Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

louis · 2017-05-09 15:52:23

I agree. A sojourn on Mars in confined and demanding circumstances is going to be a high stress experience, however rewarding in terms of one's celebrity status and place in history. We need people with the right pyschological make up...

elderflower wrote:

Many years of work will be needed before your one way trip to mars becomes anything other than a suicide mission, Dook. In the meantime we must allow for return missions, otherwise we shall get too many headcases wanting to go and we shan't be able to eliminate them all. The combination of loonies and a bit of cabin fever will certainly lead to trouble, if not total mission failure.

RobertDyck · 2017-05-09 16:28:45

Dook wrote:

I don't know basic smelting? No, I have people in China do that for me.

Mars doesn't have a direct link to China. If you don't know how to do anything, stay out of the way.

Dook wrote:

NASA promised you that they would send humans to Mars? Your taxes don't contribute to NASA's funding. They'll go when they are ready. They're not ready yet.

You don't understand the basics. First, yes it does. My taxes fund the Canadian Space Agency, and they provide funding for joint missions. For example, Canada provided an instrument on the Mars Phoenix lander. Canadian taxes paid for that instrument. And several years ago Canada approached NASA asking them to cooperate on a new radar satellite to map ice in Canada's arctic. NASA said it couldn't be done, so CSA said fine, we'll do it ourselves. Years later they came back to NASA saying the satellite was finished, offered NASA 30% of observation time on the satellite if they would launch it. NASA sent the specifications to the US military, who said the military doesn't have any satellite that can do this. The Canadian satellite could track every ship on Earth by measuring the wake it leaves. So they said "No". Canada didn't complain, they just accepted that and said they would offer Russia the 30% observation time in exchange for launching it. 24 hours later NASA called back to say "When would you like it launched?" Today NASA still has 30% observation time on that radar satellite. Since then Canada built a second satellite, called RadarSat2, with even higher resolution. The deal was different, but NASA has access to that one too. NASA is currently using them to measure ice on Antarctica.

Canada did some work for Apollo. I could give a long winded explanation of that, but let's just say Canada contributed.

But the more important issue is what Apollo really was. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched a satellite on an R7 rocket. That rocket was their first ICBM. At that time America didn't have an ICBM, that was the world's first. The satellite just orbited making beeps on a radio frequency that ham radio operators could monitor, but the message was the Soviet Union could drop a nuclear bomb anywhere on the world. America scrambled to demonstrate they had at least as much technological capability. America tried to convince the world they had more and better technology, but in 1957 the Soviet Union demonstrated their superiority. The point of Apollo was to convince countries to ally with America. Part of the deal was a promise to send humans to Mars, and to colonize space. America has reneged on that commitment.

So don't give me some bullshit that this is an internal America-only issue.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-09 16:37:10

Dook wrote:

elderflower wrote:
Dook, Only half of the whatever year olds can be said to have won any war. The other half lost.
Young potentially fertile people should not be exposed on such a trip, due to the hazards of irradiation of gonads. It has to be people who have done any breeding they might want to do.
The point was that young people were not too inexperienced to face challenges and make decisions that affected the rest of their lives, and others lives.

I'll challenge this statement by saying that the 20 something year old combatants really didn't have much choice in matters, and the only decisions they were capable of making was when to go change their shorts after filling them up with shit--after being shot at. The real decisions were made by the 40-50 year old officers running things.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2017-05-09 16:37:45)

Dook · 2017-05-09 17:02:50

kbd512 wrote:

kbd512

Why am I stuck on what a 3D printer can't do? Because the only reason to have one on Mars is to make rocket engines, not fix life support equipment. That's an agenda that does not put the crews life first. That's a design that increases risk. I know people can't plan anything complicated without putting their agenda first. I've seen it too often. We all saw it with the 90 day report, so NASA engineers can't even eliminate their agenda. Zubrin wasn't smarter than NASA, he just put the mission to Mars first.

You could care less about the WAVAR because it puts out so little? The mini-Moxies produce small amounts of oxygen but small amounts are enough as long as you don't waste it on rocket fuel. That's why you need more water, you need to make a whole lot of rocket fuel on Mars.

There is as much water in every cubic foot of regolith as there are in thousands of kg of atmosphere? Water can only exist between 33-36 degrees F before it evaporates. So, there is no water on Mars near the surface except salt water. The pure ice is going to be deep.

The rovers say there is water in the regolith? They're saying there is ice, not water. The water vapor freezes at night then vaporizes again the next day.

Who cares if you have to shovel dirt into a bucket? But then you have to pressurize it to get water so that means a trip inside the habitat and each time you do that you lose some of your oxygen and pressure. That's like taking two steps forward and then two steps backwards. 90% of all water should be recycled anyway.

