New Mars Forums

Just a brief response to both members above, I've run some numbers independent of AI:

From above numbers a balloon 200m in radius that is 400m diameter can lift up 90 metric tons to the height of mount olympus. Im surpised by this and kinda suspicious. Sounds too good to be true. Feel free to scrutinize these numbers.

I used both the equation of bouyancy and equation for volume of a sphere. Feel free to google and wikipedia.

Will do, It's been hell of a long day, Im also applying or a senior positioin in NASA. Will do as you ask because it will help with my resume! I also made a second post recently proposing a giant igloo habitat in korolev crater, be sure to check it out!

Thank God for AI because I don't have a staff helping me crunch numbers on spreadsheet as quickly as I come up with new ideas!

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 70#p223170

But my website has full and complete context with calculations:

https://photonbytes.com/2024/05/17/mart … ter-igloo/

The Airship Station also has a place in Mar's Atmosphere. While the air density is thinner it's still enough or an airship to hover above ground there, high enough that the entire base can be mobile. Also due to it's circular nature you can build inside it a centrifuge so that in the outer sections of the craft you have 1g like here on Earth. This solves the problem of bone density loss over long term off world missions. It also creates a compelling reason to build cloud cities like we envisioned in the clouds of Venus. But it's needed much more on any world with lower than 1g gravity such as Mars and Titan. Why build cities on the ground when you can have them hover above ground and go anywhere of interest? The city can roam like a nomad for resources such as the ice caps for water supply and then to various craters and to the base of mountains.

The only settlements on fixed ground positions should be ones on top of resources such as trapped ice. But they should also have an airbase to support the coming and going of cloud cities like the above airship. Have docking mechanisms and control tower.

https://photonbytes.com/2024/05/12/1g-in-mars/

Just a quick update on this subject, I have written to Robert Zubrin and the Convention that I will submit for 2025 because Im strapped for time working for The Space Plane Corporation. However most of the work for the paper is done is just iSALE crater simulation as the final step. What I have discovered since I last posted here are the following:

1. The polar Ice Caps should be the main target because in addition to the micro high air pressure crater it will create it will also melt much of the ice there and this will add atmospheric substance as well as liquid water to the bottom of the crater. The heat from the impact will keep liquid water there for hundreds of years.

2. Only 1-2% of a comet fragment the size and speed of Halley's is needed to create the proposed 50km deep crater. However deflecting the entire comet the same class as Halley's is desirable because a polar impact by the entire comet will terraform the entire planet and bring up the air pressure to at least 0.5 bars.

3. If only 1-2% of Halley's comet class mass is to be used then probably need 2 fragments, one to create the first impact and a second to creat a crater within a crater while the first is still in it's forming molten state. This requires confirmation in iSALE

4. if using the entire comet then the crater is more of a bonus rather than a requirement and the main objective will be to melt the polar ice caps rather than create the crater. The resulting crater will be more of a bonus that allows us to have a 1 bar zone of atmospheric pressure on Mars while the rest of the planet is at 0.5 bars. This is useful if you need to have a medical facility to treat people under 1 bar.

5. Dr Zubrin's salt water reactor is insufficient to move these fragments in a meaningful amount of acceleration to adjust trajectory to pin point the ice caps. However something envisioned from the 50's Nuclear Pulse propulsion can indeed not only move the 1-2% mass fragments from Halley's comet but the entire comet it self to terraform the entire planet.

In summary we need iSALE crater simulation to confirm that we can create a deep enough crater with or without the two strike crater within a crater trick but if we decide to terraform the entire planet then the iSALE simulation is not required but in either case we still need nuclear pulse propulsion. To my knowledge there is nothing with higher specific impulse and thrust to do the job. Elon's idea to nuke Mars should be revamped to use those nukes to deflect a comet similar to Halley's comet with the required speed of 70km/s to transform all that kinetic energy into heat.

Disclaimer: The rock and resulting crater in these AI generated images are too big, and not to scale.

Hydrogen bombs wont be an option to divert the ice body, it will vaporize it, at least part of it and the vapor will also deflect it even more. Also this kind of chaotic high energy deflection is not precise enough. Need a proper rocket that can be throttled to do a controlled deflection that is gradual and controlled by AI. I would imagine 3 or 4 ships working via a single AI fleet command to control right, left, forward, backward thrusting while they are all connected to the comet.

