Overview of Mission Design

Impaler · 2015-02-07 23:20:03

louis: You said you want to maximize ISRU, but your also calling for just landing on any random flat piece of ground. This is contradictory, if you want highest utilization of local resource you must prospect for them.

The 'any flat ground' is the kind of landing site that a mission without ISRU would be aiming for, that was basically what Buzz was looking for on the moon, a spot to land the vehicle everything else be damned, they did not stay long.

Basically the longer you intend to stay the more investment you should be making in picking the spot. I think lots of people *cough* MarsOne *cough* are so impatient to 'colonize' that they neglect the due diligence necessary to make such a thing happen.

Also with respect to our robotic missions having acted as scouts, they have barely scratched the surface when it comes to identifying resources needed for colonists, nor have they tested the effectiveness of resource gathering technology on specific sites. We will need to establish both that a resource exists at a site AND that our technology can effectively extract it before we would commit to colonizing that site.

Last edited by Impaler (2015-02-07 23:21:34)

Quaoar · 2015-02-08 04:20:57

louis wrote:

The weakness in your argument is that we have very good data on lots of sites already through orbital observation and rover exploration.

You cannot bet the lives of astronauts without a ground truth: you can suppose that in Elysium Planitia there is a huge buried glacier and send a minimalist mission, where astronauts/colonists are suppose to support themselves and synthesize return propellant with locally extracted water, but if they discover that water is now evaporated or is buried too deep for their drilling machines.

louis wrote:

No one would put humans on Mars without proper prospecting of a favoured site. If - for some reason - you discover a site you thought was good proved bad, then obviously you have to re-think the mission. But the idea it will take more than 2-4 years to determine that is ridiculous.
Basically a first mission needs a bit of solid flat ground. Not a lot more.

But to have a good prospection you have to send astronauts, so the firs mission has to relay on what you bring from Earth (even ISRU has to be based on imported LH2) and the firsts goals has to by science & exploration to select the best site for a permanent base.
I like very much GW's plans with an all-in-one exploration, prospection and colonization experiment.

Quaoar · 2015-02-08 04:49:41

louis wrote:

The first colonies in the Americas were not necesarily in the best locations. It took a while to identify those. I believe we already have plenty of potential sites but space agencies tend to be a bit mute on this subject you might notice.

Yes, but even if the site was not ideal, they still had air to breath, rivers to find water, wild animals to hunt, woods to build wagons to move in other sites, and grass to feed their horses. And nevertheless there was a lot of failed attempt where all the colonists died.

On Mars they cannot find anything of these primary resources. You have to get your oxygen cracking water or atmospheric CO2, with machines that break and need spare parts. You have to extract your water from a glacier buried not too deep for your drilling machines (that also can break and need spare parts) and you move using pressurized rovers that also needs spare parts, you cannot find on the sands. And all of this devices need energy from solar panels that are not eternal.

Last edited by Quaoar (2015-02-08 04:53:22)

RobertDyck · 2015-02-08 10:54:20

Ground truth does not require a rover is big and expensive as Curiosity. The Mars 2020 rover is intended to collect samples, then leave the coconut size container of samples on the ground on Mars with the hope that some other mission will collect it. Even if that second mission does happen, it will only return the sames to Boeing's proposed "Gateway" at Earth-Moon-L2, so an Orion spacecraft with crew launched on SLS has to go fetch it. Calling that stupid is an understatement.

Canada designed a rover about the same size as Spirit/Opportunity that would have a 10-segment drill, each segment 1 metre long, so it could drill up to 10 metres depth. Samples would be analyzed by instruments on the rover's back, results radioed back to Earth. But Canadian Parliament did not approve funding. Then Europe talked about launching a rover, buying the Canadian rover and adding European science instruments and launched by Europe's big rocket. So Canadian rover, Canadian drill, but everything else European. Not sure what happened to that. My point is that rover is the right size.

I've also argued for a Mars sample return mission. Specifically as a technology demonstrator for ISPP. This would demonstrate something can land on Mars, manufacture propellant, then use that propellant to return safely to Earth. Done properly this is a tiny lander, no rover, just a sample collection arm like Mars Phoenix. Then the sample will be loaded on a return vehicle integrated with the same lander, and launched back to Earth. One single vehicle, one single Mars lander, and the whole mission will be small enough for what NASA calls a Scout mission. Do that at your proposed site for a permanent human Mars base, so scientists on Earth will be able to analyze a surface sample before crew leave Earth.

