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#151 2014-04-11 07:45:54

JoshNH4H
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From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,538
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Re: Crops

I know both GW Johnson and I have been converging on hab designs that look like squat cylinders (perhaps tuna-can like in aspect ratio, perhaps even squatter) covered in enough regolith to fully counterbalance the internal pressure.  I was thinking about it recently and I was thinking that a crater might actually be a better place to site buildings because of the relatively sheer walls, which will provide both radiation shielding and are possible to dig into or push regolith over the top from.  If your crater is relatively small and you're looking to add a lot of habitation volume all at once, you can actually build a ring around it with the edges of the ring at the border of the crater.  The inner surface would be compressive (think of an arch, you could probably use normal bricks), and the outside would be tensile.  The usual approximation is that the depth of a crater will be 1/10 of its diameter.  If you need 5 m of shielding on top of 3 m of headroom and structure, your crater will need to have a diameter of 80 m.  If you want your hah to be a ring 10 m deep, it will have an internal volume (let's say 2.5 m of actual internal headroom) of 5,500 cubic meters.  This is equivalent to about 11 typical US houses.  If a second story is built (requiring a slightly bigger crater with a diameter of 110 m), the internal volume becomes 31 houses. 

Alternatively, we could use the entire floor of the crater and get much more space.  Eventually it seems conceivable that we could even start building domes, maybe over the entire crater, weighed down with regolith over it.  Greenhouses in general would be either in the center of the crater or outside it, to maximize the sunlight that reaches them.


-Josh

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#152 2014-04-11 09:52:09

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
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Posts: 5,423
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Re: Crops

Seems kinda silly to go to Mars and establish some surface base (temporary or permanent),  and NOT take the equivalent of a front-end loader.  That's a digging bucket on the front of your rover with the drill rig on the back (that you also need).  Take two in case one fails or is needed elsewhere when you want it.  Three is even better.  They might be around a ton each,  if built stout the way we do here on Earth.   

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#153 2014-04-11 10:09:08

JoshNH4H
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From: Pullman, WA
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Posts: 2,538
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Re: Crops

I don't doubt that well have that equipment, but from the perspective of minimizing labor power it just makes sense to go with the most economical solution you can think of.


-Josh

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#154 2014-04-11 20:45:51

louis
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From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Crops

GW Johnson wrote:

Seems kinda silly to go to Mars and establish some surface base (temporary or permanent),  and NOT take the equivalent of a front-end loader.  That's a digging bucket on the front of your rover with the drill rig on the back (that you also need).  Take two in case one fails or is needed elsewhere when you want it.  Three is even better.  They might be around a ton each,  if built stout the way we do here on Earth.   

GW

I agree entirely. Diggers and drillers will be absolutely essential from the get-go. smile


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#155 2014-04-11 20:49:06

JoshNH4H
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From: Pullman, WA
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Posts: 2,538
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Re: Crops

No argument, but that doesn't mean that we should use our capacity to dig and drill when we don't have to.  Even having imported or built any piece of equipment, we're better off figuring out ways to not use it because chances are this results in less cost.


-Josh

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#156 2014-04-12 06:31:49

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
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Re: Crops

I notice the smallest Bobcat brand weighs about 1,268kg, but a mini skid-steer loader from DitchWitch that you stand on instead of a seat and cage weighs only 753kg. These are gasoline powered. The Mars Direct habitat has a mass budget of 1.4 metric tonnes for a pressurized rover. Mars Homestead Project phase 1: Hillside Settlement was intended to design the first human settlement, starting from nothing. Since the project was the settlement, I didn't want to get bogged down by spacecraft design, so proposed we base it on getting there with Mars Direct habitats. They accepted that. So 12 crew arrive 4 at a time, requiring 3 habs. A 4th hab was to land unmanned, as a backup and loaded with equipment. That one wouldn't have the normal rover, instead would have a skid-steer loader. So here's a question: if we design a custom loader for Mars, since cost of launch vehicle is so high, we can justify a custom vehicle. Using titanium alloy or other high-tech alloys, how light can we get the loader? I'm sure we could keep it within 1,400kg, even with a seat and roll cage sized for a single person in a spacesuit.

Or a utility vehicle?

