Where on Mars do you think the first Human colony would be placed...

martienne · 2015-10-12 08:54:20

...and why?

What are the main factors to consider, in your view, and which location best fits your criteria?

Void · 2015-10-12 10:57:17

I don't like the word colony, but most use it.

Around the equator, if it seems true that are small amounts of water.

A relatively kind environment. The rest of Mars has some very brutal seasons (Winters), which humans will want to avoid, until they have oodles of material goods/machines to help them on the surface of Mars.

RobertDyck · 2015-10-12 11:46:45

My criteria:
- flat and smooth, to make landing safe. There is ice in the side walls of canyons at mid-latitudes, but landing in a canyon is not safe.
- close to the equator, because it's warm. And to provide consistent sunlight through the year. Within an arctic circle, there will be months with continuous sunlight during the summer, and continuous dark in winter. At mid latitudes that won't happen, but daylight will be long during summer and short during winter. Whether you plan for an ambient light greenhouse or photovoltaic arrays, sunlight is important.
- low altitude because that means more atmosphere over your head for radiation protection. Preferably below the datum. Ideal is 2km below the datum, which means the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin in the north hemisphere, or the bottom of Hellas Basin.
- ready access to lots of water.
- ready access to other resources, although you'll never find everything in one spot. Useful resources:
... hematite concretions: rich iron ore
... anorthite or bytownite: types of feldspar that can dissolve in acid, and can be processed to produce aluminum. Note: common Mars regolith is about 1/4 bytownite.
... white silica sand: can be melted to form glass. However, processing feldspar for aluminum will produce silica gel as a byproduct. That can be calcinated then melted to form glass instead.
... potash: potassium salt, fertilizer for greenhouse, needed for either soil or hydroponics. Found at the bottom of a dried-up ocean basin, or dried-up salt-water sea. Could be found at the bottom of a pool on the coast that became isolated from the sea.
... thorium: fuel for nuclear reactor. Mars Global Surveyor looked for thorium, found it at high altitude dry locations, not the bottom of a sea.

The "frozen pack ice" found in Elysium Planitia looks ideal. It has everything but thorium. It's at 5° north latitude, so warm for Mars. Estimates by the European Space Agency are that it's 800km by 900km and on average 45 metres (148 ft) deep. That makes it larger than the North Sea. To put it in North American terms, it's larger than all the Great Lakes combined, in both surface area and water volume. NASA shrugged it off as lava, but detailed study by ESA shows it isn't lava. It was formed about 2 million years ago by volcanic activity melting permafrost in the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin. Water pooled, then froze. I would recommend landing on the coast of this pack ice, not on the ice itself. Exhaust from landing rockets could melt the ice, causing the hab to sink in. At the coast you could run a hose to the ice, and melt some for water. Since this is the bottom of the ocean basin, it won't just be salty sea water, it will be highly concentrated brine. A reverse osmosis filter will desalinate that. There should be potash deposits somewhere in the area; perhaps the ice itself will have potassium salt.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2015-10-12 11:53:50)

SpaceNut · 2015-10-12 11:47:40

The explorer that lands for a mission will have science first and habitation to stay as a second to going.

The colonist going to stay is about survival of crew in the environment that is not forgiving at all and will have science as second to that condition.

The question is can just one site be and do both conditions spliting the crew to both actiities?

Void · 2015-10-12 14:44:47

martienne,
Please have patience. I presume by your question, you do not expect me to provide the ultimate and perfect answer.
I will render a further opinion instead.
Per RobertDyck: Lovely photo. I want that to be a frozen sea also. I would love you to humilate me and prove that it is. Maybe it is, hope so. But, I see craters, they are bowl shaped, and not "Splosh" or "Yuty". Darn!
Science, then habitation. Sounds temporary. Well, science might be most of what would pay the bill though. I'm not going to argue that much. I have seen what people have said previously on that.
I have been looking at it again, and I am going to make an argument for equatorial sand dunes.
They might be composed of Basalt, meteoric metals (Iron, Nickel), salts, water. They might be 3D printed into things. More on this later.
There are various features on Mars that are Ubiquitous, Unique, for avoidance, and desirable.
For avoidance, I think Robert has made a good list, it includes long high latitude winters. I agree.
Ubiquitous features include moisture, and meteor materials and salts in the soils and CO2 and Nitrogen and Argon in the Atmosphere.
So, we will want the equator, where we can get avoidance of nasty winters, moisture in the soil, meteor materials, salts. The equator will also allow access to CO2, N2, and Argon.
I had thought that sandstone was a unique equatorial feature of value, and it might be, but I am now thinking that sand dunes are much more the deal.
First of all you must have two likely situations. Either the matrials can be shovelled into a wheel barrow (Or whatever), or they are glued together with ice. If they are glued together with ice (Unlikely at the equator) thats so sad No, thats so good (But unlikely).
But the "Sand" can be processed to extrace meteoric grains, maybe salts, and Silica? (I hope, don't know how), and finally the remainder can be mixed into a glue for 3D printing.