Void · 2015-02-08 13:21:58

I have my own ideas about obtaining water.
I have seen;
-Glaciers (Dig)
-Bake soil (Dig and bake soil)
-Get it out of the atmosphere. (Small amounts, lots of effort)

I suggest looking at salt pans, and salt domes.

Some of the salt pans in the southern low latitudes are calculated to at times have enough moisture in them, and sufficient elevation of temperature that they could support life. So, to investigate them would be supported by both the people who want to settle Mars, and those who wish to investigate the chances of life on Mars.

The machine I propose to extract water from the salt flats, or maybe a salt dome, would use;
-Solar Heat
-An electrostatic capacitor
-A flowing electrical circuit
-Vacuum.
-The salt pan itself and the moisture in it.

-A bag of water placed on the salt pan (For now I will ignore the problems of corrosion of salt on the plastic. I think that could be solved).
-Electrons extracted from the ambient environment. Either from the air (Preferred) or from an electrode placed some distance from the water bag.
-Electrons injected into the water of the bag, forming a capacitor, where the water within has a charge of electrons (-) greater than the environment outside the water bag.
-The outside skin of the bag will develop a skin of condensed positive ions (+) and will be relatively pressurized.
-If electrons are extracted from the atmosphere, it will release a plume of positive ions that will travel downwind.
-Additionally, under the bag, an electrode charged negative (-).
-While electrons will try to travel towards the positively charged contact point of the plume, and also in all directions away from the underside of the bag, Positive ions of various sorts will try to travel towards the underside of the bag. Among these should be positive ions of water.

So, I am presuming that ion collection is favored by the electrical circuit of the (-) electrode under the bag, and the downwind (+) plume, and conductance of both electrons (-) and the downwind plume ions (+) pushing (+) H20 ions though the salt pan or salt dome. Something like this was done by the Germans during WWII, to dry up wet ground so that they could drive tanks over it.

The water bag can also serve as a solar collector. The bag will have to be able to tolerate internal pressures for 0 degrees Centigrade and up.
The underside will also be heated up by heat conducted from the bag to the area below it. So, you then have a situation similar to a solar still which is demonstrated on Earth by pulling moisture from dry sand, and condensing it on a film of plastic above it.

The dielectric pressure of the thin film on the outside of the bag, might even allow for liquid phase water, if it is not too warm, but that is not the method of extraction I contemplate.

Instead I propose a vacuum line with a collection nozzle under the bag near the (-) electrode. The bag pressing against the ground with the weight of the water in it is intended to resist the flow of atmospheric air under the bag to the vacuum nozzle. The intention is to create a vacuum chamber under the bag, to promote evaporation of water bound to salt, and any which might be bound in any phase to the underside of the bag.

The materials vacuumed from under the bag should include water vapor. A machine to pressurize the mix and extract the water as a liquid should be possible. Then the liquid can be injected into the bag for storage, up to the point that the bag has maximized it's volume. Presumably it would then be tapped for human use.

Interestingly bushmen use a vacuum method to extract water from soil at times, but I don't think it is quite the same process.

It would not be prohibited to grow simple life forms in the water in the bag at the same time if that was considered to be of value.

Problems:
-Perchlorate Salts may be attracted. However, maybe this could be turned around as a method to extract value from them.
-Corrosion of the underside of the bag. I guess this has to be figured out.
-Freeze up of the bag. This may or may not damage it. By applying insulation in places that do not collect solar energy, this might be improved.
During dust storms, it is very possible the bag would freeze up. One fix would be to drain it before freeze up.
-U.V. Deterioration of the bag. (I suggest a simple tarp with U.V. protection on its top side, that can be replaced as needed to be put over the bag).

I have specified salt pans and salt domes, but I also observe that the soils of Mars and particularly the crust above are rather salty. Perhaps this can be less location specific. Maybe it could be done near the equator, which could be nice.

