Martian industry

zhar2 · 2008-03-29 10:11:14

One of the mayor challenges that will face humans in mars is the need to develop an industrial base so that they wont have to relly on imports from earth.

Tasks like mining, refining, food production and processing, metallurgy, chemical industry and most heavy industry will be the most straight foward, but more hightech industry like the vital electronics needed and medical supplies.

So i was thinking that the martian industry base will not be design to relly in huge machineries and production lines, but instead would focus in refinging substrates to be used in large idustrial grade fabbers (able to replicate themselfs)
http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page, designed to work with polymers, metals and ceramics.

They will be able to create most completed or almost completed equipment although some parts may require assembling, but this would greatly decrease the space needed, resources and specialist equipment for manufacture.

Electronics are more challenging, although right nowthere are fabber advances that will allow to print circuit boards, and other components like transistors, condensers and so on will be printed in speciallised fabbers although the actual shape may be modified to be more fabber friendly.
Things like proccessors, chip sets and hard drives are a bit more difficult but even right now there are advances towards that goal:

https://buffy.eecs.berkeley.edu/PHP/res … sid=100770

But mars may need to be prepared to be a few years behind in technology or who knows maybe neccesity will help colonist make leaps in martian made electronics.

Any thoughts?

louis · 2008-03-29 11:57:52

I think your approach is essentially correct. We won't be trying to establishing a huge heavy industry base on Mars at the outset (or maybe never - it might be a different type of economy). The industrial infrastructure will involve firstly the importation of small scale machines (SSMs) such as CNC machines (computerised number control machines) e.g. lathes which can be programmed to cut metal etc in accordance with instructions and not involving any particular skill on the part of the operator (similar to key cutting machines you may have seen when you go to get your keys cut). Later, we should be able to replicate many of these machines on Mars (perhaps beginning with spare part production).

I am sure these fabbers could have a role to play as well - maybe more with polymers? I have read that some industrial processes involving metal shaping do actually require big rollers in order to impart strength at a molecular level (and we might have to replicate the effect of big rollers on earth with pressure systems on our small scale machines).

Yes, Fabbers could definitely be part of the solution.

zhar2 · 2008-03-29 12:09:33

Well the advantage to near future fabbers (a decade) is that if they cant do something they can build the machine to do it.

Martian Republic · 2008-03-29 14:32:18

The fabbers looks like an advancement in the electronic industry for circuit boards manufacturing and may even be possible for making resistor, capacitor and such, but it not an across the board advancement where you can build everything you want to build kind of thing. I use to play around with laser jet printers for making circuit boards. I have these programs from two different CAD Programs that I use to play with. One from WorkBench the other from TraxMaker to use. I could do some pretty interesting things with them and it would do some of the auto routing that I needed have done too and do it within that program of those system that I was using. It was good for making a proto-types circuit boards so you could test proof a concept of design of those circuit board that need to be built. You could then tool the plastic sheet for the production line that needed to be made for those production copies that you would sell. I even have a printer so I could laser print on a copper sheet for making a prot-type circuit board for test copy to play with. But you still needed to turn it over to a regular manufacturer to make those final copies for sell or for your finished copies of what you were making.

I am not against new technologies and even favor them and even promote the development of them. I even favor picking aggressive project that force you to develop more advanced technologies to be able to accomplish our space goal or a Mars colonization goals even.

There a certain amount of infrastructure that you just have to have or your just playing games with yourself and you aren't really serious about it. It going to take twenty to thirty years to build this infrastructure or longer and that about how long it takes to do it down here. We should not think that it going to be easer to do it on Mars than doing it on the Earth or that it will take less time to do it on Mars or to build it on Mars than building it on the Earth. Currently there is no serious effort to develop that new technology or build those infrastructural projects that need to be built and there will be no technological advancement that will circumvent what we aren't doing or get us around the problem of not having the new technology or infrastructure in place to do it. I wish it were as simple as you seam to think it is, but it doesn't work that way.

Larry,

zhar2 · 2008-03-29 15:00:06

Well fabbers can potentially now with modifications to the design lay down molten metal in a quite precise fashion, so in a ner future you could for example "print in 3d" out the frame, engine, and all other parts of a mars buggy with plastc bits and ceramics although ofcourse thare are some research to be done like appropiate scafolding substaces.

But matian industrual infrastructure could be self sustaning with the appropiate advances in a decade or so, but ofcourse its not going to be the future china.

