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By roads I mean cleared trails - basically free of rocks, boulders, and drifts of sand and with rock borders either side that will enable robot rovers to self-navigate along, as well human-driven rovers of course.
I have identified the following as potentially key highways:
Chryse Planitia to Valles Marineris
Valles Marineris to Olympus Mons
Chryse Planitia to Deuteronilus Mensae
Chryse Planitia to Utopia Planitia
Chryse Planitia to Hellas Planitia
Chryse Planitia to Argyre Planitia
Utopia Planitia to Elysium Planitia
Elysium Planitia to Olympus Mons via Amazonis Planitia
Amazonis Planitia to Arcadia Planitia
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Road go from wherever the base is--and we don't know that yet--to where there are resources and areas of scientific interest, and we don't know where the resources are.
In my novel, one of the first trails they cleared was the "Circumnavigational"; it went all the way around in the "tropical" zone and many of the other roads went off of it. Later, there were similar latitudinal circle trails at 30-40 degrees north and south. One longitudinal trail went from Argyre through Chryse to the north polar terrains. That's a natural geographical route, I think.
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I think a circumnavigational route makes sense in terms of exploration and garnering required resources. I did wonder about a route to the polar region. Apart from water - available at lower latitudes - I don't think there is a strong argument for heading into polar regions. I think the roads would cross plains and follow valley bottoms. Topography and water suggests we will be focussed in the northern hemisphere.
I am banging the drum for Chryse Planitia as our landing zone so that is influencing my thoughts on roads.
Road go from wherever the base is--and we don't know that yet--to where there are resources and areas of scientific interest, and we don't know where the resources are.
In my novel, one of the first trails they cleared was the "Circumnavigational"; it went all the way around in the "tropical" zone and many of the other roads went off of it. Later, there were similar latitudinal circle trails at 30-40 degrees north and south. One longitudinal trail went from Argyre through Chryse to the north polar terrains. That's a natural geographical route, I think.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Going with a straight road may not be the best approach to any roads created as we will not only need to contend with the obsticles which we can not clear but also the grade or pitch to any given area that we will or would want to connect to gether for resource development. There may be canyons and mountains to go around so we will not only need to pre-map a terrain from orbit but also look at what are the resource to gain for make a road through an area. We will also need to be sure that we stay away from underground hazards which we can not see and going to far north or south out of the temperate zone.
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Another aspect of road clear is that the path taken also removes soft sandy areas from the travel route as well lessoning the hazard of getting stuck.
The equipment sent also needs to be able to move a missed landing sites lander to where we would want it to be as all by itself it will not give much reuse capability after being emptied and is a waste of transportation as well as resources if left in use in the location that is not part of the central grouping.
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I would have thought a small rocket hopper with a go-pro cam attached would be the quickest way to recce ahead.
Going with a straight road may not be the best approach to any roads created as we will not only need to contend with the obsticles which we can not clear but also the grade or pitch to any given area that we will or would want to connect to gether for resource development. There may be canyons and mountains to go around so we will not only need to pre-map a terrain from orbit but also look at what are the resource to gain for make a road through an area. We will also need to be sure that we stay away from underground hazards which we can not see and going to far north or south out of the temperate zone.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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For recce we only need a tiny drone with a camera and very big rotors.
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Has anyone demonstrated such a craft in Mars-analogue pressure? Seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. But if it can be done, that's great.
For recce we only need a tiny drone with a camera and very big rotors.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Rocket hopper unit is dependant of a fuel other than methane lox as power and resource are better used at the habitat.
The jury is still out on helicopter drone use for mars. I seems within the limits of capability but we do not know for sure as the design numbers are close.
The current rovers use a pole cam to do the scouting ahead but its limited to its height of its design...a taller pole would give a greater viewing range but that is more landed mass to see if its in the budget of a mars landing.
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Where road clearing is concerned, we already can map the Martian surface down to the meter range and pretty soon we can map it to the 10 centimeter range. Multiple images from different angles will give us three-d. I suspect in 20 years a computer program can be written to select a potential route that avoids crater rims, dunes, and boulder fields, and avoids many very large boulders. With GPS, the astronauts would just follow the preselected route, making any spontaneous, necessary diversions if the mapping data proves inadequate. It may be volunteers could create the potential routes as well.
There will be two types of routes: routes that go from geological feature to geological feature, and therefore will zigzag, and long-distance routes, which will be as short and straight as the terrain allows. The latter can be steadily improved. The former might set off from the long distance route, then return to it, or the former might be the first cut and later developments will straighten the trails to produce a long-distance trail.
In my novel, they started out with "traces" that went from geological site to geological site; upgraded them to trails; widened and smoothed them to become dirt "highways" that vehicles could drive down automatically at up to 45 miles per hour (the speed limit on the gravel "Alaska Highway" to Prudhoe Bay, by the way); then then used an big automated machine to extrude a metal highway surface from a big tank of metal carbonyl. The metal highway had built in methane and oxygen pipelines, so that solar farms and wind turbines could be sited along the highway where water wells could provide a water source that the electricity could convert to methane and oxygen via the Sabatier process. This allowed the various Mars bases to have an "energy grid" and meant stranded vehicles always had an oxygen supply nearby.
