Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

SpaceNut · 2004-12-21 08:40:41

The Progress M50 spaceship, whose service life has expired, will be sunk in a safe area of the Pacific Ocean on December 23. The spacecraft will contain old equipment, waste from the crew and an Orlan spacesuit.

You mean like in stop dumping it into our oceans and atmospheric burn ups.
Seems like we could do better than that.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-21 12:03:54

Robert, has the Mars Homestead project looked at metal carbonyls? It should be possible to find nickel-iron meteorites on Mars. Unweathered regolith should be a few percent nickel-iron. They should separate from silicates magnetically. Zubrin's *Case for Mars* talks about exposing nickel-iron to heated carbon monoxide gas to make liquid metal carbonyls, which can be poured into molds, then heated up to crystalize out a solid metal. I suppose some parts could be cold-rolled as well, which makes them stronger.

Well, they were depending on me for that stuff during phase 1, so the question is whether I've looked at it. (They're currently recruiting for phase 2.)

There are craters all over Mars, but how thinly are meteorite fragments distributed and how do we know which craters were an iron asteroid vs. rocky or chondrite? I'ld rather use the minerals reported by probes already sent. I got the final paper of results from the APXS instrument on Sojourner directly from the principle investigators. I also used published papers from MGS and Odyssey, and now I'm looking at papers from Spirit and Opportunity. I could still use a geologist to help me synthesise the results; before the MERs were launched I tried a CIPW analysis but got stalled balancing hydrated vs. igneous minerals. The Proton mode of the Alpha-Proton-Xray-Spectrometer didn't work so they had to make do with results from the Alpha and X-ray modes. That measured abundance of most elements, but not hydrogen. Without hydrogen data, figuring out hydration of a particular sample is guess work. They sent the same instrument on the MERs but since the proton still mode didn't work they renamed it Alpha-Particle-Xray-Spectometer. I would really, really, really like them to fix the proton mode before they fly it again on Mars Science Laboratory in 2009.

I would like to use a multi-step separation of surface soil. Water in a pressure vessel at about 1 atmosphere and above freezing will neutralize superoxides, releasing oxygen. It should also dissolve some minerals, such as salt and gypsum. I'm not sure about clays; there are illite, kaolinite, and iron-smectite (probably nontronite). It would be nice to wash away clay as well as calcite and dolomite. Clay, gypsum, calcite and dolomite can be baked to form cement. Then hydrochloric acid will dissolve anorthite, bytownite, serpentine and actinolite. The first two are a source of aluminum, the latter two magnesium. The left-overs should be hematite, augite, chromite, bronzite, an olivine (probably forsterite) and obsidian. Smelting in high temperature and carbon monoxide will reduce them to liquid metals, leaving carbon dioxide and slag. Theoretically complete reduction would leave silica and calcium from augite would form calcite, but nothing is ever perfect. Left-over low-aluminum feldspar will complicate the reaction, leaving slag.

The liquid metal poured from the smelter would be a mixture of iron, magnesium and chromium. It might have a little titanium depending whether titano-augite will reduce. We could use the carbonyl process to extract iron from the other metals, but it would probably be better just to control carbon content and call it steel.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-21 12:37:11

So after that, what types of items are planned to be made from these processed materials while on Mars that would work to extend the stay or make them less dependent of shipments from Earth in future years?

RobS · 2004-12-21 13:27:02

Robert, I'll be glad to help where geology is concerned, to the extent that I can. I have a Master's in planetary geology, though it is now 28 years old. It may be a way I can help out the Mars homestead project. We can write more privately.

Dennis Wingo talks about nickel-iron meteorites in his new book *Moonrush,* which I highly recommend that people read. He says that 3% of all impactors making craters on the moon were nickel-iron (this would be based on the known populations of asteroids and earth-crossers). He also notes that the moon has 86,400 craters larger than 1 km in diameter in the maria and 845,000 more in the highlands. Mars is comparable in crater density. If I recall, Ray Arvidson and Ken Jones logged 30,000 Mars craters into a mid 1970s computer database at Brown University based on Mariner 9 photography, and almost all of those were over 10 km in diameter.

