New Mars Forums

Lewis and Spacenut,

I don't care where there Iron, or Iron equivalant comes from.  All I know is that Meteor Iron should be distributed rather uniformly over the surface.
As I have mentioned, I worked in Red Iron (Hemitite) and Taconite mines.  I played on the mine dumps.  I swam on a pond on top of a mine dump that no longer exists! I swam in the lake in the deep pits.  I know of these things more that I know of Meteor iron.  I did not ever enter the Soudan mine, but I know of it.  If you can get that and the other things, then forget Meteor Iron.

Needing other resources that are locaition specific, then I choose Meteor Iron because it then does not hobble the child with the burden of transit from one location of an essential material to another.  In other words, if you find a resource something that is not iron, but you still want iron, meteor iron should be near the special something that you found.  Meteor Iron is ubiqutous to the surface as I understand it.

Water it ubiquitous to the high lattitudes.  Hellas should have higher air pressure, Meteor Iron, and some water at some locations.  That is how I think.

Find a big Iron deposite, great, but now I am thinking how I might have iron in the first few years.  Is your iron local to other essential resources?  If yes, then fine we are really fortunate. 

When I was a little boy, I found extrodinary things on the mine dumps.  Samples.  I have none of them now, but I remember what they look like.  Find a mine in a good location, and I will not resist that.

We have three ranges of ore in Minnesota.  Vermillion Range, where the Soudan Mine is, Cayuna Range, where the ore is unfortunately adulterated with Manganese, and the Messabi Range, where I worked, where the Taconite is virgin, has very little contaminants, and of course, I have a side interest in that where I wonder if Taconite ore could be concentrated, Monded, and printed to Iron/Steel Metal parts.  I have been away from those places for quite a time, but still a boy remembers his youth.  I have to think in terms of Meteor Iron for the Mond process (More or less Mond), because I don't think that Hemmitite is directly responsive to it, but maybe I am wrong about that?

I have this information to add:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonyl_metallurgy

http://www.space-mining.com/IRONRECOVERY.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy
Quote from the above:

More History: (Pattern Welding)

Nickle has toxic problems as well I believe.  However I did encounter the information that Nickle and Iron are best separated with magnets, which I presume means grinding the Meteor metal very fine, I would think there are limits to the amount of purity easliy achived.

So, I am convinced that you are on the right track for the 3D printer. 

I found some more very intersting information concerning Plastics from C02, and a spray on glass with UV protective properties, so I am going to try to find an old thread about greenhouses and wake it up and talk about metals, plastics, and glass spray to make greenhouses and such, which in the end would after all be very valuable, and it appears they could be printed.    I am glad I encountered you guys.

Oh an afterthought,  maybe a flame with just a bit more oxygen than fuel, could be periodically be put to the surface of the object being printed, to remove a bit of excess carbon.  I understand that CO is explosive, but if the Oxygen and pressure levels were kept low, and the CO removed from the area of manufacture reasonably well, perhaps each layer could have a different amount of Carbon and other additives, making a laminated structure, and not causing a explosion or fire. (See Pattern Welding Above).

With respect truely,

Could there be anyway to mineaturize the process to the head of a 3D printer?  That is refine steel as you print?  I don't care which process.  It would then not require huge draws from the power source, but only power at the time of printing, a tiny hot spot, where the needed chemicals would be injected, and perhaps with an action to remove slag?

Oh Oh, I think someone put a nickel in me.

I am going to poropose a collection of propulsion methods, to move teraforming supplies to a perfered location from a location of origin.

I am only partially serious, I am only trying to see if there are any combinations which could make sense.  Go ahead and hammer this hard if you think something should be removed from the assembly.

I could have gone upstairs to the places where you guys normally hang out but why should I mess that up for you.  You stoped by with nuclear propulsion, and I am going to use it eventually.

But for now.