What we need is a large domed greenhouse that has a very strong foundation buried into the regolith to keep it from floating when pressurized. That alone would allow the regolith inside the dome to vent water vapor.

A 3D print head can probably be brought to a component to weld a crack? You could use the laser as a welding beam but it would take some practice. It takes months for welders to become proficient but it could be taught. I don't know that it could weld thin metal, like thin steel or aluminum tanks, maybe it could. Regular arc/mig/tig welders can't weld thin metal because it gets too hot and melts away as you weld. Metal has to be thick to be welded but I don't know if a 3D printer could do it.

Chips are 3D printed? You mean sprayed.

Move the printer to weld up a stripped hole on a component? Okay, but that would probably be a whole other machine, some kind of portable laser/sprayer that a human would use to attempt to weld up a stripped hole. The human would have to practice for months on the Earth on steel and aluminum before they became proficient. Why do that when all you have to do is install a helicoil?

Can we combine a laser with the Voxel 8 sprayer? I'm sure there are small 3D printers that have lasers. You picked the Voxel 8, it just sprays hot conductive ink. The point I was trying to make was that you and Louis were lumping all 3D printers into one and attempting to say that they could do a whole lot more than they really can. If they can't make or repair most of the life support equipment then their use is very limited.

If the shipped backup motherboard has the same defect as the one on the Mars Hab then you can make a new one with a 3D printer? Okay, but that's a one in a million. Every system would be checked before flight. With Apollo they had full sized Apollo vehicles at home to test.

You have a sealant compound that you can squirt through a nozzle and make any shape or size part you need? That's silicone, not synthetic rubber, and you can't make a perfect torus shape. O-rings have to be the correct size. If they are too small they won't seal. If they are too big they will get pulled out of their channel when the component (like the piston in an accumulator) moves and they will get cut and no longer seal.

The 3D printer would have blueprints for every component? It might be able to spray synthetic rubber into a new o-ring. I don't know if they can do that, maybe they can. Even if they can that's only a few of the life support equipment pieces they can make, it's not enough to justify taking one on the first mission. Once enough buried habitats have been built and growing plants is successful then we can try to establish some production, but the first focus is on survival.

How is resurfacing different than recycling? That's fine. Once we have enough buried habitats, many life support systems working well, and hydroponics growing plenty of food we can try to have some small production that recycles some of the old seals.

How much power do the rack and pinion motors use? Not a lot but it's extra complexity.

I threw this WAVAR idea out there? Zubrin published the idea of using a zeolite bed and a microwave to get water on Mars. Louis found the U of Washington WAVAR, not I. I just agree that it's the best idea so far for getting water on Mars.

And I did not claim they were wrong about the power requirement, I said something's not adding up. Don't act like you never get any of this stuff wrong, you thought the WAVAR used seed hydrogen.

I want to change the WAVAR? Yes, I want to remove the rack and pinion and keep the zeolite panels fixed in place inside a microwave and have fans blow and pull Mars atmosphere through the zeolite panels.

I think welding something that's moving is simple? In high school I took a welding class for two years. I learned arc, MIG, flux core, and a tiny bit of TIG welding. Normally, the item being welded doesn't move and the welder moves the rod. With a fixed 3D printer/laser you would have to move the item being welded because the 3D printer can't scan the item and determine on it's own where to weld and how much material to place.

On assembly lines robots move heavy pieces and install them correctly? Ask that robot to fix a crack and see what happens.

You can kick a robot and it will keep standing? That's great. Can it look at equipment and choose the correct action to fix it?

A robot that scoops dirt into a bin would get more water in a day than a WAVAR would in a month? I like that idea too, not the robot part though. If there was an aluminum cart with an access door, in the morning whenever the crew was outside the crew could pour in regolith and close the door. As the cart warmed up in the day the ice in the regolith would warm and evaporate. An internal vacuum pump in the cart could take in and compress the water vapor into a removable tank. The cart would have a lower regolith dump door that the crew would open to release the old regolith into a bucket and take it and dump it somewhere and get a new pile of dirt. Every once in a while the crew would remove the portable pressurized water vapor tank and take it inside the habitat to release it inside. A dehumidifier would condense the water vapor into water.

That idea is fine to get some water at first. Once you use up all the nearby regolith you have to keep going out farther and farther away from the base. After some time the regolith near the base would collect ice and could be processed again.

What is the amp-hour capacity of the Mars Hab batteries? Don't know.

For a rover to get where it's going faster than a human can walk it's going to need substantial battery storage? It would. What's the hurry? You guys are always in a hurry.

Have I seen any electric vehicles using lead-acid batteries for power? Don't know, I never asked them.