Further such sand dune material may be better for making mineral wool, so to make fiberglass of sorts, again with a resin/glue. This has been recommended as a construction material on Mars by others.

If not mixed into a glue, perhaps it can be sintered into objects by high heat, perhaps solar heat?
As for science, perhaps the layering in the dunes can yield core samples that could give information on climate variability. This would be quite usefull to the settlers anyway.
As for the salts, I hope they can be extracted, I hope that there might be a bit of some special minerals in those salts.

References:
Water in the soil;
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/tech/inno … ars-water/

Scoop up some soil on Mars, heat it up, cool down the steam and ... slurp, slurp! You've got water!
Mars might appear dry as a desert, but astronauts may someday be able to tap its soil to quench their thirst. Research recently published suggests that the soil from the Martian surface contains about 2% water by weight.
This is one of several insights emerging from data that the Mars rover Curiosity has been collecting. Five studies in the journal Science were published last week based on data from the rover's first 100 days on the Red Planet.
"The community was surprised that there was a large amount of water trapped in the ... Martian soil," said Chris Webster, manager of NASA's Planetary Sciences Instruments Office.

Meteoric Materials;
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 … 7/abstract

Abstract
The addition of meteoritic material to the Mars soils should perturb their chemical compositions, as has been detected for soils on the Moon [Anders et al., 1973] and sediments on Earth [Kyte and Wasson, 1986]. Using the measured mass influx at Earth and estimates of the Mars/Earth flux ratio, we estimate the continuous, planet-wide meteoritic mass influx on Mars to be between 2700 and 59,000 t/yr. If distributed uniformly into a soil with a mean planetary production rate of 1 m/b.y., consistent with radar estimates of the soil depth overlaying a bouldered terrain in the Tharsis region [Christensen, 1986], our estimated mass influx would produce a meteoritic concentration in the Mars soil ranging from 2 to 29% by mass. Analysis of the Viking X ray fluorescence data indicates that the Mars soil composition is inconsistent with typical basaltic rock fragments but can be fit by a mixture of 60% basaltic rock fragments and 40% meteoritic material [Clark and Baird, 1979]. The meteoritic influx we calculate is sufficient to provide most or all of the material required by the Clark and Baird [1979] model. Particles in the mass range from 10−7 to 10−3 g, about 60–200 μm in diameter, contribute 80% of the total mass flux of meteoritic material in the 10−13 to 106 g mass range at Earth [Hughes, 1978]. On Earth atmospheric entry all but the smallest particles (generally ≤ 50 μm in diameter) in the 10−7 to 10−3 g mass range are heated sufficiently to melt or vaporize. Mars, because of its lower escape velocity and larger atmospheric scale height, is a much more favorable site for unmelted survival of micrometeorites on atmospheric deceleration. We calculate that a significant fraction of particles throughout the 60–1200 μm diameter range will survive Mars atmospheric entry unmelted. Thus returned Mars soils may offer a resource for sampling micrometeorites in a size range which is not collectable in unaltered form at Earth.

I will confess, I am not entirely confident with the references. I am not sure how easy it is to liberate the water. They used a very high heat. However, other reading on it suggests that not all the water needs such a heating.

As for the meteoric materials, not all of it would be Iron/Nickel, and of course some that is will have deteriorated, however, I hope that enough will be magnetic so that it can be separated off and further processed into metal.

It is also possible that if bans on visiting "Wet" places are still in place that this might be a good option to settle Mars and yet avoid those sites. Not sure that that will happen, but it might.

Now if I dune happened to be near some nice deposit of a metal of some other useful substance, that would be very nice.

I would follow this path, until exploration indicated that there was a better option.

One dune could 3D print or Fiberglass a lot of building materials.