The bigger question is how accessible the nickel-iron is on the Martian surface and how easily it can be detected from orbit via magnetic anomalies and spectral signatures. I don't know the answers to those questions. Impact would have buried a lot of the nickel iron and smashed/ejected the rest. Catastrophic floods would have dug up and transported a lot of nickel-iron; more importantly, water sorts sediment by size and density, so one may be able to find "gravel bars" or even "boulder bars" with high percentages of nickel-iron. Finally, regolith will have a certain fraction of nickel-iron fragments in it, which could be separated with a magnet. I think the lunar regolith is about 1% nickel-iron. Even beach sand has magnetite in it, by the way; take a magnet to the beach next summer.

If remote sensing can detect nickel-iron bodies and if water is reasonably abundant as subsurface ice, I'd make nickel-iron a prerequisite for selecting a base location. There should be some available within 40 kilometers of just about any site one selects, if it can be found ahead of time. I come up with the 40 kilometer guestimate as follows: based on the moon, Mars should have a million craters over 1 km in diameter. If 3% are nickel-iron, that's 30,000 nickel-iron impactors. If they are evenly distributed over the surface, there should be 1 nickel-iron impactor every 125,000,000/30,000 = 4,000 square kilometers. That's a circle with a radius less than 40 kilometers. If a 1,000 meter crater requires a 50 meter in diameter impactor to form, such an impactor masses 25x25x25x4/3 pi x 7 (density of iron) = 46,500 tonnes; if 1% can be recovered, that's about 500 tonnes of nickel-iron.

I don't know much about the carbonyl process for extracting metals from meteorite, but *The Case for Mars* describes it and gives references. It utilizes carbon monoxide (a byproduct of ISRU and obtainable from the atmosphere) and relatively low temperatures (200-300 Centigrade, as opposed to thousands of degrees). Apparently the process is actively used to extract nickel from ore, so it must be fairly well studied.

As for separating clay from regolith, clay particles are almost always of extremely small size, so they should remain in suspension in water when other silicates and metals will settle out. They can often be floculated by changing the Ph of the solution, also. The sea does this to Mississippi river sediment; when the river water travels out into the Gulf of Mexico far enough and is diluted enough, the ph changes enough and the clay all floculates and sinks. As a result, there is a sharp line in the sea separating dirty river water from sea water.

-- RobS

C M Edwards · 2004-12-21 14:20:41

Well, once all of those raw materials are available, how do you assemble them? Have the folks at Mars Homestead decided the best mix of automation and manual labor?

SpaceNut · 2004-12-21 14:34:31

Well you have asked the who?, and I have asked the what?, we all know the where? but it is the when? that is a long ways off.
My specialty is electronics in that I build from pieces, parts and literally from nothing but I do it from whatever I have on hand mostly or from off the shelf stuff. I will recycle what is broken and those items no longer in use.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-21 14:53:06

So after that, what types of items are planned to be made from these processed materials while on Mars that would work to extend the stay or make them less dependent of shipments from Earth in future years?

Materials produced:
• oxygen
• diluent gas (mix with oxygen for air to breathe)
• water
• soil for the greenhouse
• ammonia (liquid fertilizer and refrigerant)
• argon gas (fill sealed windows for insulation)
• glass & fibreglass
• aluminum
• steel
• bricks, mortar, concrete
• gypsum (plaster and wall board/drywall/gyprock/sheetrock)
• cut rock (counter tops)

Hydrocarbons made from water and carbon dioxide:
• polycarbonate (spacesuit helmet visor, habitat windows)
• ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
• synthetic turpentine (solvent)
• acetone (solvent)
• high density polyethylene (HDPE)
• polypropylene
• phenolic (pink binder for fibreglass batt insulation)
• polystyrene (Styrofoam)
• PVC (water pipes and vinyl flooring)
• ABS (sewage pipes)
• BR (polybutadiene rubber)
• PET (pop bottles, water bottles)
• Nylon (self lubricating bushings, various mechanical applications, durable fabric for exterior of spacesuits)

Complete items:
• air, water, food
• pressure hull, windows, interior walls, floor, etc. for habitat
• cupboards, sink, plumbing
• fuel for rover
• dishes, pots/pans, cutlery

I guess we should look at more exotic polymers: Spandex for the pressure layer of the spacesuit, and Thinsulate for thermal insulation. I left machine parts from these materials to whoever takes over manufacturing. Obvious candidates are rover and life support replacement parts.