1) Couple an Electric rocket with a culuster of solid rockets, and perhaps a "Barge" of equipment, and a small liquid thruster capability.
2) Use the electric rocket to do flyby gravity assists from targets useful, perhaps the Moon, I hope Venus, and perhaps the Earth.
3a) Gravity boost from Venus to go to Mars, fire off the solid rockets in sequence as needed, fine tune with electric, use liquid when needed.
3b) Gravity boost from Mars to Vesta, fire off solid rockets in sequence as needed, fine tune with electric, use liquid when needed.

*So, I am thinking that the Solar Electric would have it's best performance heading towards Venus, and perhaps back out towards the orbit of Earth.
After that it becomes more of a steering mechanism, but has some use.  I am prefering that the device would arrive at Mars or Vesta with some of it's solid rockets unburned, for future use.

So, I have tied all this to Terraforming, Vesta, and Mars.  Now I want to add Nuclear.

What if this assembly did in fact have a "Orion" type push also?  I am thinking one blast, and instead of springs, two plates with crushable honeycomb between them to buffer the shock.  I am not exact as to when this would be used.  I just think that it could be integrated into the system to make a one time mega-boost.  I would also like to speculate on the notion that the shock absorber plate would be used again for Aerocapture.

By then way as I see, it the solar electric thruster system would separate from the assembly and get to a distance before the blast, because it would most likely be too delicate for that event.  The solar electric thruster system could then try to get back to the assembly after the blast.

Now it's all tied together, except the nuclear powered planes, but give me time.

Just some fun.

Thank you Louis, I enjoyed the provisions on glass.  Perhaps when I retire I will take a greater interest in glass as a hobby.

Lewis wrote:

Copper may be rare, but with an acid rain or acid snow melt for tens or thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, I would expect that little bits of native copper and other copper would have disolved into sulphides, and washed into the salt seas and lakes.  I would expect to find the remnants of those in Hellas, perhaps under some significant amount of air borne sediments.

However salt domes are fluid, and will erupt to the surface, and carry copper sulphide and perhaps calcium salts with it.

Here are some links to sudy, and then I will continue my reply:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium

http://www.jmcgowan.com/mars_reprint.PDF

I certainly hope this is not hoaxed: (Notice the petroleum seep, and remember that there are places on Mars where Methane replenishes into the atmosphere).
http://www.martinhovland.com/Mars%20and … 20Salt.htm

http://earth-pages.co.uk/2009/09/01/and … s-on-mars/

And here is my badge of shame:
http://outerspaceplace.blogspot.com/201 … -mars.html

As for Calcium Carbide, I reccomend a study of Methane seeps in the ocean and the creatures that inhabit them.  Clams?  Make methane, feed the clams, and I guess food and shells.  If you could get the salts from a salt dome or salt pan, then calcium salts that could be added to the tank.  No lights needed, and temperatures do not have to be that high.  Just Oxygen, Methane and salt water I presume.

A thick atmosphere offers a better chance to get the starter materials from Earth down safely I would think.  More time to get the parachutes to do their job.

The bottom of Hellas actually will allow temporary drops of water in the soil, provided the water were there, and also provided that it was heated.  However it is arid, and evaporation would quickly take water on the surface away.  However, a bag of icewater would do quite nicely.  Just put it in a hole, put an A-Frame glass greenhouse over it to protect it from U.V. and to hold some heat in.  At night it would develop ice, but during the day this would keep it from going above the tripple point.  Just make sealed bags with water and nutrients.  Put plants in them, and put them in the greenhouse.  The bags could actually hold a bit more pressure, but why make things harder.  Let plants grow, and then take the bags into your shelter and open them.  I know that there are not a huge number of plants other than Algae which would love this, but I bet if the tundra were searched you might find some advanced plants that might deal with this.  They might have food value or be altered to have food value.  If greenhouse gasses were used to evaporate the CO2 on Mars, then the pressure at the bottom of Hellas could rise to at least 20 Millibars.  This implies that the process I just described could become even more feasable.  And of course their is the dream of having an Ozone layer.  If you had 20 Millibars in the bottom of Hellas and an Ozone layer, then there is really a chance that some very tough crops could be gown out of doors with irrigation.  That would have to be a plus.  Putting the first settlement near this location might make some sense for such a reason as well.  And yes there is a slight radiation improvement I presume.

