Mars first crew greenhouse

SpaceNut · 2007-08-18 20:22:35

Why has the board been so dead? You would have thought that someone would have commented by now....

I would agree from what is in the news that your list is a start of what MS is up to or at least working on.

Even this board has talked about many of these issues.

noosfractal · 2007-08-18 22:42:38

You would have thought that someone would have commented by now....

What sort of comments were you looking for?

I would agree from what is in the news that your list is a start of what MS is up to or at least working on.

I think progress in each of these areas helps allow for a manned trip to Mars. The better you can plan, the more efficiently you can allocate mass, and the lower your contingencies have to be.

You seem unsatisfied with the program's efforts, SpaceNut. Is there specific research you'd like to see happen, and that could likely be accomplished with a relatively modest increase in the program budget?

SpaceNut · 2007-08-21 21:20:07

Sorry if it sounds like I am unsatisfied.. I think you will enjoy this update on the research Mars Society’s 100-day simulation

This what some view as to what is going on at the research site"

some have scoffed at the exercise as little more than grown-ups "pretending to be space explorers

But this is the reality

During their workday, the crew members surveyed their surroundings, riding all-terrain vehicles for simulated rounds of extravehicular activity, or EVAs. At night, they'd take shelter in a habitat designed for life on Mars, digesting the scientific observations they made (as well as the meals they cooked for each other). For more than a month, they even adjusted their sleep cycle to obey the Martian clock, which adds 39 minutes to every 24-hour Earth day.

Some great data on water useage

Some NASA studies on future Mars missions have budgeted as much as eight gallons of water per day per person, but the Arctic crew got by just fine on a third that amount of water usage.

noosfractal · 2007-08-22 06:41:59

That's pretty interesting about the potential water savings. I wonder why the NASA estimate was so high?

idiom · 2008-04-05 02:53:40

Maybe Nasa expected the 'nauts to hose down and wax the Rovers on the weekends?

8 Gallons is a lot of water to go through everyday.

louis · 2008-04-05 06:34:00

A third of 8 gallons = 2.6 gallons! Why would you need that much either? That's about 20 pints of water. You only need to drink about 8 glasses a day - probably the equivalent of 2.5 pints. You've still got 17.5 pints left! You can brush your teeth in a glass of water. There's no need to take a shower everyday. Hygiene wipes can be used most days - in fact I think that's what astronauts use.

Where can all the water be going? Obviously there is the need to flush toilet - but I don't think that happens in space either. Clothes washing would certainly use water. Some may be used to mix with dehydrated food.

I really do struggle to see where all the water is being used.

Anyway, the other relevant issue here is of course recycling water .Someone a couple of years ago brought out a very cheap water filter which even removes viruses and bacteria. I am sure we can achieve 90% plus recycling.

It makes one rather suspicious of NASA figures. I had the same feeling when I saw they allocated two tonnes to medical equipment. Are they taking a hospital with them? It would seem. I start at the other end of the scale and work up: "OK we got the aspirin. That should do it!"

idiom · 2008-04-05 07:21:53

"OK we got the aspirin. That should do it!"

Pack some X Ray film too. Anybody needs to take a look inside, they just go stand in front of the reactor for a bit while some else holds up the film behind them

SpaceNut · 2008-04-05 18:52:34

Ok I give the water in Kg values and somehow we end up talking gallons.

3. Water Supply in Space
Total Daily Consumables ~22.5 kg per person per day (including hygiene water)
Total estimated consumables per person per year ~8213 kg
· Food = 219 kg
· Oxygen = 292 kg
· Potable Water = 1132 kg
· Hygiene Water = 2008 kg
· Laundry Water = 4562 kg

These were yearly totals in bold for A liter is 1 kg and a gallon is 3.78 liters.