No passenger carrying electric vehicle made anywhere on the planet today uses lead-acid batteries? Have you ever seen a golf cart?

Autonomous cars are already scanning cracks and making decisions? They're scanning for objects but not identifying cracks, bends, and dirt smudges.

How much regolith can the Marscat move in one hour a day? Hmm, don't know. The front bucket would be 4 feet wide, about 1 foot deep. At first digging would be easy so maybe they could make 60 passes an hour for the first two weeks. Then as they got down they would hit permafrost and would have to let it heat up and evaporate, and they might hit rock, and they would have to drive the regolith up the side so they would be down to 40 or 30 passes an hour.

I'm not against using lithium-ion batteries in the Long Range Rover and Marscat if they don't have electrolyte in them during the space travel. The water can be added when they land on Mars while they are still in the Rover Hanger.

Dook · 2017-05-09 17:27:37

RobertDyck wrote:

Dook wrote:
I don't know basic smelting? No, I have people in China do that for me.
Mars doesn't have a direct link to China. If you don't know how to do anything, stay out of the way.
Dook wrote:
NASA promised you that they would send humans to Mars? Your taxes don't contribute to NASA's funding. They'll go when they are ready. They're not ready yet.
You don't understand the basics. First, yes it does. My taxes fund the Canadian Space Agency, and they provide funding for joint missions. For example, Canada provided an instrument on the Mars Phoenix lander. Canadian taxes paid for that instrument. And several years ago Canada approached NASA asking them to cooperate on a new radar satellite to map ice in Canada's arctic. NASA said it couldn't be done, so CSA said fine, we'll do it ourselves. Years later they came back to NASA saying the satellite was finished, offered NASA 30% of observation time on the satellite if they would launch it. NASA sent the specifications to the US military, who said the military doesn't have any satellite that can do this. The Canadian satellite could track every ship on Earth by measuring the wake it leaves. So they said "No". Canada didn't complain, they just accepted that and said they would offer Russia the 30% observation time in exchange for launching it. 24 hours later NASA called back to say "When would you like it launched?" Today NASA still has 30% observation time on that radar satellite. Since then Canada built a second satellite, called RadarSat2, with even higher resolution. The deal was different, but NASA has access to that one too. NASA is currently using them to measure ice on Antarctica.
Canada did some work for Apollo. I could give a long winded explanation of that, but let's just say Canada contributed.
But the more important issue is what Apollo really was. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched a satellite on an R7 rocket. That rocket was their first ICBM. At that time America didn't have an ICBM, that was the world's first. The satellite just orbited making beeps on a radio frequency that ham radio operators could monitor, but the message was the Soviet Union could drop a nuclear bomb anywhere on the world. America scrambled to demonstrate they had at least as much technological capability. America tried to convince the world they had more and better technology, but in 1957 the Soviet Union demonstrated their superiority. The point of Apollo was to convince countries to ally with America. Part of the deal was a promise to send humans to Mars, and to colonize space. America has reneged on that commitment.
So don't give me some bullshit that this is an internal America-only issue.

Mars doesn't have a direct link to China? When Mars actually needs Uhlfberht swords that will be a problem.

If I don't know how to do anything I should stay out of the way? Oh, another internet control freak who gets upset when someone has different ideas. Let me give you some real advice old man, if you can't keep your cool on the internet, don't use your real name and don't publish that you can be found at monthly public meetings.

I don't need to know how to do anything when I can just pay people to do those things for me.

I don't understand the basics? You mean like how to make swords on Mars? Those basics?

Your taxes fund the Canadian Space Agency? Wow. Thanks for the arm on the Space Shuttle. That was soooo incredibly important. You know that was just a nice little hand out to make you guys feel like you have a real space agency, right?

Canada built a wake observing satellite? We don't reveal our top secret satellite capability. It's okay that you guys up there "think" you invented it first. Why didn't you launch the satellite yourselves? Oh, you can't, that's why. But good job on the satellite anyway.

Canada did some work on Apollo? I'm sure you were the only people who could do it.

Part of the deal of Apollo was the promise to send humans to Mars and to colonize space and the US has not followed up with that? How many Canadians lost their lives in space travel? We don't owe you anything.

This is not a US only issue. Your country is free to conduct it's own Mars mission any time it wants to. I think we will be waiting a long, long, long time for that to happen. Libya will probably make it to Mars before you do.

SpaceNut · 2017-05-09 17:35:17

We need to go with people that have knowledge of experience which does come with age so a 30 - 50 range is expected as a mix of people to be crew members. I say this as the time delay of communications from Mars to earth , time to think and answer the call, followed by more timedelay for the message to be recieved is something that experience will need to begin working with long before the answer would be recieved from Earth.

