mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover

Void · 2013-09-26 16:52:31

http://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-d … rover.html

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-mars-rover … lanet.html

2% of soil perhaps, but also perchlorate which they say is a problem.

Perhaps finding a use for perchlorate could improve the equasion.

I am supprised no-one jumped on the article. I was not going to bother thinking they would.

Last edited by Void (2013-09-26 17:06:38)

louis · 2013-09-27 01:52:38

That will certainly make things easier, though probably still a good idea to site the base near an exposed glacier or similar for ease of access to water.

GW Johnson · 2013-09-27 07:40:41

If you mine the ice, I'd bet the perchlorate isn't in it. Perchlorate is a salt. Here on Earth, when sea water freezes, the ice is fresh water. The salt stays behind in the liquid.

Your best source of usable water on Mars isn't wet, salty dirt, it's buried freshwater glaciers. Big glaciers, not the little buried ice lenses that the polar lander uncovered. Big glaciers aren't everywhere, so locating them is the critical prospecting that has to be done before you land the stuff to create a base.

None of the rovers or orbiters can do that yet. Takes deep drilling to get reliable ground truth, of the sort you can bet lives on. Suspenders-and-belt, because nothing is as expensive as a dead crew.

It's likely there will be one manned mission to Mars (whoever does it). The real trick is configuring that mission to land and explore and find those buried glaciers, then land the base there, all in the one mission. We're talking about multiple landings based from orbit, until the base site is determined, then land everybody at the base, and stay there until it is time for the crew to come home.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2013-09-27 07:44:16)

Vincent · 2013-11-27 19:36:13

Water ice is free water in the regolith. When the rover tracks show anomalies this is it. It is what it is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSIw09oqsYo

Vincent · 2013-11-27 20:00:59

When im on other forums I get musical. Aint that a bitch. They talk about time and those that dont post anymore....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLNMrcZtKbA

Vincent · 2013-11-27 20:34:19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdqBCdjU5XI

GW Johnson · 2013-11-30 10:31:03

Does anyone know which perchlorate salts they are talking about, when they say "perchlorate"? Some are more useful than others.

All are poisonous if concentrated in the water, so water as ice or liquid in the porosity of salty dirt is not usable for life support. You need to find "massive ice" whose origin was frozen surface water, so that it will be fresh (free of perchlorates or any other salts).

As I already said, arctic (and antarctic) pack ice is freshwater ice, in spite of the salty ocean from which it formed.

GW

SpaceNut · 2013-11-30 12:54:47

http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/57 … fe-on-mars

Toxic Mars: Chemical challenge awaits on the Red Planet

The pervading carpet of perchlorate chemicals found on Mars are in the form of chlorinated hydrocarbons in concentrations of between 0.5 to 1 percent.

the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity — detected elemental chlorine. Moreover, orbital measurements taken by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft show that chlorine is globally distributed.

Image of distribution:
http://www.space.com/images/i/000/029/8 … 1371153092

Equatorial and mid-latitude distribution of chlorine (Cl) within the top one meter of Mars measured by the Gamma Ray Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey. The global concentration of Cl is similar to the measured concentration of ClO4- at two landing sites (Px=Phoenix; C=Curiosity), suggesting that ClO4 could be globally distributed. V1-Viking 1; V2=Viking 2; O=Opportunity; S=Spirit; P=Pathfinder

Phoenix found calcium perchlorate.

In many ways, managing calcium perchlorate exposure on Mars is viewed as no different than managing for example, uranium, lead or general heavy-metal-contaminated areas in modern mines, where dust suppression, dust extraction and regular blood monitoring are employed. Other ideas suggested by the study team include a wash-down spray that can clean suits and equipment of dust deposits.

RGClark · 2013-11-30 16:01:53

Void wrote:

http://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-d … rover.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-mars-rover … lanet.html
2% of soil perhaps, but also perchlorate which they say is a problem.
Perhaps finding a use for perchlorate could improve the equasion.
I am supprised no-one jumped on the article. I was not going to bother thinking they would.

Perchlorate is used as an oxidizer for solid propellant rockets. Perhaps it could be used for that purpose on Mars for return flights.

Bob Clark

Terraformer · 2013-11-30 17:58:49

Perchlorate is good. It means getting free oxygen won't be too much of a problem...

Especially later, in terraforming. Isn't the soil supposed to be hyperoxidised?

JoshNH4H · 2013-12-01 00:17:25

I think that's what the perchlorate means.

Spacenut, I thought organic chemicals had not been detected in the regolith? Beyond that, they'd probably be destroyed by the perchlorates. I would expect that the Chlorine in the soil is a mix of perchlorate and chloride salts. Probably more chloride than perchlorate, if I had to guess.