::Edit:: The greenhouse guys keep talking about bamboo and other non-edible plant products. We'll need something for the paper of drywall, as well as hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-21 22:47:06

Thank you for sharing RobertDyck, that is quite a list of possibles and a tremendous amount of research that you have done.
The main device that was initially planned was it on much mass or of uniquely large power requirements? I see that water is a must to aid in some of the seperation of the regolith once crushed to a powder or at least sand grain size.

Austin Stanley · 2004-12-22 04:40:21

Actualy the mars pathfinder results demonstrate an excelent point, you can't just pick out some random point of Martian terrian and expect to be able to find valuable minneral resources in it. From the soil samples the rovers analized about the only element you would be able to extract profitably is Silicone, but even then if Silicon was realy what you wanted you could probably find higher grade ores elsewere as well. Finding high concentrations of important mineral resources such as bauxite, hematite, graphite, limestone, cryolite, flourspar, and many, many others. Indeed it seems for every mineral you wish to refine, two or three others are necessary for the process. Finding and extracting these minerals will probably prove to be a HUGE challange.

MarsDog · 2004-12-22 08:20:46

Finding and extracting these minerals will probably prove to be a HUGE challange

It is all in the seperation.
Take a bucket of Martian sand. Grind it.

(1) use electromagnet to collect magnetic materials
(2) electrostatically separate conductors from insulators
(3) seperate by density and size
(4) dissolve, smelt etc

Copper and other some other metals are notably absent in the Martian "soil".

Possibly get some production from a garage sized workshop.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-22 11:40:41

I should point out you aren't going to find any bauxite on Mars. Bauxite is formed by tropical rainforests; they depleat the soil of nutrients they need and the left-over material is bauxite. Feldspar will weather by water (hydrological weathering) into clay, initially smectite. Further weathering will convert smectite into illite. Rainforests convert smectite and illite into bauxite. In the absense of a rainforest, water will weather illite into kaolinite. MGS found all three forms of clay on Mars, but no bauxite. There might have been microorganisms like archaea on Mars, but there never was a rainforest so no bauxite.

That's why my paper started with bytownite as ore. There's lots of it on Mars. I use acid instead of alkali to dissolve the mineral. Then just as with bauxite processing, neturalize the pH to precipitate aluminum hydroxide, then calcinate into alumina. It'll still require smelting to form aluminum metal, but I detailed how to recycle carbon annodes so you don't need any coal or tar. Cryolite or a synthetic form made from fluorine is needed. Fluorspar would be really, really great.

We could also use copper (electrical wires) and silver (CO2 sorbent). Silver oxide is completely regenerable, it'll last forever, but you should have a source to make more. I'm sure geologists will have great fun prospecting for needed materials. Initially plan for easilly accessable and confirmed resources.

John Creighton · 2004-12-22 12:00:26

Robert, In these processes do you have to do any crushing before you apply chemicals? If not how does the chemistry on the inside of the rock change? What mechanical ways to you suggest for crushing, grinding, chiseling, shaking, pressing?

Spacenut, I like the idea of starting with mechanical separation. I think a lot of minerals could be separated based on the hardness, size and magnetism and density.

RobS · 2004-12-22 12:05:40

Mars doesn't have limestone because limestone is formed by multicellular animals, which require an oxygen atmosphere and a sea with neutral ph. Early Mars had a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, which dissolved in water would have made all water bodies acidic. Calcium carbonate (the mineral calcite), the chief ingredient in limestone, dissolves in acid. that's why geologists often carry little bottles of acid with them; a drop on calcite makes it bubble, proving that the mineral is calcite. Even calcite will probably be rare on Mars, which is too bad, since it's really useful.

Graphite is also unlikely on Mars. On Earth it forms from coal that undergoes burial and metamorphism. Mars doesn't have the life to make the coal or the plate tectonics to bury the sedimentary rock.