I think it wil be a good idea if we brainstormed and worked the needed industry to make the planet selfsufficient and how to achive it the quickest.

I got some diagrams ive made on how a material flow would work on mars working from its atmosphere and regoith, including industrial processes and products, its ofcourse a diagram for frontier industry, just to makr the planet self sufficient nothing fancy (so no exporting as such) but it may be god enouh to create a basic internal economy.

idiom · 2008-03-29 18:49:31

There are some things that will will require scale industries. Turning out Ingots and glass to feed all your fabbers will be pretty traditional, but smaller.

Beyond robots and basic systems, Mars will quickly need large numbers of domes and tunnels to increase living space and pressurised agricultural space to meet demand. A system that can turn out thousands of struts for tunnels won't sit on you bench top.

louis · 2008-03-29 19:52:15

Zhar -

Probably not that easy to produce an industrial development plan here but there certainly does need to be one.

The overarching pattern is:

1. Raw material mining and crop growing.

2. Processing (purifying ores and gases, extracting materials from crops).

3. Shaping metals, polymers and ceramics into standard units.

4. Working of standard units to produce parts.

5. Assembling parts for final products.

Diggers, transporters and hydroponic farming cover 1. Various computerised small scale machines will cover 2,3 and 4. 5 will be covered by human labour in combination with computerised machines.

Some of the industries I think we would want to establish with the aim of creating a self-sufficient community on Mars would be:

- construction materials (cement, concrete, steel girders, glass, sand bags).

- rocket fuel

- hygiene materials (soap, toothpaste etc)

- spare parts for computerised industrial machines

- solar power panels

- gas cylinders

- electric motors

- simple electric vehicles (think go karts)

- chemical batteries

- turbines

- electric cable and electric equipment

- plastic piping

- furniture and habitat equipment

- hydroponic farming equipment including farm tools

- simple clothing

- simple computers

Some things are always going to be (or for a very long time will be) difficult to produce: medicine, advanced computer systems and software, rockets.

zhar2 · 2008-03-30 05:40:50

Obviously those fabbers wont sit on a table top, they will likely thake up a whole room, and there would be many of them, some more specialized on some thats than others, and some of the structure would need to be made by segments or designed in a way to be made by them more easilly and that includes domes and stuff .

Here is a simple diagram on hoe i think resources would flow through martian industry and some products, an industry like this might be opperated by a few hundred to a few thousand colonists with variable output compared to earth ofcourse, for example plastics would be used sparely and glass, paper, ceramic & metal would make the bulk of packaging and product covers and stuff, it would resemble the 1800's with todays tech (the martian wild west in industrial terms).

A note on the "simple" clothes bit, i personally im a bit vain So i personally would need something nicer (more diesn stuff ):D

louis · 2008-03-30 06:37:09

Zhar -

That's a great diagram - very interesting and helpful.

As with all discussions of Mars colonial development, I think one has to define where you are in the process.

I think we need to address the initial colony infrastructure - probably development up to 100 residents.

To my way of thinking your diagram suggests a pretty advanced system and for initial colony development I would certainly want to exclude some end products as requiring too much labour, specialisation and time and not directly securing the continuity of human settlement.

For instance I think we can forgo herbicides and insecticides. Organic agriculture can be pretty efficient on earth as it is. We will not face pests and weeds on Mars. All seed stock, nutrient solution etc will be carefully screened to ensure that.

I think pharmaceuticals are way beyond the capacity of the initial colony. They require space, special techniques and if something goes wrong it could be fatal. Of course there will be scope for producing a few herbal remedies but the initial colony crew will be chosen for their fitness. They are unlikely to require much medicinal treatment beyond space medicine, always excepting injury.

Much better and easier to import the pharmaceuticals which are generally lightweight in any case.

I note also you have "consumer" goods as an end result. I would query this. What exactly does the initial colony need? People will have full and active days. They will have to exercise for an hour or two a day. They will have their laptops for games, writing and entertainment. They will have each other for company. What exactly woudl these consumer goods be? I can see an argument for small scale machines to process cotton and linen, to make simple indoor clothes, and also hygiene products like soap and tootpaste but nothing else is required.