GW Johnson · 2013-12-01 11:03:07

The perchlorate that is technologically useful as a solid propellant oxidizer is ammonium perchlorate (AP), not any of the metal salts. AP is an ocean evaporite product, but it is nowhere near as common as the nitrates, like sodium or potassium nitrate (those are "saltpeter" for black powder).

In the US, there is an AP mine in Utah. That's where the industrial plant that processes it into rocket-grade AP is located. There used to be two plants there, but one blew up. AP is a mass-detonating monopropellant explosive hazard.

The other useful solid oxidizer is ammonium nitrate (AN). It has to be synthesized from ammonia and acid. AN is a less effective oxidizer than AP, but still far better than the saltpeters and similar. AN is also a monopropellant mass-detonating explosive hazard, but it is nowhere near as sensitive to initiation as AP.

GW

JoshNH4H · 2013-12-01 15:53:31

I wouldn't expect solids to find too much use on Mars, seeing as they're being phased out even here on Earth.

SpaceNut · 2013-12-02 19:07:47

So what would it take to make a solid booster casing for a mars launch capability knowing that the minerals for them are available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Jan11/mineralogy-Mars.html

mars simulant http://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/Documents … _M2003.pdf

The PICA heatshield once retrieved could be fashioned into a nozzle for the booster.

JoshNH4H · 2013-12-02 23:12:32

You could do it with Steel, if you were okay with a low peforming solid rocket booster. The materials exist on Mars but the technology to form them properly does not.

SpaceNut · 2013-12-03 19:15:12

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/re … /Rowan.pdf

Composition of Martian
Samples Weight % (Approx.)
Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) 44
Ferric Oxide (Fe2O3) 19
Sulfite (SO3) 8.5
Magnesium Oxide (MgO) 8.4
Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) 5.5
Calcium Oxide (CaO) 5.3
Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) 0.9
Chlorine (Cl) 0.75
Potassium Oxide (K20) <0.3
Possible compounds that could undergo some chemical processes and be stored as propellants for the IMAV for launching astronauts from the surface of Mars to orbit are:
· Magnesium and Carbon Dioxide
· Aluminum and Oxygen
· Carbon Monoxide and Oxygen
· Aluminum and Carbon Dioxide
· Magnesium and Carbon Dioxide
· Aluminum, Carbon Monoxide and Oxygen
· Magnesium, Carbon Monoxide and Oxygen

SpaceNut · 2013-12-04 18:24:49

With the journey out we will have a waste stream to deal with. Maybe the starting point for what we would want to make should make use of the waste we would create just by living such as from this http://isru.nasa.gov/Propellant_Fuels_M … Waste.html with this being only part of what we would toss out. The ISS also shows us how much water is needed to be daily recycled. From what I have read approximately 110 pounds of water each day from various waste streams generated on the ISS.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc … st02nov_1/
Without such careful recycling 40,000 pounds per year of water from Earth would be required to resupply a minimum of four crewmembers

http://www.genesisair.com/documents/NASAPaper.pdf

Solid Waste Management Requirements Definition for Advanced Life Support Missions:
http://archive.org/stream/nasa_techdoc_ … 5_djvu.txt

GW Johnson · 2013-12-05 10:20:59

We still have a long way to go before we understand how to successfully implement a closed-cycle life support. The wastewater in your transfer vehicle needs to be used as your solar flare radiation shield. Only in a one-way mission would you land that material on Mars. And you will need it as fertilizer for farming, even without a closed cycle ecology.

The water problem points out exactly why the first base needs to be sitting on top of a massive buried glacier, for easy ice mining. Those are mostly thought to be somewhere around +/- 30-40 degrees latitude, I think, but there is as yet no ground truth regarding the existence of massive buried ice there. Equatorial bases apparently will lack even the possibility of such a water resource.

Ground truth: you gotta drill. Deep. No other way is known. Considering what kinds of landers and rovers we'll send before men actually go, we'll not have the ground truth about buried massive ice. The men will have to get that data when they go.

Think they might need to take a drill rig with them? Think maybe they need to visit multiple possible base sites with that drill rig on that first mission? Think maybe we pick the best site based on ground truth findings, and establish that base on that first trip, before they fly home? I do.

Do that on the government first mission, and the commercial guys will go there. The government won't go twice. Politics of money will forever prevent that. It's not very likely the government alone will even mount that first mission. But without government help, not even the most visionary commercial guys will undertake the first landing mission. This has to be "bootstrapped" just right, or it'll never happen.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2013-12-05 10:23:07)

Void · 2013-12-05 15:21:23

I have no certainty that what I will suggest next can actually work on Mars, but it is worth the risk of being wrong.

http://skullsinthestars.com/2011/05/27/ … ctrifying/

http://www.asknature.org/strategy/0635d … 5947962fee

http://books.google.com/books?id=bAwVvO … nt&f=false

I a military establishment used electric currents in the ground to dry out wet ground, so that tanks could pass over it.