Malachite (copper carbonate) and even natve copper is likely to be reasonably common on Mars, though whether there are high grade deposits remains to be seen. Malachite often forms where hot water leaks from cooling basalt flows. The copper comes out of the basalt in the water and precipitates in the surrounding rocks. I am not sure about native copper, but malachite in an acidic environment and in the presence of native iron will precipitate native copper. I discovered this accidentally about thirty years ago when I had a summer job as a tourist guide at an old copper mine. One day I was bored, so I took a scoopful of loose malachite (when they had excavated a new entrance to the mine they had hit a pocket of the stuff and had kept it in a garbage barrel!) and played around with it. I put it in a plastic bucket and added a little water and bathroom bowl cleaner--an acid readily available, since I had to clean the toilets every day!--to see whether the malachite dissolved. I didn't seem to. Then I took a couple of coke cans and poured some of the liquid into them. When I poured the liquid out, out came a bit of copper-colored sludge! The cans were the old bimetallic type with aluminum sides and steel tops and bottoms. I could see that the can topcs had been etched. Then I did a little reading and found that acidic copper mine runoff was usually pumped into a holding pond into which scrap iron was put; the iron would be eaten away and copper would precipitate out (copper is worth a lot more than scrap iron).

Silver is associated with some copper deposits, so it may be available as well. Silver is directly below copper on the periodic chart and thus has similar properties.

-- RobS

MarsDog · 2004-12-22 15:09:35

The recycling industry may have some answers, such as the http://www.mastermagnets.co.uk/index.htm] Eddy Current Separator

http://www.google.com/search?q=Electros … f-8]Google

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-b … y=AST]Dust Devil Electrostatics

C M Edwards · 2004-12-22 16:15:51

http://www.emachineshop.com/]emachineshop.com

These people claim they'll fill custom machine parts orders placed online, and claim a very wide range of manufacturing techniques. I'd be curious to know what tools were on their factory floor.

They have an impressive list of their available automated equipment, but they don't do assembly.

MarsDog · 2004-12-27 22:39:12

In addition to camping out in the http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-bas … tml]desert,
A simulation of self sufficient basic manufacturing setup is needed.

It was fun watching the documentary, but let us see what they can make.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-27 23:54:46

Robert, In these processes do you have to do any crushing before you apply chemicals? If not how does the chemistry on the inside of the rock change? What mechanical ways to you suggest for crushing, grinding, chiseling, shaking, pressing?

I'm not sure how magnetic dust particles would be. Dissolving bytownite in a reasonable time does require crushing down to sand; dust or fines would dissolve even faster. That's one reason for starting with surface "soil", no crushing or grinding needed. However, whenever I look at details I keep stumbling on the same point; what exactly is there. The data from MER rovers showed spherules of hematite which could be easily separated by sifting through a screen. Sifting would require shaking. Soil would be depleted of iron-bearing mineral making dissolving aluminum in hydrochloric acid easier. That assumes we land at a location that has spherules. Let me go through the 3 December 2004 issue of Science with its focus on Opportunity at Meridiani Planum. I may have some questions for RobS.

RobS · 2004-12-30 21:46:14

Here's a fascinating link to a report about a recent ISRU conference:

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Dec04/spaceR … urces.html

It's mostly about the moon, but it has a little about Mars.

-- RobS

MarsDog · 2005-01-02 14:18:23

That is a very good link. Might inspire a lot of high school science projects.

Mining techniques are based on empirical results. If you designed a Mars mining experiment in your garage, how would you extrapolate the results to the dry, cold, CO2 environment of Mars ?

SpaceNut · 2005-01-03 09:00:12

So in multiple threads we think the required number of rockets are in the order of 2 or 3 but a max of 6 depending on the crew count and length of stay, whether fuel to come home is insitu or sent, whether the ITV is cyclical or reusuable and for the MAV, hab.

So lets look at the time required to build a rocket, if the rocket construction was simular to a soyuz or progress then 18 months would be typical. I have no knowledge of how long for atlas or delta for I have not seen this any where.

Launching in a month wide window would be difficult from a single pad and launching from other nations would make rendiverse in orbit a more costly event for some nations.

RobertDyck · 2005-01-03 12:09:12

The Buran space shuttle and its associated launch facilities and Energia rockets were handed over from Russia to Kazakhstan on January 1, 2000. Until then the Russian military maintained the Buran so it could fly on 3 days notice for military reasons. The Russians were afraid the American military would try to snatch one of their satellites or a Mir module with the cargo bay of the American shuttle. If Russia can store a rocket in their vehicle assembly building for more than a decade with the ability to launch on 3 days notice, can't America do just as well? One reason for rapid response was transporting the rocket horizontally on rails and erecting it at the pad, instead of vertically on tracks. Rails don't require a fresh layer of river pebbles for every launch, and horizontal transportation permits faster movement without risk of falling over. http://www.ilslaunch.com/launchsites/complex36/]Launch Complex 41 for Atlas V still uses vertical integration with an MLP, but transport to the pad takes 14 hours instead of several weeks required for LC 36 used by Atlas II & III. Delta IV is launched from either Space Launch Complex 6 (http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/spa … .htm]SLC-6) on the west coast, or http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/spa … htm]SLC-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Both use horizontal integration and a truck with tires to transport it to the pad. It's erected with giant pistons. These changes permit Atlas V and Delta IV to launch in a matter of days, just like Russian rockets.