If you are thinking of objects to fit out extended habitats e.g. furniture, water piping, beds, kitchen units, shower units etc I would agree that is an early goal, but not everything could be done at once. I think we would certianly want to experiment with bamboo - a lot can be done with bamboo in terms of furniture, containers and vessels of all sorts.

louis · 2008-03-30 06:45:44

Here's a long address for a pic of a bamboo bowl and very nice too it is.

http://www.housetohome.co.uk/products/t … l?subslug=

zhar2 · 2008-03-30 07:27:23

Zhar -
That's a great diagram - very interesting and helpful.

Thanks

For instance I think we can forgo herbicides and insecticides. Organic agriculture can be pretty efficient on earth as it is. We will not face pests and weeds on Mars. All seed stock, nutrient solution etc will be carefully screened to ensure that.

I concur in this one.

I think pharmaceuticals are way beyond the capacity of the initial colony. They require space, special techniques and if something goes wrong it could be fatal. Of course there will be scope for producing a few herbal remedies but the initial colony crew will be chosen for their fitness. They are unlikely to require much medicinal treatment beyond space medicine, always excepting injury.

Well i mean basic pharmaceuticals, its nothing like anti-retrovirals or anything.

Here is a list of things that with a small lab but properly eqquiped with the right support could be produced:

acetaminophen
2-[4-(2-methylpropyl)phenyl]propanoic acid
acetylsalicylic acid
Diphenhydramine
Chlorphenamine
Bismuth subsalicylate
Pseudoephedrine
Chlorphenamine
Clotrimazole
Penicillin V
Amoxicillin
Ampicillin
Erythromycin
Tetracycline
Oxytetracycline
Metronidazole
Chloramphenicol
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole
ciprofloxacin
Adrenalin (hormone, may need to be extracted from cell culture as with antibiotics)
Insulin (hormone, may need to be extracted from cell culture as with antibiotics)

Any way the list is much longer, but i will formulate what would be needed for a sick bay, and most of them are based on benzene and require few chemical steps (eg:aspirin).

Much better and easier to import the pharmaceuticals which are generally lightweight in any case.

I disagree, if you have a colony of lets say 5000 to 10000 people and one of them gets cancer or something just as critical and the trip will take something like 40 days to 4 months to earth it would be better if you can produce and administer treatments there.

I note also you have "consumer" goods as an end result. I would query this. What exactly does the initial colony need? People will have full and active days. They will have to exercise for an hour or two a day. They will have their laptops for games, writing and entertainment. They will have each other for company. What exactly woudl these consumer goods be? I can see an argument for small scale machines to process cotton and linen, to make simple indoor clothes, and also hygiene products like soap and tootpaste but nothing else is required.

Anything like furniture, containers, packaging, buttons and so on (simple but practical structures, which a fabber equiped with a metal (aluminium, copper ans steel), glass, ceramic and plastic could produce (some dye feed could be required), nothing electronic or complex mechanics, think of it as the ikea fabber.

I think we would certianly want to experiment with bamboo - a lot can be done with bamboo in terms of furniture, containers and vessels of all sorts.

Yes it could, IMO a bamboo and tree farm will be essential in settlement colonies (not research).

Oh and we cant forget, when the colony is large enough they might need to set up a brewry (oh yeah martian alcohol)

louis · 2008-03-30 08:31:24

Zhar -

"I disagree, if you have a colony of lets say 5000 to 10000 people and one of them gets cancer or something just as critical and the trip will take something like 40 days to 4 months to earth it would be better if you can produce and administer treatments there. "

I see from that quote that we are indeed talking about different stages of colony development. I'm thinking more of the initial colony - the first 20 years maybe - when we are growing it to a 100 people. You seem like you are in the stage beyond that - when we have major settlement.

My approach in terms of the initial colony would be to say if someone gets cancer that is very unfortunate, just as it will be very unfortunate if there is an air lock accident perhaps which results in someone having a brain seizure. We can't plan for every eventuality in terms of health emergency. We will have plenty of morphine, plenty of basic medicines and basic surgical tools to undertake basic surgery. But that's it. It is a risky venture. You might indeed die of cancer on Mars if you get cancer.

I have some other concerns with your approach. Your first instinct when you think of a button seems to be "how can we make that on Mars". My first instinct is "how can we avoid making that on Mars". And the answer is quite simple - we have simple clothes without buttons - cotton T shirts and loose slacks with draw string ties.

This principle can be applied to a lot of things e.g. paper and pens. Do we need them on Mars? Answer: no.