Otherwise, looking at the stony ground that the rovers reveal, I would hate to try to dig in that stuff honestly. It must be very tightly packed.

Last edited by Void (2015-10-12 14:59:01)

louis · 2015-10-12 16:23:03

A very good analysis, RD. I think you have listed all the desiderata and your location sounds good to me, subjected to verification of the availability of water ice.

RobertDyck wrote:

My criteria:
- flat and smooth, to make landing safe. There is ice in the side walls of canyons at mid-latitudes, but landing in a canyon is not safe.
- close to the equator, because it's warm. And to provide consistent sunlight through the year. Within an arctic circle, there will be months with continuous sunlight during the summer, and continuous dark in winter. At mid latitudes that won't happen, but daylight will be long during summer and short during winter. Whether you plan for an ambient light greenhouse or photovoltaic arrays, sunlight is important.
- low altitude because that means more atmosphere over your head for radiation protection. Preferably below the datum. Ideal is 2km below the datum, which means the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin in the north hemisphere, or the bottom of Hellas Basin.
- ready access to lots of water.
- ready access to other resources, although you'll never find everything in one spot. Useful resources:
... hematite concretions: rich iron ore
... anorthite or bytownite: types of feldspar that can dissolve in acid, and can be processed to produce aluminum. Note: common Mars regolith is about 1/4 bytownite.
... white silica sand: can be melted to form glass. However, processing feldspar for aluminum will produce silica gel as a byproduct. That can be calcinated then melted to form glass instead.
... potash: potassium salt, fertilizer for greenhouse, needed for either soil or hydroponics. Found at the bottom of a dried-up ocean basin, or dried-up salt-water sea. Could be found at the bottom of a pool on the coast that became isolated from the sea.
... thorium: fuel for nuclear reactor. Mars Global Surveyor looked for thorium, found it at high altitude dry locations, not the bottom of a sea.
The "frozen pack ice" found in Elysium Planitia looks ideal. It has everything but thorium. It's at 5° north latitude, so warm for Mars. Estimates by the European Space Agency are that it's 800km by 900km and on average 45 metres (148 ft) deep. That makes it larger than the North Sea. To put it in North American terms, it's larger than all the Great Lakes combined, in both surface area and water volume. NASA shrugged it off as lava, but detailed study by ESA shows it isn't lava. It was formed about 2 million years ago by volcanic activity melting permafrost in the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin. Water pooled, then froze. I would recommend landing on the coast of this pack ice, not on the ice itself. Exhaust from landing rockets could melt the ice, causing the hab to sink in. At the coast you could run a hose to the ice, and melt some for water. Since this is the bottom of the ocean basin, it won't just be salty sea water, it will be highly concentrated brine. A reverse osmosis filter will desalinate that. There should be potash deposits somewhere in the area; perhaps the ice itself will have potassium salt.
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Ely … _large.jpg

louis · 2015-10-12 16:30:26

martienne wrote:

...and why?
What are the main factors to consider, in your view, and which location best fits your criteria?

I think that the first landing site ought to be considered as the foundation for a colony. The more ISRU we can undertake, the less we have to carry to Mars, so it makes sense to begin as we should continue.

So the principle I think has to be to find a location which will allow us to maximise ISRU - with good solar radiation, water, iron ore, basalt and silica being top priorities.

martienne · 2015-10-13 08:39:04

I am in awe of RobertDyck's and Void's responses.
Will have to read and re-read before I can say anything remotely on par with your excellent posts.
Thanks both!

SpaceNut · 2015-10-18 22:12:46

follow the water Column: If he can find water on Mars, so can you

Void · 2015-10-19 09:14:16

I am not quite done on this it would seem.

I would like to make peace with RobertDyck.

He champions the frozen sea. I am not sure about that.

I proposed sand dunes, for the reason that the dust gets blown around all over the planet, so it is supposedly rather similar all over, but not necessarily available at all locations. However, I have seen lots of recent literature that indicates that ancient buried ice may exist still.

Maybe I am willing to entertain the notion that outflows might have left behind pockets at least, perhaps only as frozen aquifers? I am just saying I don't dismiss the idea, but to use it you have to actually get it into your possession.

Those little damp spots, might indicate buried ice or aquifers below, so that might be a good way.

Where radar can find significant buried ice at some locations, I wonder if some type of sensor might find brine pockets that are not flowing down hills. A damp spot that looks dry on the surface?

