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Another concept here for consideration is utilization of these large greenhouses in the cycle of air renewal; we're discussing lots of photosynthesis here, given potential acres and acres of indoor crop management. A CO2 atmosphere in the greenhouses would rapidly change over to an O2 rich condition, as the plants began converting CO2 to cellulose and sugars. We then could utilize this as the source of O2 for the growing colony in a cyclic system, where the habitat air would be recirculated through the greenhouses, and re-oxygenated air provided back to the Habs.
I really like Rob's concept of long and skinny greenhouses similar in concept to Quonset Huts; these could be modular and expandable lengthwise. If given hemispherical ends, they would be structurally pretty strong. My suggestion is a "Quonset-style" greenhouse in a modular design of 100 meters in length, and a 25 meter width. Each would enclose 0.74 acres available for use. Consider the "greenhouse farm" composed of 12 of these units, or ~ 9 acres. Each could be expanded by a single unit, effectively doubling the acreage to 18. This would provides enough growing space to provide for a colony of 100 Mars pioneers, but they would be busting their buns working such a "farm."
Most of the concepts I'm presenting here are based on the "KISS" principle, keeping everything as low-tech as possible; fewer things to go wrong that way, and requiring fewer imports from Earth.
In other discussion threads, especially to "Chickens" discussion, many of the by-products of the root crops also serve as a major source of chicken feed. i.e.: Turnip greens, Carrot tops, Radish leaves, etc. I've raised lots of chickens on my ranch, and even grass clippings can massively reduce the need for imported/locally raised grains. In addition to being a retired chemist, I've been involved as a cattle rancher for some 20 years. I've raised chickens for both eggs and meat--for home use only. I've also been involved in hay farming, and put up 70 acres of grass & clover hay annually. Another species we need to consider introducing in each of these greenhouses is honey bees. If we're looking to grow a crop for livestock feed, Alfalfa is one such crop; Alfalfa requires pollination by bees to produce well, though. A wonderful byproduct of the bee is Honey production, as well as Beeswax. The annual yield (Earth years) of a good alfalfa is ~ 6 tons per acre. On Mars, that would go a long way in supporting chickens, swine, and cattle, or sheep for agricultural animals. Raising corn for human and animal feed is also very efficient. The entire plant is animal feed, not only the grain produced. What the Martian settler needs to do is develop agriculture for maximum symbiosis. There are some excellent short growing season corns available, many of which are "Heirloom" varieties.
By the way, Rob--my late wife was from North Carolina, and I was introduced to eating Turnip greens through her. Not. My . Favorite. As she commented, it's an "acquired taste." She also prepared Collard greens, which is an extremely useful and highly nourishing crop.
kbd512-
My understanding of the Raptor engine recently tested IS a full scale engine with a significant thrust improvement over the Merlin, and an Isp of 383 seconds in the vacuum modification, and is based on Methylox propellants. Certainly there would be extensive redesign/increase of scale, but that's exactly what's needed for a more than 2 man mission to Mars. My ideal first mission crew size is 7 astronauts.
What we should be concentrating on for crops is a set of products which have very short times from planting to maturity, combined with maximum caloric and vitamin output. There are lots of books about farming for survival that indicate the most efficient crops for the colony situation. Turnips are a quick crop. Root crops can be co-planted alongside taller crops to make maximum use of the space available. Radishes, beets, and carrots are good sources of essential vitamins, in addition to providing taste variety. Swiss chard is a heavy producer, and is semi-perennial. The turnip greens are also a decent food. Look into short growing season hybrids developed for use in the northern tier of states and Canada. Vine squashes can be planted in conjunction with other crops too. Every square centimeter needs to be productive, both above ground and below ground. Add in sweet potatoes in place of white potatoes for variety and vitamin A production.
Robert-
There are several products as milk replacer for calves; I've raised several where the mother cow either died, or rejected the calf . Comes as a flaked solid--add water and feed. If we have artificial gravity from using centrifugal force ala the mars Direct system, the calf would be in great shape after the 6 month voyage. As it gets older, there are other feeds needed, which are hay cubes, and grain products. Some milk needed to 5 months old. The animals can become quite good pets, if the correct breed is selected. This could have some great psychological benefits for the crews.
The animal wastes can also be collected for use as soil amendments on Mars; nothing better than manure for soil enrichment and addition of needed bacteria.
GW-
From my recollection, the new SpaceX Raptor engine is running O2 rich through the turbopump, same as the Russian engines. What really excites me is the possibility of upgrading the Falcon 9 with Raptor engines and CH4-LOX, which may give a significant performance boost; then on to the same upgrade for Falcon Heavy.