So I think we have a use hierarchy:

1. There are things we eliminate: e.g. paper and buttons.

2. Things we simplify: e.g. clothing and footwear (simple sandals will do for the most part, rather than leather shoes). Furniture - stools do as well as chairs for people with good posture. Food - we will grow a restricted range of food crops that meet dietary needs. There will be minimal packaging.

3. Things we substitute for: e.g. we may use bamboo table ware if it is less complicated to produce that compared with ceramic crockery and metal cutlery.

4. Things we replicate: e.g. rocket fuel, solar panels, electric cabling, electric motors. These have got to be essentially the same as on earth.

5. Things we import: eg complex software, electronics, communications equipment, pharmaceuticals.

So for me those are the watchwords: eliminate, simplify, substitute, replicate and import. In the initial stages the less able we are to replicate and the more we need to eliminate, simplify, substitute and import. Elimination is of course key to survival - we aren't going to attempt to produce the vast range of clothing, foodstuffs, scents and cosmetics, home ware, gardening equipment, gifts, personal electronic gadgets, personal transport vehicles, aeroplanes, carpets, wallpaper, interior design artefacts that we expect on earth in advanced societies. The emphasis will be on energy production, air, water, heat and lighting, shelter, a limited range of food and clothing: what you might call "life support plus".
We will be looking for 90% recycling rates.

zhar2 · 2008-03-30 08:49:39

Yes you are thinking in outpost terms, while im thinking in settlement strategy terms.

What im trying to design is a large scale colonization proyect for population ranging in their 5000 to 10000 in the next decades (after the 50's), but i expect that with sufficient social engeneering (i got quite a few approches worked out, some not so humane, what else would you expect of a psychology and science student) many luxuries can be eliminated and create a frontier society.

But i agree with you on simplying what would be needed, but im thinking of building a colony that could trive and if in a few years they where to need a button they should have the capability of producing a few.

I guess im trying to design a minimal industrial base start up for a future growing colony that would be able to trive in some ways.

louis · 2008-03-30 11:22:42

I'm not sure outpost is right! Initial colony is how I think of it. My preference would be to found continuous human settlement from the outset - this is not going to be an Apollo mission or even an outpost mission. However, I think it is probably going to take 20 years to get to 100 people and to get to 1000 is going to require a huge effort. To get beyond 1000 will require either permanent migration and procreation or (more likely) a profitable Mars economy - based on something like gold export.

I think your diagram might be clearer if you started with the power source(s) on the left. I was a bit confused as to where gas fuel was coming from until I saw that there was a line from hydrogen (split from H2O) to hydrocarbons and fuel. But there doesn't seem to be a clear indication where the carbon is coming from.

Also, I think it would be clearer if processes were referred to as well e.g. smelting, gasification, metal pressing, firing, electrolysis etc.

SpaceNut · 2008-03-30 11:46:15

Wow I had a hard time finding the references on Red Colony for a bit as it was over a year ago that we started to look at processes and colony size to need stuff.
We did review the documents at http//:www.marshome.org MarsHomestead projects which would be good for zhar2 as well to review.

zhar2 · 2008-03-30 11:48:09

Sure ill do that, ill make the diagram clearer.

i think i should post my complete colonisation proposal, latter.

zhar2 · 2008-03-30 11:51:57

Wow I had a hard time finding the references on Red Colony for a bit as it was over a year ago that we started to look at processes and colony size to need stuff.
We did review the documents at http//:www.marshome.org MarsHomestead projects which would be good for zhar2 as well to review.

Thanks.

I hope you dont think im overbarring or anything, im just putting across my ideas (after all they are not perfect but may contribute to the overall vision).

SpaceNut · 2008-03-30 12:01:33

No zhar2, I do not think that...Just giving and sharing of sites that may help in conversation or of filling in the blanks or gaps in knowledge.

As for the diagram, I was not sure where the beginning input of insitu resources began but yes it is a complex process to take either regolith or mars atmosphere and start to create what we need from them.

Martian Republic · 2008-03-30 17:31:55

You would want to discard the Methanol and the Ethanol from your system too and go with Hydrogen Oxygen base fuel system only. The amount of labor and resources that you would have to invest in growing those plants and then converting it into Methanol and Ethanol would be a terrible waste of resource, labor, power and generate toxic waste also like it does on Earth.