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#157 2014-04-12 09:10:17

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
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Posts: 5,423
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Re: Crops

It'd have to be at least partly custom-designed,  because none of the usual prime movers would work on Mars.  How about hydraulic drive for locomotion,  since you already have hydraulics for the lift/dig bucket?  Let the source for the hydraulics be battery electric.  Probably some kind of lithium battery.

When close to base,  just operate on the solar charger as if the cable were an extension cord.  Further out,  you can only operate for the battery life without recharging.  It does mean the solar charger for this will be fairly large and powerful. 

About the only other major design change from Earthly equipment intended to be abused for decades,  would replacing some of the steel structure with aluminum.  I think the wheels will be different too,  but definitely not aluminum tires!  That was a horrible design error on Curiosity.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2014-04-12 09:12:21)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#158 2014-04-12 09:55:14

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
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Posts: 7,781
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Re: Crops

Lithium ion car batteries I looked at in 2005 are only rated to -20°C. They can't even be stored colder than that; it'll destroy them. Car manufacturers tested hybrid cars in Thompson, Manitoba, about 8 hour drive straight north from where I live, because it's so damn cold in winter. They use nickel metal hydride because it will survive cold. Lithium ion gives you 30% more charge for the same mass/weight, but NiMH handles cold. By the way, those NiMH car batteries are made in the US.

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#159 2014-04-12 13:04:20

louis
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From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Crops

RobertDyck wrote:

I notice the smallest Bobcat brand weighs about 1,268kg, but a mini skid-steer loader from DitchWitch that you stand on instead of a seat and cage weighs only 753kg. These are gasoline powered. The Mars Direct habitat has a mass budget of 1.4 metric tonnes for a pressurized rover. Mars Homestead Project phase 1: Hillside Settlement was intended to design the first human settlement, starting from nothing. Since the project was the settlement, I didn't want to get bogged down by spacecraft design, so proposed we base it on getting there with Mars Direct habitats. They accepted that. So 12 crew arrive 4 at a time, requiring 3 habs. A 4th hab was to land unmanned, as a backup and loaded with equipment. That one wouldn't have the normal rover, instead would have a skid-steer loader. So here's a question: if we design a custom loader for Mars, since cost of launch vehicle is so high, we can justify a custom vehicle. Using titanium alloy or other high-tech alloys, how light can we get the loader? I'm sure we could keep it within 1,400kg, even with a seat and roll cage sized for a single person in a spacesuit.

Or a utility vehicle?


I looked into this as well - I thought 1.5 metric tonnes sounds about right.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#160 2014-04-12 16:13:50

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Crops

Some of the smallish equipment was looked at between the years that we did lose to the system crash. It might have been in the foothold threads. That Lious and I conversed often in.

The particular equipment while small and powered by even a cold weather capable battery still means a man in a suit for a limited surface time and then once we park it back at the end of the shift we need to have the extra energy to recharge it for the next days use.

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/nickelme … appman.pdf

http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_g … i_ion.html

http://www.fireflymagic.com/rechargeabl … index.html

Baseline Performance of a Nickel Metal Hydride Powered EV Operating in Vermont

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#161 2014-05-29 10:41:04

Void
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Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

A possible source of food, feedstock for plastics, soil for other crops.

Fuel from renewable energy and CO2 (Water also I presume)
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-method-bis … oxide.html

Mushrooms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l05knxG6eT0

Aquatic Microbes
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slide … lide-show/

Methane seeps
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_vogt.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 135149.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_seep

So, I have hit on some of these before elsewhere and elsewhen.  But the fuel production obviously would interesting as a fuel source.  But Martian soil mixed with oil and treated with Mushrooms, might become more suitable for other crops.

The Mushrooms themselfs are a food item.

Cold Seeps could be created in the in aquatic environments, and bacteria at the base of a food chain.

The value of a fuel and Oxygen based agriculture, is that in the high lattitudes where most of the water is, seasonal variations will make winter a harder time to produce food that depends on sunlight, but fuel and Oxygen can be stored for winter use.

And the same processes will support a plastic industry, and of course internal combustion engines, and fuel cells.