Anyway, with speculations that run all the way from the traditional "The equator has no buried ice and aquifers must be very deep", all the way to the speculation that "the northern hemisphere is deeply coated with sediments including massive amounts of ice even down to the Equator".

Even that the Rift Valley might have 1/2 to 1 1/2 mile deep buried ancient ice.

With all that I do not want to "Dampen" RobertDyck's thinking.

But maybe there could be a compromise. Perhaps significant buried and accessible ice pockets exist near significant dunes, and then we could have it all.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 … anets.html

Dunes:
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/sanddunes … iUCRDiFPIU
Even small sand dunes might increase the value of a site:
http://www.geek.com/science/curiosity-w … k-1583978/
A "Splosh" crater, not that close to the Equator? I think Tom introduced this one.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2015/0 … e-on-mars/

I know NASA currently disapproves of sand dunes because they like to eat their rovers, but I see a small one in the link above.

The reason I am so interested in sand dunes, is I speculate that the processing of their content into desired materials might lend itself to scalable automation.

Eventually machines that eat (Shovel or vacuum it in) sand dunes, and leave behind material concentrates, and built structures. If necessary, water might be extracted from them. Automation increases profits, and profits are the difference between suffering and death vs prosperity.

So, I have tried to bond such a notion to what RobertDyck apparently hopes for, to increase unity of purpose.

So then a rip mended perhaps.

Last edited by Void (2015-10-19 09:24:50)

SpaceNut · 2015-10-19 19:07:38

Robotic missions aid in-situ resource identification for human Mars missions

NASA has identified a potential landing site for its anticipated 2030s and 2040s human surface missions to Mars

The potential landing site – dubbed “Site A” – is inside Jezero Crater, which is located in the Syrtis Major quadrangle.
Now, Jezero Crater is considered the primary contender for the landing site of Curiosity’s bigger cousin, the Mars 2020 rover.
The current list of potential Mars 2020 landing sites include, Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater, Eberswalde Crater, Holden Crater, Jezero Crater, Mawrth Vallis, the Northeastern region of Syrtis Major Planum, Nili Fossae, and the Southwestern region of Melas Chasma.

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-10-20 13:54:59

RobertDyck wrote:

My criteria:
- flat and smooth, to make landing safe. There is ice in the side walls of canyons at mid-latitudes, but landing in a canyon is not safe.

I think if we are to establish a colony, we can land a rover to where its safe and then move the rover to someplace interesting to explore, and find or prepare an flat landing site where further ships can land and establish a colony. Rockets are very precise, they can home in on radar beams, and if there is a preprepared landing site, they can land amid any sort of terrain, even in or among canyons., just get some initial rovers their, and further landings will be much easier.

RobertDyck wrote:

- close to the equator, because it's warm. And to provide consistent sunlight through the year. Within an arctic circle, there will be months with continuous sunlight during the summer, and continuous dark in winter. At mid latitudes that won't happen, but daylight will be long during summer and short during winter. Whether you plan for an ambient light greenhouse or photovoltaic arrays, sunlight is important.
- low altitude because that means more atmosphere over your head for radiation protection. Preferably below the datum. Ideal is 2km below the datum, which means the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin in the north hemisphere, or the bottom of Hellas Basin.
- ready access to lots of water.
- ready access to other resources, although you'll never find everything in one spot. Useful resources:
... hematite concretions: rich iron ore
... anorthite or bytownite: types of feldspar that can dissolve in acid, and can be processed to produce aluminum. Note: common Mars regolith is about 1/4 bytownite.
... white silica sand: can be melted to form glass. However, processing feldspar for aluminum will produce silica gel as a byproduct. That can be calcinated then melted to form glass instead.
... potash: potassium salt, fertilizer for greenhouse, needed for either soil or hydroponics. Found at the bottom of a dried-up ocean basin, or dried-up salt-water sea. Could be found at the bottom of a pool on the coast that became isolated from the sea.
... thorium: fuel for nuclear reactor. Mars Global Surveyor looked for thorium, found it at high altitude dry locations, not the bottom of a sea.
The "frozen pack ice" found in Elysium Planitia looks ideal. It has everything but thorium. It's at 5° north latitude, so warm for Mars. Estimates by the European Space Agency are that it's 800km by 900km and on average 45 metres (148 ft) deep. That makes it larger than the North Sea. To put it in North American terms, it's larger than all the Great Lakes combined, in both surface area and water volume. NASA shrugged it off as lava, but detailed study by ESA shows it isn't lava. It was formed about 2 million years ago by volcanic activity melting permafrost in the bottom of the dried-up ocean basin. Water pooled, then froze. I would recommend landing on the coast of this pack ice, not on the ice itself. Exhaust from landing rockets could melt the ice, causing the hab to sink in. At the coast you could run a hose to the ice, and melt some for water. Since this is the bottom of the ocean basin, it won't just be salty sea water, it will be highly concentrated brine. A reverse osmosis filter will desalinate that. There should be potash deposits somewhere in the area; perhaps the ice itself will have potassium salt.
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Ely … _large.jpg

