develop small scale alternatives).
Robert -
Thanks for that very informative post.
I am not the world's most diligent researcher but your post has definitely gone in my Mars information file for future reference.
V. interesting that there is LESS cosmic radiation at the solar maximum - makes sense once you realise why.
So it seems from what you are saying that it is the travelling through non-atmospheric space that will be the problem - one I feel could be addressed by making a virtue of the water tanks and shaping them into a surrounding wall/floor/ceiling to act as a radiation barrier around the crew.
This would mean that there would be only a minimal increase in mass perhaps (not that I've done any detailed calculations). Having said that, I have no idea whether cosmically irradiated water presents any dangers to human health.
I agree by the way that there is in any case probably scope to choose a location for habitat and the industrial above-surface working zone which is shielded to a certain extent by crater walls or in a canyon. This would probably greatly reduce the hits as well - were it necessary to do so. But from what you write it would appear that a space suit, which they will be wearing outdoors in any case will suffice as protection.
Swoosh -
These calculations get a bit tricky. I did some before and ended up with a figure of 400KW for a surface area of 100,000 square metres (100x100). This was achieved by dividing what is possible on earth by 10, also to allow for night time, reduced performance of PV film as opposed to solid solar panels, dust storms and distance from the sun. Of course one has to add in on the plus side the thin atmosphere which boosts PV film performance on Mars.
So dividing by 10 seems fairly conservative to me.
The weight of the film would be 1000 KGs = roughly one tonne or 100 grams per square metre.
I'd like to have a go at my calculations again when I have time. Unfortunately it is quite difficult to get figures on weight of solar film.
Anyway 400KW is more than enough for the requirements of the initial colony if there were say six people there.
The average electricity use in the domestic home is something like 7 KW per person I think. So 7x6 is only 42 - and they aren't going to be using all sorts of electrical gadgets. On the down side they will have to store energy and there is power wastage in storage. Let's assume 50% loss. They'd probably want to be budgeting to save 100Ws - producing energy storage of 50watts. So every day in operation they'll be storing enough to operate another day in the event of the failure of the solar power system.
It may be we won't need all the 400KW, although vehicles, diggers, hydroponic farming and the like to consume a lot of power.
I've seen pics of Mars where people claim to see pine forests and all the rest.
Strange though, isn't it, that we keep landing in places where there is rocky desert with no signs of vegetation.
Some good points there.
We already have technology that can effectively make military vehicles "invisible" (involves projection of the background image on to the front of the vehicle) and we are only a 2-300 years into an industrial revolution - think what might be produced 10,000 years hence.
Beings of "pure energy" may well be possible.
But all these civilisations ought to have produced zillions of radio signals before that and we ought to have received some by now, surely, since we are receiving from all parts of the galaxy/cosmos.
As a side line to this discussion, it's often said our original TV porgrammes like "I Love Lucy" from the 1950s are now 50 light years away from earth.
Is it true the signal will remain coherent over that distance or does it become diffuse and incoherent?
Swoosh -
Well, an adapted mini digger will be sufficient to dig the trenches my proposal. They weigh about 1.5 tonnes on earth. We could probably produce
something even lighter with state of the art materials. Unpressurised.
We'll need the digger for some other duties: rock and boulder clearing on the surface. Also, for transport of raw materials e.g. oxygen bearing rock, permafrost deposits, and any metal bearing rocks we are able to exploit on the first mission.
The gym equipment? Hm. An interesting idea - if you really were having to skim the tonnage. But I feel it might be a false economy. Exercise is vital and
I remember people have got to recover some bone mass while on Mars.
What's an MCP suit? I'm going with 40lb a suit which is what NASA say they can achieve with their new design of suit.
Few internal walls? Well that could be looked at. Some are important for hygiene reasons.
The washing machine I could skim if necessary! You probably do need one in the lander anyway. Perhaps they can do a weekly wash there!
As for food, yes there may be ways we can reduce the tonnage. I am building in a margin of safety, to allow for complete unforeseen failure of the hydroponic facility.