So, if Mars soil does have a quantity of moisture, and it is associated with salt, perhaps it is essentially a very cold brine in some cases. If so, then two electrodes deployed might cause it to concentrate on one electrode, which could be inside of a solar still. This would then result in steam, and that could be captured with a vacuum system (Fan/Compressor and a condenser).

Each day the soil should be replenished from the atmosphere to a degree, if the salt remains present.

Of course the salt toxic charactistic would need to be handled, if it traveled with the water vapor some how.

SpaceNut · 2014-12-21 20:19:50

NASA, Planetary Scientists Find Meteoritic Evidence of Mars Water Reservoir in meteorites on Earth that indicates Mars has a distinct and global reservoir of water or ice near its surface.

"There have been hints of a third planetary water reservoir in previous studies of Martian meteorites, but our new data require the existence of a water or ice reservoir that also appears to have exchanged with a diverse set of Martian samples," said Tomohiro Usui of Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan,
The samples revealed water comprised of hydrogen atoms that have a ratio of isotopes distinct from that found in water in the Red Planet's mantle and current atmosphere. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing numbers of neutrons.
Researchers emphasize that the distinct hydrogen isotopic signature of the water reservoir must be of sufficient size that it has not reached isotopic equilibrium with the atmosphere.
"The hydrogen isotopic composition of the current atmosphere could be fixed by a quasi-steady-state process that involves rapid loss of hydrogen to space and the sublimation from a widespread ice layer," said coauthor John Jones
"We examined two possibilities, that the signature for the newly identified hydrogen reservoir either reflects near surface ice interbedded with sediment or that it reflects hydrated rock near the top of the Martian crust," said coauthor and JSC cosmochemist Justin Simon. "

Void · 2015-08-18 15:56:54

With or without the possibility of ice reservoirs near the surface. (But I read that the Mariner Rift Valley floor may cover vast fields of ancient ice).

In spite of such a hope, I suggest "Dry Wells".

The idea being that since the typical Martian equatorial day is bone dry, but often the nighttime air reaches saturation or close to it, I would expect that the soil a few feet down may hold a humidity which is about 50% Rh.

Hoping to drill wells and pull up liquid water is not likely to be feasible in the first years of a settlement, it would require too much effort. Plus it might not work, and it might just pull up brine.

Mining water ice requires you to be at high latitude, and therefor impose a penalty of a harsher climate. Also mining ice will be labor intensive, and also require heavy machinery.

I would like to find a location of regolith where coarser crushed rock is covered by a top layer of fines plugging to some extent the communion of air above the surface with air in the Regolith. Or a crack which extends downward between two enormous slabs of bedrock. Here, again I would hope and expect that the top of the crack would be plugged by small stone, and fines (Martian dust).

Digging a "Well" into that might allow the extraction of sub-surface air, and air which I presume is enriched with water vapor relative to the daytime.

While the nighttime may have greater than 50% RH at the coldest period of the night, the air will be quite cold, and so in reality perhaps hold less actual water than subsurface air at a cold temperature? and ~50% RH.

Further, during the night, it is hard to obtain energy to pull a vacuum on a "Dry Well". During the day, you may have solar energy, and so could pull air out of a "Dry Well" and compress it to obtain water. However, why not make a "Shed" out of thermally conductive materials, and have it filled with cold rocks. This could likely be accomplished by simply piling up some rocks, and putting a vapor blocking film over them as a roof, and bonding the edges of the film with the Martian surface by piling soil on those edges. I would think the film should be reflective to sunlight.

In the nighttime, the pile of rocks will transfer heat by natural convection of air internal to the device to the film. The film will radiate heat to the night sky. During the day, the solar energy collected could serve to pull a vacuum on the dry well, the air pulled out being dumped into the covered pile of cold rocks. Ideally the rock pile device will not require pressurization, but it is not ruled out, if needed.

Obviously I hope to see rocks cooled substantially below the temperature of the Regolith. Of course the intention is to condense a frost of water on those rocks. Porous rocks might be best, but not necessary.

Periodically during certain days, hot air from solar heating could be circulated through the rock pile to extract frost as water vapor, and then at that point, likely a forced condensation provided, most likely dominated by pressurization.

As for the Vacuum, I think it would be best to have a vacuum tank where a vacuum pump would keep it pulled down to roughing pump capabilities, >1 mb, and that a cycled valve would open and close, causing a pulsed vacuum to be experienced in the "Dry Well". This is in the hope that pulses will reach deeper, and will actually transmit energy, warming up the Regolith, perhaps liberating more water molecules bound to rocks and soil.