The areas dried by this process would be primed to collect more water from the atmosphere, during instances of higher humidity, caused by seasonal changes, and by nighttime atmospheric processes. So, this is after all an atmospheric condenser, but it uses the existing winds, and the existing humidity in the salt to make it more practical than a small machine which must pump air though it and has to use exotic materials to absorb moisture from the atmosphere.

The value of this method could be that except for construction and normal maintenance, humans in suits, and expensive mobile machinery would not be required. Those activities are both dangerous to humans, and costly.

Done

Last edited by Void (2015-02-08 14:12:08)

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 17:39:00

Impaler wrote:

The first people will NOT be colonists, that is pure Mars One fantasy land. Even if we had ALL the necessary systems, technology and vehicles (like SpaceX Mars Colonial Transports capable of hauling 100 people at a time to Mars), we would STILL not have the first people on Mars be colonists. They would be SCOUTS to find the most desirable colony location. Plopping yourself down on the first place you find at your destination is ALWAYS the wrong move at any scale, all the way from backpacking to crossing an ocean to crossing space.

The pie in the sky will have been well scouted by robotic rovers with lots of scientific data already retrieved and analyzed decades before man will just set down for a very long lasting scouting mission as you put it. I dare you to scout just outside your own door to do science and not feel that you are no longer scouting from where you have landed your mars habitat (your place of residence) before you feel that as far as you can explore by walking that you have made it home (you are a colonist at that point). There is just only so much that man will do before that feeling sets in that its home.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 17:44:35

Impaler wrote:

The first people will NOT be colonists, that is pure Mars One fantasy land. Even if we had ALL the necessary systems, technology and vehicles (like SpaceX Mars Colonial Transports capable of hauling 100 people at a time to Mars), we would STILL not have the first people on Mars be colonists. They would be SCOUTS to find the most desirable colony location. Plopping yourself down on the first place you find at your destination is ALWAYS the wrong move at any scale, all the way from backpacking to crossing an ocean to crossing space.

The pie in the sky will have been well scouted by robotic rovers with lots of scientific data already retrieved and analyzed decades before man will just set down for a very long lasting scouting mission as you put it. I dare you to scout just outside your own door to do science and not feel that you are no longer scouting from where you have landed your mars habitat (your place of residence) before you feel that as far as you can explore by walking that you have made it home (you are a colonist at that point). There is just only so much that man will do before that feeling sets in that its home.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 17:51:03

Terraformer wrote:

Habs can be moved. Indeed, one mission design (from MarsDrive) had the habs be actual vehicles, with the intent to travel around the planet looking for the best location. Much easier to do if you have your return ship in orbit, and a light SSTO to reach it...
If you were to attempt such a mission design using solar, you'll want to be moving during the night. Stop during the day, lay out the solar panels to recharge your fuel cells, and explore the area. Once you've refuelled, move on to the next location. You don't need to move that fast; 10 km/hr would allow you to cover a lot of ground during the mission. But I don't know how much energy that would take, and whether the advantages are worth it.

The details of the design resides on the yahoo tech group site once longed in you should be able to read the comments but all of the extra files will require you to join the group. Marsdrive has as it would seem vanished with there website and presence of its founder.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 18:37:57

Impaler wrote:

RobertDyck wrote:
Ideal location: flat ground, low altitude (more atmosphere overhead for radiation shielding), close to equator (warm), plentiful water, iron (hematite is easitest to smelt), aluminum (bytownite is common), white sand (for glass, the only deposit found so far is a cup-full), thorium (nuclear fuel), and potassium salts (greenhouse fertilizer). That's a lot of stuff, and conflicting. The best location so far is Elysium Planetia; it has everything but thorium. Thorium appears to be at high altitude, dry locations.
Actually 15 degrees north of the Martian Equator is the optimum solar latitude, the total solar irradiance over the Martian year is highest AND the most constant, basically all the features we associate with the equatorial sun zone on Earth are moved ~15 degrees North on Mars due to the eccentricity of it's orbit. As we know Mars is wettest at the North pole and dryer towards the equator we would likely compromise somewhere between the pole and the 15 latitude to balance warmth/wetness, but we would never go south of 15 degrees.