So daily amounts are
Potable Water = 3.1L (0.84 gallons)
Hygiene Water =5.5L (1.46 gallons)
Laundry Water =12.5L (3.31 gallons)

louis · 2008-04-06 03:37:18

Space Nut -

It was your own quote (from the Mars analogue write up I think):

"Some NASA studies on future Mars missions have budgeted as much as eight gallons of water per day per person, but the Arctic crew got by just fine on a third that amount of water usage."

I'd like to know why hygiene water is required - for what?

Wipes could be used for armpits and down below. It's nice to have an all over clean once in a while, but no one's going to die from not having one every day. Does faces need to be washed away? I thought it was vaccuumed away? We have waterless urinals at work - Ok, no gravity on a space ship, but again is water a necessity?

I'm just wondering whether we are starting with an assumption of water use rather than starting with an assumption of minimised water use, which could greatly reduce the figure required.

If you could water recycling up to 95% efficiency on a say average two day cycle, and restricted water usage to essentially drinking water and
an occasional shower in some sort of vacuum set up, then I think you'd be looking at maybe using 3 pints a day. (TO BE CONTINUED - MUST GO!)

akwx128 · 2008-05-08 20:47:51

I wonder if the water consumed by the mars society simulation may be lower due to the higher pressure on earth. More water would evaporate from the lungs of astronauts in the lower pressure ISS environment. I'm not sure how the hab and suit pressures relate to those on the ISS though (or even the actually ISS pressure for that matter)...

SpaceNut · 2018-06-17 08:01:34

A good repost that will indicat just how hard insitu factories might be to build on mars without the propers steps alone the way:

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
There are no mines to provide the raw materials for solar panels on Mars. Whether you import nearly ready-to-use solar panels or fission reactors from Earth, or spend years setting up the machinery to manufacture either on Mars using raw materials that are imported from Earth, you're still 100% dependent on energy production technology imported from Earth. No factories on Earth are set up in a day, a week, a month, or even a year. Simply designing the factory takes a year or more in most cases. On top of that, all raw materials and manpower that required to produce the finished products are readily available on Earth.
Go read about how long it takes to set up a factory to do anything here on Earth. Tesla still can't produce cars at their target rate with all the resources available to them. The manufacture of batteries and solar panels is not easy or simple and it's extraordinarily resource and manpower intensive. The colonists on Mars need to produce their own air, water, food, and textiles using equipment imported from Earth. That is the single most important step for permanent colonization. The second step required is to produce the construction materials on Mars, which is mostly concrete / steel / glass. Several decades later, the importation of electrical equipment from Earth will become cost prohibitive.
The major difference between solar panels and batteries or fission reactors are that as the power requirements to support activities like food production, mining, and manufacturing increase d, nuclear power requires a lot less resource importation to operate and provides reliable power. Here on Earth, fission reactors are operational 90% of the time or better and output levels of 90% of rated capacity or better. There is not one single solar power plant on Earth that has ever achieved rated capacity, nor will there ever be, and we're 50% closer to the giant fusion reactor that supplies the solar power. The real only argument between solar and fission power advocates seems to be which nuclear reactor to use and how close it should be sited to the point of use.
Some of us want to fly in small fission reactors and spend the rest of our time on useful activities like finding available natural resources, propellant production to get our spaceships back so we can use them to ship more stuff to Mars, air / water / food production to sustain the colonists living on Mars, and collecting or mining raw materials so we can build more habitable structures to put more people on Mars. We're not particularly enamored with the idea of tending to solar arrays and batteries and would rather have robots spend their time knocking the dust off the arrays so we continue to use opportunistic solar power when it's available. We want to drop a few nukes in hand-dug bore holes, connect the power cables, turn 'em on, and start making 24/7 electrical power so we can spend the rest of our time building giant solar farms, digging giant bore holes for people / animals / food crops to live in, and the never ending list of other tasks that need to be done.

SpaceNut · 2019-12-12 17:48:49

Make a trench and top for mars to make use of daily sunlight just as much as we will artificial.