If you go straight Hydrogen Oxygen based fuel using electric nuclear power plants for breaking up the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, then you get the maximum band for the buck for the minimum energy to produce that power with the minimum amount of labor to produce that power with the minimum amount of pollution created by using that energy supply.

All you got to do is crack water into it basic components of Hydrogen and Oxygen to get that power supply and place to store it until you use it. When you burn it, it waste product is water water vapor. So you don't have to worry about the pollution problem like you will with the other fuel in your list.

Larry,

zhar2 · 2008-03-31 03:57:35

The ethanol and methanol are not supposed to be produced as fuel, instead they are in the diagram as the substrate for the production of polymers.

idiom · 2008-03-31 05:06:13

Plus you can export the Ethanol as value Added Martian Vodka for extremely reasonable prices...

zhar2 · 2008-03-31 05:40:36

Hehe, just by mixing 4 parts ethanol and 6 of water.

knightdepaix · 2014-08-18 08:40:48

The following links are relevant to this topics:
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6133&p=2
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7038&p=2

Zhar -
That's a great diagram - very interesting and helpful.

Regarding when CO2 and regolith comes onto the diagram, some researches have been done on supercritical water and CO2 as working fluid for mineral recovery

http://www.researchgate.net/publication … Extraction

SpaceNut · 2015-02-16 12:08:24

From elsewhere but more to the point of this topics content:

louis wrote:

I think perhaps you are overstating the amount of cargo that needs to be exported to Mars, once a functioning base is established.
With ISRU on Mars, you can:
1. Manufacture Earth-like air.
2. Generate electricity from concentrated solar heating and steam engines built on Mars or from methane driving steam engines, with the methane also manufactured on Mars.
3. Create soil and grow food or plants to produce raw materials for clothing.
4. Construct buildings out of Mars bricks.
5. Manufacture rocket fuel.
6. Fulfil your water needs.
Mars colonists can live very frugally. They want be requiring huge resource inputs for home furnishings, private automobiles or many sets of clothes.
Some of the key cargo requirements will probably be:
Medicines and medical equipment.
Rovers and other vehicles - although electric motors can probably be built on Mars from an early stage.
Replacement space suits.

The question I have is just how many missions to mars will be required to get a "functioning base established"?

Void · 2015-02-16 14:58:27

You have to define what you mean by functioning.

The Norse Greenland colony was functioning for quite some time, but climate went against them, they were isolated, and probably very specialized to do farming in land that was marginally farmable at the best times. They were non-adaptive until it was too late.

So do you want it to be apparently functionally with help from Earth?

Or do you want it to be persistently functional into the far future even if Earth were to fall into a "Dark Ages"?

I am being a bit of a jerk about the above.

Small numbers of specialized people is a start, but they might not be persistent against adversity. Large numbers might give enough diversity to promote adaptability.

Apparently Elon Musk is thinking 80,000 new people on Mars a year at some point in the future.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl … ars-colony

So, to recap: Musk wants his private spaceflight business to send 80,000 people to Mars every year. They're not going to do that themselves, probably, but the company would certainly be leading the charge.

That's going boldly.

They must have some things up their sleeve about how those people are going to get what they need.

Just thinking big, the Mariner Rift Valley is though to have ice perhaps ~1.5 miles deep. Now that I think about it, if you could get a nuclear reactor through the soil and rock and down to that ice, you could indeed have quite a water supply there. the top would want to sublimate but what if dust storms continually covered it with dirt which would protect the ice over a body of melt water? The you could simply sink a well, and pump melted water up to the surface. Yes it would loose ice mass over time but there would be plenty for a long time. It would likely form a sinkhole with a dirty ice covering, with dust continually trying to fill the hole over time. Perhaps other ice near the equator also exists at more accessible locations, but if you want to bootstrap a civilization on Mars and also terraform it, having a massive water supply and equatorial solar energy would have to help your chances.

Perhaps a aircraft with rocket horizontal and vertical lift methods, and a lifting body configuration/airplane configuration would be ideal for travel, if you had the fuel. Alaska is like that where aircraft is often your best travel option. A device to allow you to move up from the valley floor to the rims, and which also might fly nicely at a large horizontal speed once you reached altitude?

I would try to make it also have hovercraft features as well, since it would have lift engines in it's bottom.

Crashes would likely be lethal, but that's probably true for Alaska as well. Then again if you have 80,000 persons a year arriving, surely you could have some of them devoted to rescue missions.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-16 21:57:28)

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