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I think you are probably right Rob. Some of us are probably still taken with the romance of exploration but you could probably have robot rovers clearing road trails based on such global 3D imaging with no human intervention at all.
I like your methane power network vision. Obviously at that point the colony needs to have a pretty sizeable industrial base to be able to achieve that since you are talking about millions of tonnes of "stuff" but sounds like the right way to go eventually.
BTW one way to avoid unnecessary resource use on Mars would be to avoid nearly all road signage. Instead once we have a GPS system, "signs" could be delivered directly to robot computers as the robot moves along or could be delivered as audio messages to human drivers/passengers.
Where road clearing is concerned, we already can map the Martian surface down to the meter range and pretty soon we can map it to the 10 centimeter range. Multiple images from different angles will give us three-d. I suspect in 20 years a computer program can be written to select a potential route that avoids crater rims, dunes, and boulder fields, and avoids many very large boulders. With GPS, the astronauts would just follow the preselected route, making any spontaneous, necessary diversions if the mapping data proves inadequate. It may be volunteers could create the potential routes as well.
There will be two types of routes: routes that go from geological feature to geological feature, and therefore will zigzag, and long-distance routes, which will be as short and straight as the terrain allows. The latter can be steadily improved. The former might set off from the long distance route, then return to it, or the former might be the first cut and later developments will straighten the trails to produce a long-distance trail.
In my novel, they started out with "traces" that went from geological site to geological site; upgraded them to trails; widened and smoothed them to become dirt "highways" that vehicles could drive down automatically at up to 45 miles per hour (the speed limit on the gravel "Alaska Highway" to Prudhoe Bay, by the way); then then used an big automated machine to extrude a metal highway surface from a big tank of metal carbonyl. The metal highway had built in methane and oxygen pipelines, so that solar farms and wind turbines could be sited along the highway where water wells could provide a water source that the electricity could convert to methane and oxygen via the Sabatier process. This allowed the various Mars bases to have an "energy grid" and meant stranded vehicles always had an oxygen supply nearby.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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‘Like the Wild West’: Who owns the moon and what’s up there?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/wild-we … 5b7of.html
Economics of it would it make sense to just allow a track or path to develop naturally? Eventually people will see a Big Rock as in the way, it might be moved or Blasted on Mars, creation of more Dust could create problems on the Moon it maybe will be too risky to blast as you will perhaps be throwing / blasting Debris into Low Lunar Orbit.
I think roads and paths might develop naturally at first, Urban or Village planning might matter little and people will do their own thing at first. Eventually a Network of Roads might form like you have at science and mine and research and production facility near the North Pole or more interesting maybe the tourist sites near villages on the top of the highest mountains or the paths and building and roads built at Antarctic, the Australian Casey Station, the French Dumont d'Urville Station, the Japanese Showa Station, New Zealand's Scott Base, the Korean Jang Bogo Station, the Spanish Gabriel de Castilla Base, China's Great Wall Station, the United States Wilkes Station, McMurdo Station is a hub for other goods and machine parts and services and becomes a big network of roads. Chile and Argentina made an effort to try and colonize the place build towns in the South Pole but their claims are unrecognized. Once something is walked across a few times a natural track or path appears, it happens with Deer or Fox Rabbit or Dingos, maybe it won't be an animal or human but the Robots that make the first trail, also known as paths on Mars. Animals created the first trails on Earth, which were "later adapted by humans", maybe it will be the AI explorer Machine making the first path on Mars, a human then might drive or bring ores or water. Subsequently, and similar on Earth farmers followed the pats already made and moved cattle to market along drove roads and between winter and summer grazing creating trails, the Mars life might even be Nomadic following the warm Sun. On Mars guys walking around with spacesuit and exposure to the outside will be limited, it would waste energy, perhaps many of the buildings linked, terraced homes and buildings, sky walkway, covered bridges, an open door in a wall connects with another home, a Subway underneath like a Channel Tunnel that links South England to the North of France, foot tunnel another path.
How Have Bhutan’s Roads Developed over Time?
https://www.culturalworld.org/how-have- … r-time.htm
'When it comes to roadways, Bhutan might be a late-starter, but now the rest of the world is playing catch-up. Since 2015, the tiny South Asian nation has been recycling its plastic by using it to blacktop the country's roads. It's an impressive feat, especially considering that Bhutan didn't even have paved roads until 1962.'
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-06 14:17:44)
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Trail and Rail before roads?
Svalbard the Norwegian archipelago with part of it rented by the Soviets and Russians.
With fewer than 3,000 inhabitants in four communities, plus some smaller meteorological and scientific outposts, there are no communities connected by road. Off-road motorized transport is prohibited on bare ground, but snowmobiles are used extensively during winter.
Narrow-gauge mining railways used to operate at a number of locations, most railways have been abandoned, but the one at Barentsburg was reported as still functional in 2008.
http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/norway03.htm
maybe the trail and railways will help build the motor ways
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