Both posts must be considered but only in the context to the extent that it changes the mission profile as an increase of landing mass means we can not land it, so compromise is a must for where we land as it may not be the best or worst for each category as for where we want to land but may be due to what we can bring instead.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 18:46:20

Quaoar wrote:

louis wrote:
The weakness in your argument is that we have very good data on lots of sites already through orbital observation and rover exploration.
You cannot bet the lives of astronauts without a ground truth: you can suppose that in Elysium Planitia there is a huge buried glacier and send a minimalist mission, where astronauts/colonists are suppose to support themselves and synthesize return propellant with locally extracted water, but if they discover that water is now evaporated or is buried too deep for their drilling machines.
louis wrote:
No one would put humans on Mars without proper prospecting of a favoured site. If - for some reason - you discover a site you thought was good proved bad, then obviously you have to re-think the mission. But the idea it will take more than 2-4 years to determine that is ridiculous.
Basically a first mission needs a bit of solid flat ground. Not a lot more.
But to have a good prospection you have to send astronauts, so the firs mission has to relay on what you bring from Earth (even ISRU has to be based on imported LH2) and the firsts goals has to by science & exploration to select the best site for a permanent base.
I like very much GW's plans with an all-in-one exploration, prospection and colonization experiment.

The question is does Nasa or any other nation have a planned for a mission to land a robotic scout to explore the make up of these glaciers and if not why not. Since we want water possibility to be ruled out as a show stopper.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-08 18:54:01

Void thanks for the water processing post as it is simular to ones posted in the desulination topic...

louis · 2015-02-08 20:40:05

Quaoar wrote:

louis wrote:
The weakness in your argument is that we have very good data on lots of sites already through orbital observation and rover exploration.
You cannot bet the lives of astronauts without a ground truth: you can suppose that in Elysium Planitia there is a huge buried glacier and send a minimalist mission, where astronauts/colonists are suppose to support themselves and synthesize return propellant with locally extracted water, but if they discover that water is now evaporated or is buried too deep for their drilling machines.
louis wrote:
No one would put humans on Mars without proper prospecting of a favoured site. If - for some reason - you discover a site you thought was good proved bad, then obviously you have to re-think the mission. But the idea it will take more than 2-4 years to determine that is ridiculous.
Basically a first mission needs a bit of solid flat ground. Not a lot more.
But to have a good prospection you have to send astronauts, so the firs mission has to relay on what you bring from Earth (even ISRU has to be based on imported LH2) and the firsts goals has to by science & exploration to select the best site for a permanent base.
I like very much GW's plans with an all-in-one exploration, prospection and colonization experiment.

Any mission will involve some pre-landing element I believe. I certainly propose that. What I mean is we have plenty of data indicating where sites look favourable. You then send a robot rover to investigate further. But that can be done in parallel with all the other mission planning. It doesn't need to hold up anything. With the data we have it is highly unlikely the rover will land and find say a quagmire.

We know where there are strong deposits of useable water, silica and iron oxide. We don't really need much more to get started on ISRU.

louis · 2015-02-08 20:44:50

It's a great puzzle why there hasn't been a greater emphasis on preparing for colonisation. Basically I guess NASA's programmes are in the hands of politicians, physicists, geologists and the like, rather than people like Musk, say, who are inspired by the dream of establishing a human civilisation on another celestial body.

SpaceNut wrote:

Quaoar wrote:
louis wrote:
The weakness in your argument is that we have very good data on lots of sites already through orbital observation and rover exploration.
You cannot bet the lives of astronauts without a ground truth: you can suppose that in Elysium Planitia there is a huge buried glacier and send a minimalist mission, where astronauts/colonists are suppose to support themselves and synthesize return propellant with locally extracted water, but if they discover that water is now evaporated or is buried too deep for their drilling machines.
louis wrote:
No one would put humans on Mars without proper prospecting of a favoured site. If - for some reason - you discover a site you thought was good proved bad, then obviously you have to re-think the mission. But the idea it will take more than 2-4 years to determine that is ridiculous.
Basically a first mission needs a bit of solid flat ground. Not a lot more.
But to have a good prospection you have to send astronauts, so the firs mission has to relay on what you bring from Earth (even ISRU has to be based on imported LH2) and the firsts goals has to by science & exploration to select the best site for a permanent base.
I like very much GW's plans with an all-in-one exploration, prospection and colonization experiment.