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-03 12:22:30

I am sure the USAF demanded that the EELVs be able to fly on little notice if a vehicle were prepped and stored.

RobS · 2005-01-05 21:36:13

Back to the question of minerals on Mars. Here's a very nice set of web pages about the formation of gold, nickel, copper, lead, zinc, and diamonds:

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/min … /gold.html

That's the link to the gold page; at the bottom of it are links to the others. The short summary: these minerals (except diamonds,and including nickel) form from hot water escaping from a magma body (which CAN be basalt),flowing through the surrounding country rock, and precipitating the ores when the temperature and other conditions reach the right level.

The article says nothing about meteoritic sources of nickel, attributing the deposits to hydrothermal leaching of the elements from magma and deposition in the country rock.

The moon's too dry for hydrothermal process to work, except very rarely. Ore bodies on Mars will form at a depth of at least several hundred meters, so erosion (floods) or impact exposure will be necessary to expose them for exploitation.

-- RobS

Grypd · 2005-01-06 12:40:47

Back to the question of minerals on Mars. Here's a very nice set of web pages about the formation of gold, nickel, copper, lead, zinc, and diamonds:
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/min … /gold.html
That's the link to the gold page; at the bottom of it are links to the others. The short summary: these minerals (except diamonds,and including nickel) form from hot water escaping from a magma body (which CAN be basalt),flowing through the surrounding country rock, and precipitating the ores when the temperature and other conditions reach the right level.
The article says nothing about meteoritic sources of nickel, attributing the deposits to hydrothermal leaching of the elements from magma and deposition in the country rock.
The moon's too dry for hydrothermal process to work, except very rarely. Ore bodies on Mars will form at a depth of at least several hundred meters, so erosion (floods) or impact exposure will be necessary to expose them for exploitation.
-- RobS

What the article does not mention is that it appears that bacteria absorb the minerals from the water and then die causing the deposit. This apart from meteor impacts is one of the greatest forms of mineral deposition and vein forming.

If we find life on Mars then there may well be such deposits. But it will only be of use on Mars as it would cost too much to return to Earth to make it worthwhile.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-24 11:27:22

Strategies for Martian exploration an article by jeff joust.

There have been plenty of proposals for mounting manned expeditions to the Red Planet, with varying flight times, crew sizes, and, of course, costs.
That a mixed human-robotic approach is better than a robotic-only sample return mission for both financial and intangible reasons. “NASA has been trying to do a sample-return mission to Mars for a long time and has not been very successful.
It costs about $2 billion to return two kilograms of rocks from Mars; a billion dollars a kilogram,” he said “That’s a pretty expensive kilogram of rocks. If I’m going to pay that price I’d rather send humans there and let them look at rocks and perform exploration.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#51 2004-12-21 08:40:41

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#52 2004-12-21 12:03:54

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#53 2004-12-21 12:37:11

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#54 2004-12-21 13:27:02

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#55 2004-12-21 14:20:41

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#56 2004-12-21 14:34:31

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#57 2004-12-21 14:53:06

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#58 2004-12-21 22:47:06

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#59 2004-12-22 04:40:21

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#60 2004-12-22 08:20:46

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#61 2004-12-22 11:40:41

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#62 2004-12-22 12:00:26

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#63 2004-12-22 12:05:40

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#64 2004-12-22 15:09:35

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#65 2004-12-22 16:15:51

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#66 2004-12-27 22:39:12

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#67 2004-12-27 23:54:46

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#68 2004-12-30 21:46:14

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#69 2005-01-02 14:18:23

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#70 2005-01-03 09:00:12

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#71 2005-01-03 12:09:12

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#72 2005-01-03 12:22:30

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#73 2005-01-05 21:36:13

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#74 2005-01-06 12:40:47

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

#75 2005-01-24 11:27:22

Re: Going to Mars To stay - How Much Mass To LEO

Board footer