1km/s is about mach 3.6 on Earth or 3600km/h. This speed is not enough energy for a small ish projectile to vapourize the ice caps efficiently. What mass did you imagine each bullet to be? It matters in the kinetic energy equation. Also remember Mars still has a thin atmosphere, thin but still enough to absorb some of that kinetic energy. Lastly the bullet will probably shatter the ice rather than vapourize it. If I missed anything tell me, I feel terrible shooting(no pun intended) down anyone's idea, I know how it feels!

Have you run the numbers to test if that moon has sufficient dark material to be dispersed over an entire pole? So you're suggesting just darken the pole and the sun will do the rest? We will need a factory on the moon to chop it up into cannon balls though.... could that be done?

To me it seems like an elaborate scheme, you need to have an electromagnetic cannon first and then a means to chop up the moon into ammunition. What makes you think that the projectiles from the moon will vaporize the ice? Have you done the numbers for that?

What speed will they impact the ice and with what mass?

With my idea all you need is propulsion such as a nuclear salt water rocket by Dr Zubrin and just slow down a an already slow moving comet, the complexity of trajectory adjustment can be handled by an advanced AI (not the crap one I have been using) and the other complexity will be mounting the space ship onto a solid surface of the comet, and lastly shielding it from the sun as it approaches Mars, but we can do this today. I don't know about an electromagnetic cannon and turning the moon into ammunition tho, that's not something I think we can do yet. But please correct me if im wrong.

But I think you bring up a very good point and it might end up that we just dont get the public support for this because of such valid fears even with the ice absorbing some of the energy.

I would then propose we change the mission to reduce the impact energy so we have enough energy to inflate the atmosphere of mars by adding ice and volatiles to it and melting the pole in the process of the explosion but reduce the yield by reducing the speed of impact. The crater no longer is the objective in this new mission but to increase air pressure on Mars to 0.5 bars globally. But this should only be done once we find a way to shield Mars from the solar wind either with a L1 megastructure or with the Martian moon option i saw on youtube where they sprinkle some magnetic dust or my version use lots and lots of airship style HAPs with overlapping magnetic fields artificially generated in the new Martian Stratosphere. There will be no risk of explosion using hydrogen or oxygen as a lifting gas as long as you use one or the other. Use saucer shaped airships so the top side is all solar panels to power the magnetic field. Have hundreds of them floating all over the planet.

Without shielding Mars goes back to the way it was in just a 100 years. And then only the crater might remain habitable. Might because now its no longer 50km deep but maybe 3km deep,

I think so because we are using an ice projectile on the pole of Mars so the resulting explosion will be partially and significantly absorbed by the polar ice. A lot of which will boil off into the atmosphere increasing air preassure to human safe levels. Much will melt into liquid and form lakes, rivers, and seas.

This is something I am emphasing to chatbot now, we already know the material has to be icy and we already know the mass should be roughly 4 X 10^15 kg (4 million tons) for a 10km/s impact to have the kinetic energy for 50km crater, that we all know.

What we don't know is the candidates that are in orbits that will take it directly above or below Mars Axis for a strike on one of it's poles. That's the hard part. They also need to be far enough so that their orbit is very slow and the saltwater nuclear rocket spacecraft that Dr Zubrin designed can impart minimual amount of counter momentum to stop it in its tracks preferably at apogee while above or below Mars.

The longer distance also helps with potential energy so the rocket ship doesnt need to push it anymore once in free fall to the sun, just adjust its trajectory continuously and slowly with AI. Hopefully not Chat GBT AI!

Do the objects you mention meet this orbital criteria?

And yes you bring up a very good point about the comet's sunny side vapourizing near the sun, good thing Mars is farther away than Earth from the sun, the space ship pusher/tug needs to compensate for volatiles boiling off and pushing the comet away from the sun. Or shield the comet with a shade!!

Thanks for this but what is the email of the admin of this convention that I have to email when the time is right? Or the website to fill out the form?

So how do I do what Robert Zubrin conversed to me on linkedin above and present a paper at the next Mars Society Conference? What is the proper process?

Anyone want to lend a hand? As a minimum to check my numbers.