Realistically speaking, SpaceX has an enormous advantage in this competition, due to the reusability of the booster stages. The Orion space vehicle suffers from the problem of excessive weight. That in turn, requires the SLS booster, which is very expensive and is a throwaway launch vehicle. In the end...money talks. The new PE has already begun negotiations with both Lockheed-Martin and Boeing about the horrendous cost of the Air Force One replacement, as well as the $325 Million a copy F-35. In both these cases, we're dealing with cost-plus accounting contracts. The asteroid retrieval project seems to be one of the first projects in jeopardy under the new administration, and I will be cheering that decision. The semi-official unwillingness to face up and make establishment of a permanent base on Mars the ONLY priority of the space program MUST be confronted head on. Once SpaceX began recovering the expensive first stages of the Falcon 9 rockets, handwriting was on the wall for the "established" contractors mired in their own inertia.
Argon is a totally inert "Noble gas," and hence, has no harmful effects if used as a buffer gas. In chemical labs, it's actually preferred to Nitrogen due to it's density--heavier than air. It "stays put," in a reactor for exclusion of the reactive components of air--moisture and Oxygen. Here on Earth, it's significantly more expensive than Nitrogen. All we need is that essential 20% Oxygen in our breathing gas.
Robert-
In reality, there should be NO door to the outside w/o an airlock system. With an interlock system which would prevent the outer door from opening if the inner one were not sealed. Stupid is as stupid does. As you pointed out better compartmentalization would also help such a situation. Going back to fundamentals, the agronomist never would have passed a strict psychological profiling in the first place. A very strict "weed out the weak" program would have prevented the portrayed disaster, but it would have been too boring for TV.
Spacenut;
The problem is knowing what to look for in these samples, and doing any form of experimentation is impossible; this recently concluded experiment simply gives a baseline for future studies.
A fairly recent paper, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0606805103, indicated that bone loss in osteoporosis may be somewhat modulated by a diet high in ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). This could be the basis of an ISS borne mouse or rat experiment, with a corresponding control study done on Earth. This addition to diet affects the hormone action in post menopausal females w/r osteoporosis.
We have robots that can fly around and take pictures of whatever interests us or fetch space rocks without risking human lives. Spacecraft are supposed to be a means to get from Point A to Point B, ASAP. It's time to start using some of them that way. If we spend the money and risk the human lives trying to go to Mars, then our astronauts need to land on Mars and get busy trying to answer the questions we have about the origin and nature of life within our solar system.
We don't need to devote any more of NASA's precious time and funding observing the health effects of microgravity and radiation poisoning. We have enough experimentation and data on both to fill an entire library. I'll never understand the fascination scientists have with watching people die and by having humans circling planets, that's effectively what we're doing. If I ask someone to do something that may result in their death, then I want it to be for something decidedly more substantive than observing the health effects associated with my request. The purpose of NASA is exploration and NASA's robots have already told us pretty much everything they can about Mars. If we want to know more, then we have to go there ourselves to get more answers to our questions.
I have to agree about the futility of continued ISS research on the effects of microgravity and radiation dosages. The ultimate goal should be establishment of at least a permanent research outpost on Mars, then let the results of this noble experiment guide going forward.
As an overall effort--disappointing. If I were a professor and giving it a grade for scientific/engineering accuracy versus the "dramatic impact," it would come in with a C-. Very illogical in many instances. Not that the equipment or engineering was all THAT bad, but the management and human interactions were too uncontrolled, and that being done remotely from Earth by the investor team. Just my somewhat caustic comments. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
What I would argue for is we build a first class, well equipped chemical and biology laboratory on Mars' surface; then fly Mars-Phobos-Mars trips for samples. Why haul all the swag back to Earth for analysis? Mars needs be a permanent base, with capabilities far beyond those of any robotics. The prolonged exposure to microgravity on Phobos would be a negative.
Real science proceeds in a logical and stepwise manner. As now, all the sample collection is limited by the rover's abilities in terrain encountered. What really should happen, is an interesting sample is found, which subsequently provides more clues as to where to look, and in which areas are a waste of valuable time. The instruments on board any robotic vehicle are strictly limited as to capability. So...we've found evidence that the surface of the planet is "covered with organics," doesn't really lend much insight into the presence of life, past or present.
What should we be looking for, once we have the ability to dig in out of the way and more interesting places than rocky plains where the rovers can operate? I would be looking for amino acids and carbohydrates, and then determine whether or not they possessed any optical activity. On Earth, (almost) all naturally occurring AAs have an L configuration and rotate the plane of polarized light passing through a solution of them in an appropriate solvent in a levorotatory direction. All naturally occurring carbohydrates are of the D configuration. To the non chemists here, these are the building blocks of life as we know it. Having a polarimeter along is absolutely essential, since the Miller-Urey experiment has demonstrated the abiotic synthesis of 23 different AAs, but all are a 50-50 mixture of the D and L isomers. Another set of compounds frequently thought to be evidence of life through biotic synthesis of Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons; i.e. Naphthalene, Anthracene, Phenanthrene, Pyrene, etc. The original biotically synthesized compounds are not PAHs, but precursors that lead to them via pyrolysis. These are compounds found in tobacco smoke that render it carcinogenic. We would need a means of separating mixtures, so the requirement I placed on the laboratory on Mars needs a High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC). When only very small portions of sample are available, an FTIR, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer is the name of the game. As you might be beginning to realize, this type of analysis of a multiplicity of samples is far beyond the robots we can currently send there.