Any thoughts on why SETI or other approaches have not yet made contact with alien civilisations?
Some possibilities:
1. All civilisations hitherto have managed to destroy themselves through warfare, or injudicious experimentation (e.g. black hole experiments).
2. The "goldilocks" theory applies to earth with avengeance i.e. earth is not just right for life, but it is about the only sort of planet that could be right for advanced life. If you then factor in that advanced intelligent multicellular organisms may themselves be "freaks of nature", one can see that earth type civilisations may, more's the pity, be extremely rare. And even if such life gets going, we know it could be extremely vulnerable to comet strikes.
Any other ideas.
Yes, but you don't just do a risk analysis, you do a risk-to-consequence analysis.
If I throw my toddler in the air and catch her, I'm probably happy with throwing her a foot or two above my head. If the worst happened and I lost my footing she woudl be hurt but in all probability she would survive. But if I threw her ten feet in the air, there is strong probability she will die should I lose my footing, even though the risk of my losing my footing is the same.
The consequence of a mistake with black holes is complete extinction. We cannot afford to stumble blindly into that. Sir Martyn Rees - Astronomer Royal and someone who knows a thing or two about black holes - is rightly cautious. I'd prefer to trust his judgement.
Perhaps it's one of God's booby traps and explains why SETI has been so unsuccessful to date: perhaps all previous civilisations in the cosmos have stumbled into this and other booby traps.
Robert -
Sorry - meant to go on and comment on the other points you make.
That's really interesting about the PCTFE film. That's very encouraging.
Can I ask a question about that - does it let through the solar radiation necessary for solar power facilities? I was just wondering whether we might be able to encase ultrathin PV film in this plastic film as protection.
Regarding the tent - I'm all for the simplest solution. If you are right that radiation is less of problem than some imagine then maybe your approach is the right one - in fact I'm almost certain it is - just one problem. I was thinking in particular about protecting the worker in a digger, digging a trench. So it's got to be something like an arch. Presumably your approach could be adapted to provide an arch.
Larry -
Further to my reply...
People might like to take a look at this mini-lathe:
http://www.chesteruk.net/store/conquest_lathe_super.htm
It clocks in at 38Kgs - you could have 80 of those for 3 tonnes.
I'm not suggesting that this model will do the job, but it's clear there is no need to take a big beast 600Kg machine for this initial mission.
With a proper development programme, using light weight materials and Mars ballast etc. we can probably get a very useful machine at say 100 Kgs.
I think 3 tonnes may even be an overestimate for the first mission. But we need a rational discussion of what we intend to do on a first mission.
One good approach for instance might be to see if we can manufacture 10% of the hydroponic equipment required from ISRU while we are there.
That seems possible.
We also might want to try making some electric motors and electric cabling.
I think we should also be using wood lathes to work bamboo into useful containers and maybe even a vehicle frame (they are already used for bikes and trikes).
Martian -
For the first mission I think we would be going for the basics. But think most if not all of the items you mention woudl be covered.
Whilst I accept many of these machines on earth can be exceptionally heavy I would suggest:
(a) That whereas on earth it makes sense to produce different machines for different purposes, as the most economic approach, we will be looking to combine functions on Mars. This will mean the design of the machines is more complex and obviously much more expensive but it will produce major saving on weight.
(b) I am no expert of course but I think whenever you have a range of tools, there is always the scope for major rationalisation. So we would need to look in detail at all the tool and attachment options and rationalise in terms of mass down to a fairly narrow range of applications. Remember this is the first mission I am talking about. We won't try and everything straight off.
(c) My impression is that the may of these machines need to be heavy in order to produce stability. I think we therefore need to look at providing the ballast on Mars using either water or regolith for that purpose.
(d) We will of course use all the state of the art light weight materials we can wherever possible.
(e) We will miniaturise wherever possible.
Taking the above into consideration I think 3 tonnes is a good target. I do have some contingencies built in but I'd prefer to aim for that target and see what we can get.