Finally, if a glacier 1/2 mile thick max, and the size of Los Angeles were melted, then a dry valley lake could be created and sustained.  The ice in this location would be more stable and would require less effort to protect it.  I see this dry valley lake as having enormous significance for the generation of electric power.

Petrolium is commonly found in salt domes.  We are continuously fed stories about how petroleum is only created from fossil life, but while that could be true also, consider what happens if a plate subducts deep into the Earth, drawing with it water.  If it encounters non-oxidized rocks and metals at high heat, the oxygen is plucked off the water.  Leaving Hydrogen, which is about as small as a molecule gets.  This hydrogen has the best chances of working it's way up through the Mantle and crust and during such a passage can pick up carbon and become Methane.  This alternate theory believes that actually Oil and Coal are mostly created by the contiunuation of that process where eventually the Methane gets trapped in a dome structure, and the Hydrogen eventually breaks free and leave behind a concentrate of Carbon/Oil/Coal.  In that theory, fossils in coal are actually just indeed plant matter burried which created an ideal place for leaking oil/Methane to collect.  Consider the Tar Sands in Canada. 

And there is also very likely the notion that Hydrated materials would have been burried inside the planets even during their formation.  Perhaps not water, but indeed this is even a possibility.  In such a case as that Hydrogen, Methane, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide are constantly working their way up from the core, both on Earth an Mars.

A book to consider is "The Deep Hot Biophere" by Thomas Gold.  So then if true for Earth then very likely for Mars as well, but perhaps a bit different in nature.

Why Meteoric Iron?  Because as someone on this site said, a robot cart with magnets could collect it for you while you were working on other problems like making glass.  Eventualy regular iron mining, but why not take the easy stuff first.  It is going to be hard enough getting humans established without taking advantage of an easy prise.

In fact every thing we do to survive depends upon things that Nature gives to us easily.  The first settlement will be very weak, and will need all the advantages it can get.

As you might have guessed, I am not that proficient in language skills.  Space Relations, Science, maybe some Math.  Even so, I suggest that the word "Colony" be phased out.  It suggests exploitation, and?carries much other unsuitable bagage, which are linked to social demands which have to do with a past on Earth, and places a confused burden on our dreams for the future of Mars.  We don't need to set this "Child" up with a "Disinheritance" which "Social Engineers" might hope to tap for power and from their own narrow and misguided perceptions of realities which hides their selfishness even from themselves, where they become compelled to try to inhibit progress.  I suggest other words such as "Settlement".

That was very generous and useful SpaceNut.

I have gone through a fair part of it and plan to look it all over.

I see that basalt sinter by itself has limited strength, so that is a bit dissapointing, but perhaps something will eventually be figured out to upgrade the product.

I am still curious about sintering magnetic Meteor Iron, and am wondering if putting a wire mesh into the formed item would help it have useful strength.

I am curious about the printing of metal powder, and wonder if that could be done like a microscopic steel making process, for instance adding carbon as was suggested in one of the other threads.  Not sure about excluding enough slag though, I wonder how much silica a Nickle/Iron meteor has in it?  I would think that a sinter of that material should at least be suitable to be a Permenant Magnet, or the core of a Solenoid, or perhaps bearing housings.

Thanks again.

In this case we are not talking about payload but a process, and a set of processes.  Granted, fairly heavy machinery is required, but you have prompted me to think about it some more.

If you have to have an air lock which cycles between Martian ambient, and the habitation values, then that airlock can double as an vacuum chamber for processes that are favored by vacuum.  At least until a dedicated chamber can be built out of local materials.

As for a heat source, if that is a show stopper, then there is no point of going to Mars with the intention of doing industrial activities.

Because of your post, I was very concerned that I was being needlessly redundant.  However, I searched for "Vacuum", "Welding", "Sintering", and "Basalt".

Vacuum; Many hits naturally in a site dedicated to space.
But in particular;
"Iron and Steel on Mars" (GWJohnson, dealing with molten steel I think).
"This thread"

Welding; Four hits, only two for this section "Life support systems".
"Iron and Steel on Mars".  (I havn't found the reference yet)
"This thread"
(This seems to indicate that the people here don't have much to do with industrial or construction activities).