Punching holes in opaque solar cells turns them transparent

opaque-solar-cell-compared-neutral-colored-transparent-solar-cell-hg.jpg

Existing transparent solar cells tend to have a reddish hue and lower efficiency, but by punching holes that are around 100 um in diameter (comparable in size to a human hair) on crystalline silicon wafers, it allows light through without coloring. The holes are then strategically spaced, so the human eye is unable to "see" the pattern. The best solar cells on the market have an efficiency of over 20 percent. The transparent neutral-colored solar cell that the research team developed demonstrated long-term stability with a high-power conversion efficiency of 12.2 percent. The next step for the team is to scale up the device to 25 cm2 (3.88 in2) and increase the efficiency to 15 percent. Furthermore, most windows are vertically placed, which causes light to hit the windows at a low angle. When hit by low angle light, the electrical current in conventional cells drops nearly 30 percent, while transparent solar cells reduce less than 4 percent--allowing it to utilize solar energy more efficiently.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.11.008
Research Report: "Neutral-Colored Transparent Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaics"

This makes it ideal for solar concentrated light to pass as well as to get the energy from the reflected light. This is a benefit to a natural lighted greenhouse as the panels now become part of the construction and not extra mass to supply energy.

SpaceNut · 2020-01-08 21:07:41

Lots of good information in this Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis

The variety of crops and of livestock as well as fish biomes but not how much land or energy for each are required. Lest we forget we have hugh biomes of forest and oceans with which we would not live with as well.

So data from FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY

At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American plus Currently the 400 gallons of oil equivalents expended to feed each American ...

Its actually more when we include the other resources which make these other food possible along with the breathable air and materials we take for granted.

Lets call it 2 acres and that converts to 8093.71 m^2 for just 1 person....or 90 meters on a side...
https://www.metric-conversions.org/area … meters.htm

So now what is the energy that we need for solar light...
Goggling mars greenhouse floor thermal insulation for heat lose calculations reference materials
Will read more tomorrow for these links

https://www.greenhousemag.com/article/t … heat-loss/

Conductive heat loss = SA x U x TD
Infiltration heat loss = 0.02 x V x C x TD

http://www.marshome.org/files2/Hublitz2.pdf
ENGINEERING CONCEPTS FOR INFLATABLE MARS SURFACE GREENHOUSES

https://farm-energy.extension.org/wp-co … tation.pdf
Greenhouse Energy Efficiency (Heating)

SpaceNut · 2021-04-22 17:03:02

bump wheat

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-07-10 12:57:26

Farming on Mars and the moon – NASA’s ambitious mission
https://news.yahoo.com/farming-mars-moo … 58939.html

The German space agency and NASA are investing in farming on Mars and the moon. During brief explorations in space, astronauts have always relied upon pre-packaged food. However, if we wish to set up long-term settlements on Mars or the moon, farming in space is our best option.

“Plants are things that we take with us as explorers. They’re part of our core heritage whether we think of it or not,” said Anna-Lisa Paul, the co-director of Space Plants Lab at the University of Florida. Currently, NASA and the German space agency are pushing soil-free farming to its limits in the greenhouses of Antarctica. After all, a robust collection of plants can be the ultimate life-support system. It will provide food and oxygen for consumption.

Re-using waste as Energy?

South Korean toilet turns excrement into power and digital currency
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci … 021-07-09/

New Mars Forums

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#26 2007-08-18 20:22:35

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#27 2007-08-18 22:42:38

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#28 2007-08-21 21:20:07

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#29 2007-08-22 06:41:59

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#30 2008-04-05 02:53:40

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#31 2008-04-05 06:34:00

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#32 2008-04-05 07:21:53

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#33 2008-04-05 18:52:34

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#34 2008-04-06 03:37:18

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#35 2008-05-08 20:47:51

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#36 2018-06-17 08:01:34

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#37 2019-12-12 17:48:49

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#38 2020-01-08 21:07:41

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#39 2021-04-22 17:03:02

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

#40 2021-07-10 12:57:26

Re: Mars first crew greenhouse

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