Graphic and caption text from the U.S. Navy All Hands web site, April 1998.
"While exploring the Haakon Mosby Mud Volcano, NRL researchers discovered several 'new' species of marine life. In addition to 'vermicelli-spaghetti-like' tubeworms, scientists found more than 20 new species of meiofauna (sand-grain-sized animals) and a bottom-fish density more than one hundred times that found on the normal seafloor. Photosynthesis does not provide the basis for this deep ocean food chain, methane-based chemosynthesis does. The fish, dominated by a species of eelpout measuring the length of a pen, congregate around the mud volcano much like seagulls do at the local dump."

The most common fish found were scalebelly eelpout (Lycoides squamiventer). Stomach contents of these fish included tubeworms and other chemosynthesis-dependent creatures, confirming that the fish are indeed part of the local ecosystem. The eelpout was several hundred times more abundant on the mud volcano than elsewhere on the bottom of the surrounding Greenland-Norwegian Sea, and is apparently attracted to the mud volcano by its abundant food supplies.

Last edited by Void (2014-05-29 13:23:04)


Done.

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#162 2014-05-29 20:36:01

SpaceNut
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#163 2014-05-30 13:13:18

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

An interesting connectable process.

Here is another:

http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/12967

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446641

Photosynthetic microorganisms have higher growth rates compared with plants, and the production systems can be based on non-arable land.

Bags of water on the surface would be the simplest greenhouse, protected from freeze thaw cycles by thermal inertia and phase change thermal resistance.

As I see it a web of interconected processes would make the most sense.

Solar CO2 Reduction, Boidiesel as sources of hydrocarbon fuels.

Mushrooms, and fish to consume the scraps from both processes.

In some cases breaking organic waste into Methane, to release as a greenhouse gas perhaps, or to be recycled to an artificial Methane seep.

I am hoping that at some point Mushrooms could be genetically altered to have some of the nutitional value of green vegtibles, and perhaps meat.

Both processes to generate liquid fuels Solar-CO2 Reduction, and Biodiesel are solar.

With a good source of water, and the ability to fabricate large plastic bags, however, I now favor the biodiesel.  Fresh ice water would not require that the bags be pressurized much at all.

Photosynthetic microorganisms have higher growth rates compared with plants, and the production systems can be based on non-arable land.

With Mushrooms altered to provide a better spectrum of human nutrition, and a few greenhouses, and perhaps some chemically driven fish farms, productivity sufficient to support a human population on Mars seems plausable.

This would eliminate a large amount of windows with differential pressure across them and also reduce the amount of artificial lighting for plants that would be required.

At the same time a fuel source for industry would be established.

Last edited by Void (2014-05-30 13:15:08)


Done.

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#164 2014-07-31 14:29:06

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

OK, I'll break the silence.

http://phys.org/news/2014-07-nanostruct … y-co2.html

http://www.mbl.edu/microbialdiversity/f … _dugas.pdf

http://www.alternet.org/story/148403/ca … er_a_spill

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/julyau … man-health

For fuel and food?  Chemosynthisis on a large scale might be accoplished by simply melting a puddle/pond in existing ground ice deposites of significant size at higher lattitudes. Add Oxygen and perhaps Methanol from the process in the first link.  From that created biological material, perhaps fish food.

And the Methanol I presume as a fuel, and a source for plastics.

Some plastics being used in the evil 3D printer.

The point being that such a construction method for a biological "Farm" from chemicals could perhaps enclose a significant volume to host organisms at a cost competitive with building a solar driven greenhouse.

Creation of Methanol could be done as a load leveliing process, the electricity used for that purpose when it was at a surpluss.  A Mars community would need solar electric or nuclear electric (Same difference).
 
And yes maybe Mushrooms could deal with Methanol as a food as well.

01-August-2014:

This actually would fit well:
http://www.space.com/26705-nasa-2020-ro … -tech.html
With the CO, it would be easier to create hydrocarbons, or really, there might be microbes that could live off of O2 and CO directly.  Fish foods, and feedstock for plastics. Maybe even a direct food to humans fom the microbes?

Breathable air and rocket fuel

The instrument is known as MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resources Utilization Experiment). It will pull carbon dioxide from the thin Martian atmosphere, which is composed of about 96 percent CO2, and turn it into pure oxygen and carbon monoxide, said Michael Hecht of MIT, the instrument's principal investigator.

A bulk food source would be nice to have.  Something the equivalant of Potatoes, Cheese, Yogurt?

That actually would be better than trying to raise fish.

And then of course you would want produce from greenhouses.