Sintering; Two refereces.
"3D Printers"
"This Thread"

Basalt; Many references.
-"Iron and Steel on Mars" (I believe this refers to iron in basalt)
-"This thread".

Anyway my intentions are to learn and also to add if I can.  I am quite interested in solar sinter of basalt.  I am guessing you would want an Anealing oven to put the product into.

I beleive I saw it on TV once a long time ago were it was a demonstration of making a brick from simulated lunar materials.  The brick did not look like much, but it was an accomplishment anyway.

I suppose a direct solar process could be resorted to at first, but as I said a air lock could also be a vacuum chamber. 

I am also interested in how mineral wool and tar could be used to join such tiles/bricks together into larger blocks.  These might also be used for foundations in place of cement.  This is related to another thread about concrete, Cement, and Icecrete.

I am also interested if fibers of some kind could be embeded in a sinter.  For instance could you plate a layer of metal over a mineral wool fiber, and then put those fibers into the basalt sinter, and so strengthen it?

And yes I have borrowed good ideas from other people such as the 3D printers.  I am genuinely interested to know if Meteroite metal could be ground to a fine powder and that printed to make structural members, and tools.  I can see where by alternating types of metals and alloys, unusual properties could be arrived at.

Really no disrespect intended, but I am interested in these conversations and the parallel conversations for Iron and Concrete.  I want to contribute not compete.

I actually worked in a Hemitite processing facility, I worked in the pilot facility where Taconite tachonology was pioneered (Don't get me wrong, I was a Labor/Operator then, but I saw the equipment and operated it.  The Crusher for instance.  The Magnetic separation.  The Agglomeration and so on.  I am not much on the actual furnaces, we only made ceramic pellets.  However that Hemitite plant did have a sinter experiment.  I missed it, but I did have conversation about it.

Finally I worked at a Taconite Facility where I was involved with shoveling dirt, hosing dirt down drains, working in a electic motor shop and also was trained as an electrician, became an electronic repairman, and also was involved in process control, and worked on blue prints.  Since then I have acquired many other skills at my new job. 

I am just saying I am not eager to be dismissed lightly in these matters.  I have actually been there.

Now as far as sintering Meteor particles which are largely metalic, I wonder if between bouts of vacuum, Hydrogen gas could be injected to be a getter for Oxygen clinging to the surface, and also to reduce Iron Oxde.

I also wonder if mineral wool fibers first coated with a layer of metal could be included to add some strength, similar to fiberglass.  I guess it would be no good if the mineral wool melted, but perhaps the Vacuum Weld/Sinter temperatures could be lower than that.

Baring that then wires of some strong metal instead of the mineral wool.

Clark, I thank you for your guidance.   I see that you have been here a long time, and I would never want to mess up what others have made.

However, Karov and Terraformer say a lot of interesting things, some times seeming very far out, and sometimes even impracticle, but that is only our preception.  A new thing is usually poorly crafted at first.  Hard work makes it into something that people take for granted.

I was attempting to establish a scaffold for connetion to Karovs thinking, which I have a hard time understanding sometimes.  I did throw a bunch of leads out there.  I wanted to see of Karov would reject them or not, that would help me understand what he is driving towards.

You are correct, this material is hard to place for a location here.  I guess if you guys wanted to you could say that things must be only about Mars, but I will respectfully and weakly suggest that:
1) If pan spermia is in fact a natural process, then Mars likely was involved with it, and had life or has life, related to that of Earth and other places.
2) By contemplating expansion of humans to Mars, we are apparently taking the first baby steps towards a possible future which would involve interstellar civilization, and by speculating on what existing alien civilizations may have done, we can speculate better on the future of our "Kind?" and I guess how Mars might best fit into that progression.

In spite of my arguments, however, I respect your concerns and complaints.

So then Ancient E.T. might choose to leave a legacy by messing with and inventing transmissable organisms?

Should Seti be looking for messages in the DNA of primitive organisms that don't evolve very fast?