The question is does Nasa or any other nation have a planned for a mission to land a robotic scout to explore the make up of these glaciers and if not why not. Since we want water possibility to be ruled out as a show stopper.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-06 09:26:39

Moon as a stepping stone to Mars?

maybe there is another way??

Farming on Mars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhoQMJN0z-Q

video

Humans to Mar summit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkKHBsK0ors

First photo is "New Glenn GS1 Simulator inside the Tank Cleaning and Processing Facility. (November 22, 2022)," so that's cool + Some of the other hardware we've seen being processed. The tank must have been wearing sneakers while outside the building to avoid notice I'll say.
https://twitter.com/jenakuns/status/1618497419582525442

Dynetics also mention their many funded tasks related to their LOX/LNG engine tech and cryogenic propellant transfer (tests at NASA Marshall); mention their cargo lander capabilities; definitely indicative of them proposing to the NASA Sustained Lander Development (SLD)
https://twitter.com/ac_charania/status/ … 2265282560

We are partnering with Dynetics, part of LeidosInc, to develop a streamlined, low-risk and affordable Human Landing System for NASAArtemis. Together, we're DefiningPossible on the Moon.
https://twitter.com/northropgrumman/sta … 1551175682

Sierra stuff, currently aiming for mid 2023 for first flight of DreamChaser. Apparently considering reuse for Shooting Star, although whether that's return to Earth or in space shenanigans is unclear.
https://twitter.com/jenakuns/status/1589737709593329664

NASA’s ShadowCam Images Permanently Shadowed Regions from Lunar Orbit
https://spaceref.com/newspace-and-tech/ … nar-orbit/

One instrument that will support future lunar exploration efforts is a hypersensitive optical camera called ShadowCam. ShadowCam is one of six instruments on board the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, known as Danuri, which launched in August 2022 and entered lunar orbit last December.
Previous cameras in lunar orbit were designed to acquire images of sunlit surfaces. Developed by Malin Space Science Systems and Arizona State University, ShadowCam’s primary function is to collect images within permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles. These areas never receive direct sunlight and are thought to contain water ice – a significant resource for exploration that can be used as fuel or oxygen and for other habitation applications.
Building on cameras developed for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, ShadowCam is 200 times more light-sensitive and is therefore able to capture detailed images within permanently shadowed regions – even in the absence of direct light – by using the light that is reflected off nearby geologic features such as mountains or the walls of craters.
In addition to mapping the light reflected by permanently shadowed regions to search for evidence of ice deposits, ShadowCam will also observe seasonal changes and measure the terrain inside the craters, all in service of science and future lunar exploration efforts. The high-resolution images could help scientists learn more about how the Moon has evolved, how water is trapped and preserved in permanently shadowed regions, and could help inform site selection and exploration planning for Artemis missions.

Teams at NASAMichoud “flipped” the engine section for the first crewed #Artemis mission from a vertical to a horizontal position in preparation for final integration to the SLS core stage.
https://twitter.com/nasa_sls/status/1625273660662480896

To go to Mars, do a backflip at Venus
https://thespacereview.com/article/4510/1
Some, though, see a value of doing a Venus flyby mission as a precursor for going to Mars. A July 2022 workshop by Caltech’s Keck Institute for Space Studies, attracting participants from NASA, industry, and academia, focused on the science and exploration prospects for a Venus human flyby mission, leading to a report published in September.

'Electrical Requirements for a Spectrum of Multi-Stage Space Farms'
https://space.nss.org/wp-content/upload … d-2023.pdf

Costs to build something on Earth with Water and Oxygen easily available?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/1138441 … 50-million
Antarctica's Scott Base rebuild to cost $250 million

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said taxpayers would contribute $200m.

Akhil linked a very interesting paper. In it he argued that the economics of shipping goods between planets dictates that neither the minimum energy trajectory (Hohman transfer) nor the minimum time trajectory is optimum, but something in-between
https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/1 … 5294669825

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-03-06 09:48:58)

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