SpaceNut · 2015-10-20 21:04:36

Void wrote:

I know NASA currently disapproves of sand dunes because they like to eat their rovers, but I see a small one in the link above.
The reason I am so interested in sand dunes, is I speculate that the processing of their content into desired materials might lend itself to scalable automation.
Eventually machines that eat (Shovel or vacuum it in) sand dunes, and leave behind material concentrates, and built structures. If necessary, water might be extracted from them. Automation increases profits, and profits are the difference between suffering and death vs prosperity.

Sounds good to process the sand for water, but we have put in energy to do this process; so what would you do with it then? We must look at these secondary uses so as to not waste.
Depending on the chemical analysis we could make building blocks, glass and create the refined metals or chemicals for later use in other processes by further processing.

Void · 2015-10-20 22:34:49

My greatest desire is that we will cease contact.

But what you requested is incorporated into the previous posts I have made.

Presumably magnetism might separate some metallic content from metallic content.

I have no angst against you or your kin, friend, but I have found that even my most trusted. The ones who must hold to sacred trust are tainted.

I find my communications here compromised, and tainted. I am done here.

RobertDyck · 2015-10-21 08:25:02

Void wrote:

My greatest desire is that we will cease contact.
But what you requested is incorporated into the previous posts I have made.
Presumably magnetism might separate some metallic content from metallic content.
I have no angst against you or your kin, friend, but I have found that even my most trusted. The ones who must hold to sacred trust are tainted.
I find my communications here compromised, and tainted. I am done here.

What are you talking about?

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-10-21 10:13:57

RobertDyck wrote:

Void wrote:
My greatest desire is that we will cease contact.
But what you requested is incorporated into the previous posts I have made.
Presumably magnetism might separate some metallic content from metallic content.
I have no angst against you or your kin, friend, but I have found that even my most trusted. The ones who must hold to sacred trust are tainted.
I find my communications here compromised, and tainted. I am done here.
What are you talking about?

I have not a clue. If he doesn't want to contact us, he can simply not post! I do not believe I have any reason to send him any personal e-mails, do you?

SpaceNut · 2015-10-21 19:12:32

I had missed the second part of the post by

Void wrote:

I know NASA currently disapproves of sand dunes because they like to eat their rovers, but I see a small one in the link above.
The reason I am so interested in sand dunes, is I speculate that the processing of their content into desired materials might lend itself to scalable automation.
Eventually machines that eat (Shovel or vacuum it in) sand dunes, and leave behind material concentrates, and built structures. If necessary, water might be extracted from them. Automation increases profits, and profits are the difference between suffering and death vs prosperity.

which has upset the cart.....from what I do read

But when I see the word Profit I say there are none until there is an item that Earth wants to export from Mars as any astronaut will not be sending anything back unless its on there person as any returning cargo is the property of the shipper as they will want the cost of the return vehicle paid before the crew could make any profit on there own goods returned for a profit back to the individual crew person........

SpaceNut · 2015-10-27 20:27:19

So back to choice places to put up shop from the start.

Where Should Humans Land on Mars? Workshop to Discuss Possibilities

NASA is at least two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet. There are already more than 40 proposed places on Mars where astronauts could land, set up habitats and explore. Scientists are also being asked to consider how easily astronauts can prospect for water, manipulate the soil for landing pads and roads, and possibly produce food. NASA plans to decide in the next decade how reliant early explorers will be on in-situ resource utilization. There are also engineering constraints. NASA wants sites to have blast zones for multiple cargo and crew landings, as well as crew liftoffs. All sites must be within +/- 50 degrees latitude of the Martian equator, and no greater or less than two kilometers in altitude from the planet’s average zero-elevation surface level.

