New Mars Forums

What ever happened to all the commsats that Motorola was putting up?  I know the project was cancelled beause technology for cellular went ahead.  If some of those sats are assembled and ready for launch, maybe they could be bought less expensively than the IRIDIUMs. 

Russian ICBM boosters would be fine, although I still think getting ahold of the old Titan boosters would be great.

turbo

HI Shaun!
Our research has shown the projectile develops a field as well, perpendicular to the fields on the rails.  We also found that projectiles tend to be either spheres or a dart/sabot combination.  The darts are titanium while the sabots are made from aluminum billets.  The big concern seems to be air resistance.   

I have yet to see anything on internal stresses, only that without massive supports, the rails will fly apart.  MIT built one that is about two meters long and weighs in at about 160 kilograms. 

The larger rail guns are always fired at steel plates, so deformation is likely.  My partner and I are looking for range, so I'll let you know how far we get with a horizontal launch. 
We agreed on a two week hiatus, so no work this weekend.

turbo, who loves the conversion button on a scientific calculator 

I don't think it is at all crazy.  I seem to remember something about a Dutch East India Company. (Cindy, I can't find my powdered wig, how about a little history lesson?)

I do have to agree with the idea that the lunar rovers are not worth salvaging.  Photovoltaics are much more efficient now, and who would want to go bumping around on rocky Mars in a vehicle that has no shock absorbers at all?

About pulling out the old plans, would it be possible to reconstruct SKYLAB for Mars, with maybe Titan boosters?

turbo

Might I suggest an item for the Medical Section?  It is referred to as "pink-eye powder".  Composed of an antibiotic, an antiseptic, and an anesthetic (spell?) the powder comes inexpensively in large quanities.  It is normally used to treat eye infections in cows, but has been known to be used on humans in emergency field conditions.  With humans, a little bit of the stuff goes a very long way.  I understand it also has a long shelf-life. 

turbo, who remembers DMSO was made for horses

Hi everybody!
I just spent the last year building a mass driver.  The biggest problem with the things is they take a LOT of current to generate the magnetic fields.  University of Texas has an 18-footer that can throw a 2 kg ball at 6 Km/sec, but it takes 6 MILLION Amperes to do it, so a two story power station was built just for the rail gun.

Second big problem...the rails and mountings must be VERY sturdy.  Mass drivers have no recoil like cannon, but the same force acting to push the projectile along is trying to do everything to push the rails apart because the fields have the same polarity.

How do poor college students make power for a rail gun?  Tesla Coil!   Now the embarrassing part:  80% of the time we hauled the coil out to tune it, nature provided lightning of her own, so we had to put the coil away.  So, presentation last night with a Senior Project that hadn't fired because the power system never reached full output.

After so many weekends working on this thing, my friend and I decided to continue with the project until we get the whole thing working.  We also decided to actually spend two weeks without dealing with it, so stay tuned and I'll let you know how well ours works.

OH yes, by the way, a railgun's projectile provides the connection between the rails for the massive power, so it not only gets zapped with high current, it gets subjected to a powerful electromagnetic pulse. 

Okay, I'm supposed to be finishing my term paper.  Railgun 101 can be continued later.

turbo, your favorite electronics student

With the Devon Island crew's reports on improvements to the hab there, is there any plans to upgrade or modify the Utah hab before MSC Expedition One?

I'm thinking about the heat problem in the upper level and a recirculation system to make a "shirtsleeves" environment throughout the hab. 

I have a few ideas about support systems in the habs, and I'd like to get everyone's opinions on them rather than just beam them to the Hab Team.  A little brainstorming can save a lot of wrench-turning right?

This can get real interesting   
turbo, your favorite electronics student

I remember the arcology idea!  I had to do a quick check with dogpile to get the first name right.  The architect's name is Paolo Soleri.

Nice city layout.

t

Rob, even in this century sailors are confined in ships for months on end.  I've done three Med deployments myself.  Many people in a confined space living together is called a berthing compartment by the Navy. On a carrier, lots of space to move around. On a destroyer, the space has to be found to move around. 

The hab BunCCs I find amusing, Uncle Sam wanted to do something like that on ships.  Instead of USS Constitution, tour a Spruance-class destroyer, especially one decommissioned that still has the old "racks".  No room to sit up, thin padding, only curtains to make a tiny private space with.  The wardroom table in the Devon Island hab is larger than the table in the berthing compartment I had on my last ship, and more than twenty of us shared that and a compartment about the size of the hab's second floor.  It's not the amount of space one has, but what one does with that space that counts.  Modern submarine crews can stay in a windowless, amine-smelling cramped tube for months on end, promise me I won't have to "hot rack" and I'll go to Mars and build you a city.

Whoa, lack of oxygen on this soapbox, I'm getting down.
Be well folks!
turbo, who would rather go to Mars than get on a ship designed to sink.   

I think the algae idea was shelved about the same time as the Daedalus starships.  I'll have to keep looking and see what I can find.

Be good!
turbo

Folks, I'm weeks away from a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering Technology.  I don't see how LEDs are going to anything for plants but illuminate them while they die.  LEDs do use less power than regular bulbs, but no off-the-shelf LEDs radiate with the same frequencies the Sun does.  I must have been paying attention in Environmental Science that night, since I recall ultraviolet radiation is used for photosynthesis by plants.  LEDs radiate in mostly visible light, some are even strictly infrared (the ones in remote controls) so may I suggest some sort of focusing lens? 

Uh, Matt, since Mars already has 95% CO2 atmosphere, why try to make a greenhouse environment higher in CO2?

Inflatable greenhouse?  How about automated and smaller version of good old chain-cutter to make a trench to just roof over for a green house?  (long line of coal miners would like to know why we must bring walls with us when solid rock is already there)

Okay, standing on soapbox is giving me altitude sickness, I'm getting down.

Be Well All!
turbo, student that learned to take the power off before putting my hands in the gizmos   

Why put a globe on the patch at all?  How about a depiction of the ship over Mars?  Possibly even a stylized logo like the Bicentennial logo on the Viking lander?  Something simple a child can draw on a paper airplane's wings to keep the momentum up for generations.  How about a white spacesuit boot on the red surface of Mars with the black background of space?  No nationality or gender indicated, all spacesuits have boots.   Fancier?, okay, how about a gold spacesuited figure bridging the gap between a blue circle for Earth and a red circle for Mars?  Bulky suit easy to draw, circles a breeze, use yellow crayon instead of gold, bingo, primary colors and happy kids drawing away.     

Dealing with the Russians may have many advantages.  They too signed the treaty to reduce strategic missiles.  To me that equals boosters that they have to get rid of and so might help launch payloads to Mars.  PR benefits there are "Look what we can do!" AND "See, we launched them into space, so yes we did reduce our inventory."  That might make Uncle Sam willing to give up one or two of the old Titan missiles they can't really use anyway. 

Anybody know where the "Conestoga One" folks got theirs?

MIR must have had great CO2 scrubber systems, so the technology is there. 

Hmmm, a Siberian Hab?