Of course such a reservoir might be depleted after a while, but so are oil wells. If it lasts a number of years, to support an equatorial starter colony, then it might be worth it. Further, I expect that to some extent the regolith extracted from will be recharged also. This might come from the night atmosphere, or who knows maybe a buried ice layer below, or maybe even a salty aquifer far below, and the moisture which is bound to exist above it.

Moisture flows from wet to dry, and from hot to cold.

And then again there is the electron notion strip electrons from the atmosphere of Mars, and inject them into the dry well. This may induce positive charged ions (Some of them water vapor to flow towards the extraction point of the dry well.

There is a try Yoda, it just might not matter.

If there is indeed an ice layer too deep to mine, perhaps this can get some of it up to human use.

Last edited by Void (2015-08-18 16:05:43)

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-09-06 12:32:08

I have a question Void, how harsh is the Martian Polar Climate to a suited astronaut? If it got that cold in Antarctica, it might be a problem, because all that thick air would draw heat away from the astronaut's suited body, the insulation in the space suit would have to be fairly thick to protect from all that freezing air, but what about the thin atmosphere of Mars? That atmosphere might get pretty cold, cold enough to freeze carbon-dioxide as dry ice, but that air is pretty thin, there is a limit to how much heat a given volume of Martian atmosphere can carry away from a suited astronaut. The only parts the astronaut need worry about are the parts of his suit that come in contact with the surface of Mars and the rock samples he collects, that would basically mean the soles of his boots and his gloves. The polar Martian environment might not be so bad, surely Titan would be worse!

SpaceNut · 2015-09-06 18:17:39

GW Johnson, is there any reason for the government to not go twice if the Politics of money are removed from the equation if using the commercial industries vehicles like in space x. But I agree that its unlikely that the private industry would fund its own mission as, where is the immediate payback for doing so.

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-09-06 18:35:22

SpaceNut wrote:

GW Johnson, is there any reason for the government to not go twice if the Politics of money are removed from the equation if using the commercial industries vehicles like in space x. But I agree that its unlikely that the private industry would fund its own mission as, where is the immediate payback for doing so.

What if the government was led by a rich billionaire with an enormous ego, such as Donald Trump for instance? Someone like Donald Trump is not a career politician, he doesn't have the usual instincts that one has. Someone like Trump wants his place in the history books, he wants to be put up on a pedestal like Alexander the Great or Caesar for example, he has been a member of a number of different parties including Democratic, Republican and Independent, which ever suits is particular purpose at the moment. Lets say Trump succeeds, say for instance he becomes President in 2017 just for argument's sake, whether you love him or hate him, he's the fellow you would have to approach, the other fellow might be Putin, they both are in charge of countries capable of sending men to Mars. Trump will be there from 4 to 8 years, by the time he leave office he'll be either 74 or 78 years old. Trump wants his place in history, he wants to be remembered for something, maybe it could be for sending someone to Mars. We've got to try!

Void · 2015-09-06 18:45:26

Tom asked:

I have a question Void, how harsh is the Martian Polar Climate to a suited astronaut?

The winters and darkness would be about twice as long, and those I believe are unbelievably cold, but as you have suggested, due to thin atmosphere, perhaps not as draining of heat as might be supposed. Actually if you were to work in such, I would think you might have a special suit with no cooling system, just a heating system if needed. But...

I think the poles are a rotten place to start, but a wonderful place to end.

It is reasonable that before the poles are used, methods would be developed at the locations of mid latitude glaciers of significance. For instance I believe that there is at least one the size of Los Angeles.

While some concepts involve strip mining water, I would like to investigate the "Grounding Line" of a glacier/Ice cap.

If an Entrance structure were put into the side of a glacier, where the ground under the ice could be reached, then it would be possible to dig tunnels with dirt/rock bottoms in the ice of the glacier, and extract water at the same time. Trenches could be dug in the dirt/rock, and perhaps tent like material used as a roof over them. The method of digging would be with heat. Either evaporate the ice and condense the vapor, or directly melt the ice into water, and pump it to the exit.

Of course I am presuming that an ice tunnel can be trusted to hold an air pressure.

This is one method of providing a great deal of pressurized space. However it may be sensible to re-enforce the ice somehow.

Ultimately however, I have said it before. I want both ice caps converted into bodies of water, covered with ice. Optimally allowing photosynthesis through the ice of these bodies of water during the summers. Entire cities built under the pressure of the water, if it turns out not possible to generate a dense enough atmosphere for human health.

The reason I want this is because what ever evaporates from the surfaces of Mars will always want to condense in the coldest spots, and for now that is the poles for the most part. If you have a method to inject heat into water under the condensed ice and snow, you can liberate water from the poles, and create a biosphere, and ideally each polar body of water will be a solar collector.

The excess melt water generated could be conveyed by canals and pipelines to lower latitudes, to feed more ice covered lakes, which would also be abodes for life, and solar collectors.

But you would have to be crazy to try to do the poles first.

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