RobertDyck · 2015-10-27 21:40:38

SpaceNut wrote:

So back to choice places to put up shop from the start.
NASA is at least two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet.

Any plans that require more than one presidential mandate, will never happen. Two decades ago we were two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet. Two decades from now we will still be two decades away. And two decades after that, we will still be two decades away. No progress.

Apollo was great, but killed by Nixon. The only reason Apollo was completed was Lyndon B. Johnson was the same party as JFK. VentureStar was started by Bill Clinton, but killed by George W. George W. started Constellation, cancelled by Obama. Congress resurrected key elements of Constellation, so Obama said he would use it for Asteroid Redirect Mission. Expect that will be killed by the next president. Actually, A.R.M. should die. We could go to Mars with SLS block 2B, if it gets built. Big "if".

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-10-28 07:17:35

RobertDyck wrote:

SpaceNut wrote:
So back to choice places to put up shop from the start.
NASA is at least two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet.
Any plans that require more than one presidential mandate, will never happen. Two decades ago we were two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet. Two decades from now we will still be two decades away. And two decades after that, we will still be two decades away. No progress.
Apollo was great, but killed by Nixon. The only reason Apollo was completed was Lyndon B. Johnson was the same party as JFK. VentureStar was started by Bill Clinton, but killed by George W. George W. started Constellation, cancelled by Obama. Congress resurrected key elements of Constellation, so Obama said he would use it for Asteroid Redirect Mission. Expect that will be killed by the next president. Actually, A.R.M. should die. We could go to Mars with SLS block 2B, if it gets built. Big "if".

Aren't you forgetting about President Ford?

What about Jimmy Carter, why didn't he restart the Apollo Program? He had a majority of Democrats in Congress, and he himself was of the same party as John F. Kennedy, so if the Democrats were so pro space, why didn't they restart the Apollo Program when they got back into power in 1977?

GW Johnson · 2015-10-28 11:02:15

It's not about party. It's about who's an enthusiast in a position of power, and it's about the politics-of-money.

JFK wasn't so much a space enthusiast, but his VP LBJ was. JFK was looking for a public demo of US superiority, and his VP suggested turning our lag in LEO space into a lead by going to the moon. It was all for propaganda value, which is why Apollo was mostly just a flags-and-footprints stunt. That's what JFK was after: a cold war propaganda coup.

LBJ succeeded JFK, and used the power of his presidency to continue the moon program for eight solid years, giving it the momentum to succeed. Nixon couldn't stop it entirely, but he did kill it prematurely. No president since has been a space enthusiast, and it kinda shows, don't it? It demonstrably has nothing to do with political parties: none of the succeeding presidents were space enthusiasts, Democrat or Republican. Period.

As for politics-of-money, that's the driving force for the conversion of a 1961-vintage space program into corporate welfare for "old big space" today. Without Musk's billions, Spacex would never have had a chance to break into the game, and the deck is still partly stacked against them. All that matters now is to keep shuttle-era businesses alive in important congressional districts, doing the same things they did for shuttle, with a bit of admixture from Apollo. That is the only reason that there is an SLS/Orion, resurrected from the previous welfare program Ares/Orion (Constellation). It's not about going anywhere or doing anything. Hasn't been for decades. Not since Apollo was cancelled in 1972.

Until that political evil (the corporate welfare state) is ended, there will be no real NASA manned mission to Mars. Doing a super-expensive trip to Mars without actually landing is the way they intend to kill it as a doable mission for the rest of the century, and just concentrate on giant corporate welfare.

The corporate welfare state of which I speak goes far beyond NASA. It started out as the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned about, of which the space program was then a tiny piece. This shows up in the perpetual wars we have been fighting. Nothing is so profitable as war for the weapons industry, and you don't have to win to profit from it. Anybody else notice that pattern? It has since spread into energy and banking, and far more. In it, government's sole remaining function is to pick the people's pockets to keep the giants-that-own-government rich.

You want men on Mars? Find a way to break that corporate welfare state. Otherwise they will find a way to block or sabotage any private efforts to send men there. Dennis Tito's flyby mission was destroyed when he gave it NASA for lack of money. Giant Boeing gets to buy Russian rocket engines that work, small fry Orbital Sciences doesn't. So, Orbital and ATK combine as a better chance to join the club of giants. There's a real pattern here.