So you melt a puddle of water with an ice and dirt cover, and pump O2 and CO into it, and then hope to extract plankton of sorts.

Last edited by Void (2014-08-01 08:23:26)


Done.

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#165 2014-08-01 13:02:32

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

Talking to myself smile

http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013 … Salty.html

Another method to utilize solar energy on Mars.  Since Greenhouses are desired, perhaps with windows and not artificial lights, I suggest that they have a water pool in their floor, and elivated above that perhaps
hydrophonic gardens.  The salt water pool will mitigate the day night temperature extreems, tend to stabalize the humidity within the enclosure, and in general will be evaporative.

Fresh water condensing on the walls collected at night could then be the source of drinking water, wash water, and electric power (Along with brine from the evaporative pool), as suggested in the link above in this post.  So water, electricity, food, and likely Oxygen from one type of structure design.

While it might be nice to eventually have other types of solar collectors, it can also be noticed that if you have reservoirs of salt water and fresh water in the proximity of this setup you then have longer term energy storage (And fresh water) as well, a hedge against dust storms, seasonal variations of solar power, and some equipment breakdowns.  That is not so easily accomplished with other forms of solar power.

Concentrating mirrors would also be useful in this scheme, if you wanted to get your brine and fresh water that way as well.


Done.

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#166 2014-08-01 21:03:14

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Crops

Sorry for missing your post back in May Void.

A great deal of what we would like to do with farming depends on what is the initial source of water but also on what resupplies it as we use it. Any surface water that is captured from the soil would contain salts that would not be a direct resupply source for some crop or fish types.

As for creation of fuels whether they are from bio gas, methane, bio desiel or any other plant derived fuels it is the oxidizer that we have trouble with producing in great enough quantities.

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#167 2014-08-02 09:44:17

Void
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Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

I have noticed that a great deal of confusion comes from our time perspectives, and also the uncertainty of the facts on the ground.

At a high latitude such as a glacier in the Hellas Basin, an abundance of water seems available and resupply perhaps assured.  But the seasonal climate is unfriendly.
At a lower latitude, then water would have to come from the soil, be baked out.  I suggest a migration method.

Robotic rovers, and stripped down landers.  Rover robot technology is being demonstrated on Mars as we now exist.  That should be continued and expanded into more rugged and capable devices, once humans can obtain materials on Mars.  As for the landers, if you strip off the heat shield, and reposition the canted engines, perhaps they could serve to migrate humans between a summer base at a higher latitude, and a winter base at a lower latitude. Twice a year, until the high latitude base was a safe and useful place to keep humans in year around.

An abundance of water is necessary for any civilization, so, the lower latitude base would only be for survival until the higher latitude base had been built up enough for humans to safely winter over, and be able to do useful work year around.

I have mentioned hard landers in another thread.  One activity of robotic rovers could be to retrieve pieces from a junk yard created by hard landing some device.  Ideally, the device would not require a parachute or rockets.  Hellas offers the best chance of that, but it would be a long way from the low latitude base, so I would suggest two junk yards,
one each near but not too close to each base.  The rovers at the low latitude base might focus on collecting water from the soil.  Microwaving the top layer, and vacuuming
the vapors with a pump, compressing the vapors into a liquid, bringing it back.  Also collecting iron and nickle particles, and also perhaps retrieving parts from a crash junkyard.

The high latitude base should not require it's rovers to collect water.  But retrieving junk and collecting iron and nickle particles would be useful.

I don't know if it would pay to have the rovers migrate between bases, likely not.

Solar panels might power each base to a degree, at first with electricity.  In off peak times, they might supply electric power to split CO2 into CO and O2.  Concentrating mirrors where a device in the focus would provide a heated cavity.  Into the heated cavity could be injected CO, and H20.  That should provide hydrocarbons and waste gasses.
A vacuum would have to collect that product, to compress it a bit and a cooling process would be desired.

I suppose that a similar process could just heat the CO2 of the atmosphere up in a cavity, and with a catalyst, perhaps split it into CO, and O2, but I don't have many facts on such a dry process.  The only think I have heard of is a spinning disk which splits water by being heated and cooled, I think it was some type of iron.  It absorbs Oxygen from the water, and expels it when heated, the disk would have one part heated and one part exposed to water vapor I suppose that is cool.