Very Funny Ancient E.T.!

Terraformer said:
"You couldn't tether an O'Neill colony - it *is* a planet after all - but having it in orbit isn't such a big deal, especially if you're using it as a space elevator counterweight. Ceres synchronous orbit is approx. 750km altitude; I suspect Vesta's will be much lower. Enough that working during the weeks and recuperating in orbit will be quite practical".

Actually, I would house spinning worlds inside of non spinning worlds.

Supposing that I had the credentials, the authority, and the resources to make a Dwarf/SubDwarf Planet (I coined a phrase "SubDwaf"!), into a place for a human civilization, I would rather than a space elivator, go for hollow cylinders with many floors, planted on Vesta's surface and going up to geosynch.  If this is actually asking too much from the metals we have then I suppose space elivator.

Anyway, at geosynch, a stationary shell pressurized to < 10 mTorr.  Inside of that another stationary shell pressurized to 250 Torr?  The two shells interlocked with struts, the outershell strenth butressing that of the inner shell.

Inside of the dual stationary shell, Vacuum bells, large enough for a spinning world.  At the axis of the spinning worlds, air locks, largely air tight seals, they doi't have to be perfect.  A person leaving a 1 gee spinning world could pass into a tube at zero gee, and go to a different spinning world, perhaps one with .38 gee.  A whole tree of these worlds.  The interior of the tree having Earth normal pressure nominal.  The spinning worlds would not have large scale agriculture, but instead, quarters, and small decorative parks, with artificial lighting.  No windows.

The reason such a spinning world were to be in a vacuum bell, is to keep them under continuing pressure testing, and also to reduce air friction energy losses to a minimum.

Returning to the double shell which is like a body cavity to contain the tree of spinning worlds like intestines in the belly, windows might be an option, and zero gee agriculture, but I am even inclined to exclude them from this.

Air leaking from the inner shell into the gap between the two shells, would be pumped back into the inner shell.

As for agriculture, why not have attachments to the double shell, with transparancies.  Perhaps s double or tripple shell arrangement.  Then zero gee agriculture.

I suggest that rooted plants could be planted into pads, and those pads be wetted with hydrophonic liquids.

The farmer would need a device to fly her around, perhaps a fan with some power source and of course a protective gaurd.

A person with a house in one of the spinning worlds might work there, or might as you have suggested travel down through a pressurized tube to the surface, and then become involved with mining or solar power.

I don't know what the probability of drilling to the core would be, but I do know that in an underground Iron mine near where I was born, the iron content was so greate that it was said that you could weld to it.

If the core were like that using pure Oxygen to burn tunnels would be an option.  I imagine a labrynth of chambers and tunnels.  And of course the metal ores.  Where would they go, those other than Iron and Nickle?  Where would then settle out to  during the formation of this world?

Well what a surprise.  I am not very wild about a space elivator myself, and would certainly hesitatate to try it on Earth or Mars until experimented with on a small scale.

Therfore Vesta or an alternate equivalant.  If it turns out to be as messed up as it seems to me it might be, better to fail on Vesta than Earth or Mars.  Or if it just pays off on Vesta then moving to Mars and Earth would not be contemplated.

Perhaps it should never be more than a thought experiment.  But I am not the master of what others try to do.

But if it does not cause annoyance, I will not withdraw the suggestion that Vesta can be tought about.  If it does cause discontent, and disharmony, then this thread can go dead, or even be removed if the higher powers would prefer.

My objectives would be more consirvative.

Warm up an icy planet with an impactor prior to habitation.

A strange thing I encountered is this:
1) I can read all kinds of speculation on propelling a star ship across light years with lasers.

2) When I proposed deflecting potential impactors to an orbit which would cause a useful impact, I was told a laser would spread too much, there was no way it could work.

3) When I proposed using a laser to ping a distant object to gain information about it I was also told that a laser would spread too much.

So what is needed is focusing optics for the laser to work for case 1, and then presumable for case 2 and 3?

Although Ice is volitile, I might wonder if it could be turned into very large and precise and repairable lenses for such a purpose.