GW

RobertDyck · 2015-10-28 11:12:43

I responded to Tom in Primary space politics. I recommend any political discussion move there.

louis · 2015-10-29 06:11:33

Useful map showing abundance of water on Mars.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/treiman … ater_2.jpg

If that means there is water at the two Valles Marineris sites (East and Equatorial) I think they would be interesting places to start out.

I don't think we should risk anything on a first mission i.e. would have to take our water with us, but we can prospect for water on the first mission.

Marineris City would make for a nice name for the first colony as well.

SpaceNut wrote:

So back to choice places to put up shop from the start.
Where Should Humans Land on Mars? Workshop to Discuss Possibilities
NASA is at least two decades away from sending astronauts to another planet. There are already more than 40 proposed places on Mars where astronauts could land, set up habitats and explore. Scientists are also being asked to consider how easily astronauts can prospect for water, manipulate the soil for landing pads and roads, and possibly produce food. NASA plans to decide in the next decade how reliant early explorers will be on in-situ resource utilization. There are also engineering constraints. NASA wants sites to have blast zones for multiple cargo and crew landings, as well as crew liftoffs. All sites must be within +/- 50 degrees latitude of the Martian equator, and no greater or less than two kilometers in altitude from the planet’s average zero-elevation surface level.
http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/asset … ne-map.jpg

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-10-29 07:16:56

Is there any way to prospect for water using drones? A thought occurred to me, what if Astronauts spend some time in Low Mars Orbit operating drones drilling for water, and if they find some, they land at that site? One can land multiple drones at multiple sites, the astronauts can operate each one in real time in turn, and where ever they find the most water, they actually land. Today's drone technology means that astronauts can accomplish a lot from orbit. If there is no water, we;; they are only drones, they can be abandoned, no harm no foul!

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2015-10-29 07:20:32)

RobertDyck · 2015-10-29 12:48:41

To prospect for water, you need to drill. Curiosity has a drill, but it only cuts a few inches. In 2003, the president of the Canadian Space Agency pushed an idea for a Canadian Mars rover. The rover would be about the size of Spirit or Opportunity, but carry a multi-segment core drill. The CSA funded a mining organization to develop the drill. It was a dry drill, no lubricant, and used an electric motor. Slow, but practical for space. They demonstrated the prototype at a symposium hosted by CSA. A news article about it here, complete with pictures of the prototype. It would have 1 metre long segments, with 10 segments, so it could drill up to 10 metres deep. The president of the CSA at the time talked about sample handling and analysis instruments on the back, and hoped to get NASA and ESA to contribute instruments. Unfortunately, Canadian parliament did not approve funding.

Here is an artist's impression of CanaDrill, although it's on a Phoenix style Mars lander rather than a rover. Notice the rotary holder with multiple drill segments.
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And photographs of the real prototype. It drilled through rocks in a box, packed to simulate Mars rocks. It included large rocks, gravel, sand, clay. Hard rocks and soft. At the symposium, the project manager said they set the drill to run automatically, it took hours but drilled through everything, and even drilled through the plywood bottom of the box.

A rover can explore a kilometre or so radius. Spirit and Opportunity had a top speed of 50 mm/s (millimetres per second), with an average of 10 mm/s with hazard avoidance system. That average is 0.036 km/h or 0.02237 miles per hour. Gets the job done, but you won't go far. To explore farther, I suggest a balloon.

There were ideas for a Mars balloon. Black in colour, with a weighted rope, this balloon would heat up and float during the day, cool and descend at night. The weighted rope assured a soft landing. As the rope touched the ground, that much weight would no longer be supported by the balloon, so slow its descent. This rope could have instruments to sample soil. This is a passive system to explore multiple locations. But it wouldn't be able to take underground samples.

I suggest an active system. With a gondola to control the balloon, and a rope to suspend the rover. Curiosity had a skycrane, I'm suggesting a balloon. The rope from gondola to rover would never be cut. The balloon would set the rover down, then the gondola itself would touch down. The rover would explore the distance of the rope from gondola to rover, and drill core samples. When done, the balloon would lift off, picking up the rover as it does so. The gondola would have an active system to fly to a different location. Perhaps more like a blimp than a hot air balloon.

This wouldn't be controlled from Mars orbit. It takes multiple hours or days to fly from one location to another. And multiple hours to drill one core sample. So this would be controlled from JPL. Or from Canadian Space Agency headquarters, if Parliament ever approves funding.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2015-11-05 05:10:46)

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