Anyway, if you can't get your Oxygen surplus by splitting CO2 or H20, or from plants, I guess going to Mars is pointless.

Returning to the process that splits CO2 into CO and O2, and then a second process that combines CO with H20 under a mirrors focus, if at the high latitude base the collected hot gasses could be cooled in a melt water puddle, serving multiple purposes.  Heating the water, cooling the gasses, and providing a habitat for chemically driven plankton.  The plankton could be fed Hydrocarbons and Oxygen, or CO and Oxygen.  The mirror process would have amplified the energy level of the chemical, but maybe the hydrocarbons would be too valuable to use that way.

If desired, the puddle could be given a low pressure transparent shell covering, allowing light in.  I suggest bubbles of plastic.  Plastic pillows so to speak.  With skirts around their perimeter.  The soil over the ice would be cleaned off, and a pillow placed down to make a window, and soil and rocks placed over the skirt to hold the device down.
creating a solar window.  Then in addition to chemosynthisis, photosynthisis might occur.  But this would be the process of building up the high latitude base. As vapors migrated under the skirt, they would tend to condense, as the soil temperatures would be rather frigid.  This would reduce but not eliminate water losses.  So a second pool would be necessary, where it's volume would be sacrificed over time, the provide make up water for the pool with the bubble windows.

That is enough for now.  I look forward to various criticisms, and will try to justify myself with more if the inhabitants of this site like.


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#168 2014-08-02 19:28:17

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Crops

Understood that there is a complexity to the machine that would be for vacuuming loose soil or scooping it into a chamber which could be heated or microwaved would be the sort of typical thoughts for automated robotic equipment to gather what would be moisture laden soil as well as to process it. The robustness of this piece of equipment is something that a crew can not go with out is to go beyond just science and exploration missions.

As you noted CO2 collection and processing is another must for oxygen and fuel which leads to the same conclusion of the need for a very dependable piece of equipment.

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#169 2014-08-03 09:32:04

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

During the initial phase of habitation of Mars, your activities are Apollo Moon Mission like.

Later, after hunting for means of surplus and storage, Your risks are mitigated.

If you have machines that generate surplus and have means of storage, you have more options.

For the low latitude base, I would like to avoid moving and baking soil.  I suggest a rover with a transparent dome over it, and skirts that can near the ground.

During the morning hours when solar energy was starting, the rover could dwell over ground surface enriched with condensation from the night, and allow the solar heat inside the dome to vaporize it.  it being lighter will tend to float an vacuum device could collect and and compress it a bit, and produce a small amount of condensate.  IF a microwave system were useful it could be incorporated into the process.

The wheels of the rover could be composed in part of Iron/Nickle magnets, and would pick up Iron/Nickle particles as it traveled.  Robotic systems could collect these Iron/Nickle particles off of the wheels.

If there was a junk yard of hard landed processed materials, then the rover could go over and collect some of it.  Then it would bring it back, then humans would dust it off, and perform maintenance on it, and collect the water and Iron/Nickle, and scrap.  That water would be make up water to make up for losses that would happen during the process of making a living at the low latitude base, but water recycling would be very advised.

The low latitude base would have more regular solar energy, but would be subject to disruption from dust storms which it might have a hard time dealing with.

The high latitude base would  have more irregular solar energy, but also large water supply.  Further, by carving a system of tunnels in a glacier, a storage place for O2.
Further if a melt water puddle were used it could also store some oxygen.

Plastics would be an answer to how you build a surplus of Oxygen.  Turn some hydrocarbons into plastics, structures.

A simple device to generate useful materials would be a plastic bag of ice water, only slightly pressurized, and exposed to sunlight.

As for devices that generate Oxygen and fuels from CO2, and H2O, having a surplus and a means of utilizing excess capacity to fill your storage devices with Oxygen, and making plastics, would be economically correct.  Having redundancy, spare parts.  Being able to manufacture the parts from local materials, recycled materials, and materials from the hard landed scrap yard.

Solar energy, a surplus of capacity is required there as well, and a means to put surplus energy to a useful purpose.

Hardening the high latitude base would allow staying at it year around.  Ice caves filled with Oxygen, were people might even dwell at times.

Salt and fresh water suggest a way to store energy through the winter.  Fuel tanks and Oxygen from the ice caves as well.

After that level of development, mines, but who knows where they would be?  You would have to move to a new level of ability for that.