The announcement really didn't have much in it, and seemed awfully vague to me. Organic chemistry covers an awful lot of compounds--millions to date. I'd be more excited if they had identified something--other than alkanes and alkenes. This is why we need a human presence there, complete with an excellent suite of instrumentation: HPLC, mass spectrometer, maybe even an NMR, and most importantly for me an FTIR. Throw in a polarimeter, and we can make some real headway w/r to determine life past or present. The first organic chemist on Mars is going to have a field lifetime (was gonna say field day, but that isn't close!). Ah, to be 30 years younger; I'd go in a heartbeat.
Robert Zubrin's book "Entering Space" had some examples of rotary wing type rockets mentioned in one of the earlier chapters. I don't have the book handy now, as I loaned it to a friend. He concluded that it wasn't going to work.
I don't have any data available, but what about B2H6? Commonly called Diborane. This at one time, was thought to have some promise.
Robert-
I just contacted my buddy about this. He's also "retired" and losing his mind; was the 1st Organic Chemist ever hired by AMGen. as well as the smartest.
There is a very large commercial opportunity going to waste here. Robert, I agree that there has to be some mechanism of signaling the pituitary to stop stimulus of production of another yet to be discovered growth factor. A similar disease is anemia, which can be treated by erythropoietin or EPO, which itself is a protein based growth factor type hormone. If a osteoblast growth factor can be found and identified, I have a good friend and former research colleague who could also design the genetically engineered pathway to make it; after all his name is on the patent for EPO.
NASA is missing the boat on this one.
OK, I'm reopening this dormant thread, as it had a few tweaks of my topics and experise.
Bone decalcification in microgravity. I started working on this problem independently back in 2007 in the hopes of a NASA request for proposals under the SBIR program. Alas, nothing even resembling a request for this type research ever came along...much to my dismay; shortly thereafter my wife became ill and consumed most of my available free time caring for her. But...I digress.
I began collecting professional medical and biochemical peer reviewed papers in order to familiarize myself with the nature of bone biochemistry, and the medical resources available. As I did this study, I was using as the start point treatments for the common disease prevalent in post menopausal females: osteoporosis.
Here's something of a recap of what I'd surmised before I abandoned ship: this is a problem which can be addressed through an endocrineological approach. Calcium uptake in mammals and indeed, all vertebrates, is regulated by a oligopeptide hormone, Calcitonin. This hormone is made synthetically in various Pharma labs today, and has been found very effective in reversing calcium loss in bone structure.
There are two types of cells involved in modelling bone architecture: osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Osteoblasts are responsible for rebuilding bone structure by replacing old and dying cells; osteoclasts, on the other hand, are responsible for sculpting the architecture by removing dead and dying tissues. There are other hormones involved as growth factors, but these are not well understood or being investigated for the zero-G problem.
So--is anyone aware of the status of dealing with bone loss at NASA? Do they even have a clue that help is available?
As an aside--the Power Specialist and Agronomist seemed to come across as being problematic in Episode 4--"foreshadowing," again. There were already indications of the mental instability of the Agronomist in that earlier Episode, as well. The Power Specialist also came across as a "know-it-all-know-better-than-thee" individual. As foreshadowed, it didn't end well.
Robert; here's a repost from the Interplanetary Transportation thread:
If a standard engineering approach is taken, then a switch to liquefied methane as the fuel will allow the new Raptor engines to replace the Merlins currently using RP-1 with a significant improvement in thrust generated with a higher ISP. The thus improved Falcon Heavy should be able to throw more and bigger chunks of hardware skyward. Maybe this is what Musk has in mind for his tentative 2018 Red Dragon to Mars launch? What about a Falcon Super Heavy with 4 detachable booster stages instead of 2? Maybe a bigger core stage with 4 Falcon 9 size boosters all using Methylox propulsion?
Maybe a group critique of the science will be in order after the series concludes? Not so much the science as the various administrative decisions made which jeopardized the entire settlement/base? There are definitely some lessons to learn from the show, in spite of my somewhat negative comments.
The current episode is now available through YouTube. We've now completed 5 of the 6 scheduled segments. An OK effort, but could have had better impact with fewer Hollywood dramatic touches. More Documentary and less Drama to the DocuDrama.