Last edited by Void (2014-08-03 09:49:36)


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#170 2015-09-06 14:33:51

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,781
Website

Re: Crops

Potatoes are usually cloned, not grown from seed. That is, potatoes are cut with one "eye" per section. That eye is then planted in moist soil and grown to form another potato plant. But that is cloning, same genes as the parent plant. Potatoes actually produce seed, like any other plant. Potato vegetable must be stored in temperature +38°F to +40°F, humidity 95%, dark, and well ventilated. Potato tubers are alive, they respire. That means they consume oxygen and release CO2. Temperature above +45­°F causes starch to convert into sugar, and humidity below 90% causes rapid weight loss. Seed potatoes must be warmed to +50°F to +55°F before planting. And they're brittle, easily damaged, when cold. Do not wash seed potatoes, they shouldn't be exposed to water until ready to plant.

You can grow potatoes to produce true seed. What I read is that plants grown from true seed have a great deal of variety; they won't necessarily be the same as the parent plant. That's why potatoes are normally "cloned"; that is grown from the eye of a potato tuber. Should we keep potato true seed in a seed bank?

Last edited by RobertDyck (2015-09-07 16:19:42)

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#171 2015-09-06 19:21:00

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Crops

Potatoes are a good staple food. There are said to be more than 100 different potato varieties, you can grow many types in your garden but the growing season is long compared to some other vegetables. The growing season for potatoes can range from 75 to 135 days.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic- … jzgoe.aspx

As the article starts to indicate variety is the reason for different crops so that we have good nutrition through selection of short, medium and long growing seasons.

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#172 2015-09-07 07:56:30

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

Even thinking about gardening seems to make something inside satisfied.  Must be some instinct for it.

I read your entries yesterday, and upon waking from a dream state (Where I had a key in my hand), I recalled a reference of memory, from long ago, where an article said Lettuce was stored in CO2, prolonging it's freshness.

So, I googled this:  storing vegetables in carbon dioxide.

Got these references: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=st … on+dioxide.

Selected this: http://www.van-amerongen.com/EN/Control … _34_6.html

Controlled Atmosphere (CA) is a storage technique whereby the level of oxygen is reduced and CO2 is increased. Quality and the freshness of fruit andvegetables are retained under Controlled Atmosphere conditions without the use of any chemicals. Under CA conditions, many products can be stored for 2 to 4 times longer than usual.

Don't know if this also will apply to potatoes, but with the extra long winters Mars offers, I would think this method goes into the "Wants" basket for inhabiting Mars.

Additionally....

While doing the above searching, I stumbled on this, which is likely a related method:

Google:   storing vegetables in sand

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=st … es+in+sand

http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/storing … /5021.html

5021-bin.jpg

A second technique is to store these crops in moist sand. Prepare the roots as above. Moisten clean sand in a large container or wheelbarrow. Pack the vegetables into a tub, wooden box, 5-gallon bucket, plastic-lined cardboard box, or a Root Storage Bin. Start by placing several inches of moist sand on the bottom of the storage container. Lay vegetables on the sand in a single layer, not touching each other. Cover them completely with sand and continue layering until box or bin is full. Top with a layer of moist sand. Container will be heavy when full, so plan accordingly. Remove the stored vegetables as needed

I imagine the sand limits Oxygen replacement, and retains CO2 coming from the vegetables.  So, it is a method related to the first method I have found mentioned for CO2 storage of vegetables.  I suppose it may hold humidity more stable as well.


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#173 2015-09-07 09:00:25

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Crops

I expect it'll need to be clean sand,  not contaminated by salts,  perchlorates,  or other bad stuff.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#174 2015-09-07 11:30:32

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Crops

viod from the second ink it appears that refrigeration is about atmospheric exposure and temperature control for freshness extending.

Under CA conditions, many products can be stored for 2 to 4 times longer than usual.

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#175 2015-09-07 12:42:47

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Crops

Well my people havn't been proper farmers for at least 2 maybe 3 generations.  All I see is 2 to 4 times as long, and I can understand clean sand, and CO2, but the rest is blah..blah...blah to me, so I will from here defer to people with better common sense about it.  I just though I would present it for review, since it was a reference I recalled from long ago, and there seems to be active use of it as spoken of on the net.

smile


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