Time delay between Mars and Earth

Mars is so far away in fact that it takes radio signals quite a long time to get from the spacecraft back to Earth. During Curiosity EDL, this delay will be 13 minutes, 48 seconds, about mid-way between the minimum delay of around 4 minutes and the maximum of around 24 minutes.

I am sure that we will have lots of stuff on computer or flash memory to go with all of the specifications for the equipment that we will need to be able to repair and maintain in addition to that already recieved knowlegde and training before going to mars as well..

SpaceNut · 2017-05-09 17:38:38

The canadian arm allows the dragon and others to be docked with the station plus it can do lots of other stuff in assisting the crews on EVA's. So it is an important contribution as a partner of the ISS.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-09 18:03:16

I'm also sure that our Canadian cousins will participate to their maximum extent possible. And that's a lot more valuable than Libya's contribution...

Dook · 2017-05-09 18:05:59

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Dook wrote:
elderflower wrote:
Dook, Only half of the whatever year olds can be said to have won any war. The other half lost.
Young potentially fertile people should not be exposed on such a trip, due to the hazards of irradiation of gonads. It has to be people who have done any breeding they might want to do.
The point was that young people were not too inexperienced to face challenges and make decisions that affected the rest of their lives, and others lives.
I'll challenge this statement by saying that the 20 something year old combatants really didn't have much choice in matters, and the only decisions they were capable of making was when to go change their shorts after filling them up with shit--after being shot at. The real decisions were made by the 40-50 year old officers running things.

The 20 year old combatants didn't have much choice? You always have a choice, and many of those 20 year olds volunteered for combat. We've had a volunteer military since after Vietnam.

The real decisions were made by the 40-50 year old officers? You mean like when Macarthur had 5 hours of warning after he was notified that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor but he did nothing and didn't have any of his fighter aircraft patrolling the skies and they were caught on the ground and destroyed?

Or when Macarthur spread his forces too thin and they could not hold their lines against the invading Japanese and so he lost the Philippines and ran away in a PT boat and abandoned his men to the Bataan Death March?

Or when Macarthur ignored warnings that North Korea was preparing to invade the south because he didn't care about Korea and thought he was the emperor of Japan?

Then, after US troops took back most of Korea Macarthur was told not to get too close to the Chinese border or they might invade and he didn't listen and lost North Korea because of it and now we have a crazy man in charge of it.

Or when the Army Air Corp was given an order to bomb across the front lines in WW2 France and a general changed the order and his bombers dropped bombs on US positions and killed about 200 soldiers?

Or do you mean when Omaha beach was a bloodbath and the other beaches were completely open with no resistance but General Bradley continued to land troops at Omaha beach and lost 5,000 troops on that beach alone?

Or do you mean the officers in Vietnam who did not move forward and capture territory like in previous wars but instead tried to fight a war of attrition?

Or do you mean the air force generals in Vietnam who wanted to inflate their mission totals so they would have one bomb put on each aircraft and endanger many pilots to bomb a target instead of putting six bombs on each aircraft and just taking a few aircraft?

Or do you mean when a US army colonel who commanded a tank battalion following behind the first units in the first Persian Gulf war went against his mission and ordered his tanks to turn to attack an air base. He gave the order to shoot people who were running away at night and killed two US soldiers because the air base had already been taken by the US and the colonel knew it but he didn't know if there was still US forces there or not and he just wanted to put on his promotion evaluation that he had captured an air base in combat. Is that what you mean?

Or do you mean when US Army General McChrystal gave the order for a small unit to take an indefensible town in Afghanistan that had three high peaks surrounding it and the Captain called back and advised that it was suicide and the General McChrystal said to stay anyway and they were attacked from the three high peaks and lost a soldier?

Is that the kind of experience and leadership you're talking about?

The 40-50 year old officers give orders to conduct a mission. The young LT's and Captain's participate in and give the orders on the mission.

SpaceNut · 2017-05-09 18:25:05

Dook the post # 259 is very much off topic and belongs elsewhere, please this is not a political topic and is not in that allowed for content forum subfolder area.......

Dook · 2017-05-09 19:19:25

SpaceNut wrote:

Dook the post # 259 is very much off topic and belongs elsewhere, please this is not a political topic and is not in that allowed for content forum subfolder area.......

Okay, sorry.

How is post #253 on topic?

RobertDyck · 2017-05-09 19:29:09

Dook wrote:

If I don't know how to do anything I should stay out of the way? Oh, another internet control freak who gets upset when someone has different ideas. Let me give you some real advice old man, if you can't keep your cool on the internet, don't use your real name and don't publish that you can be found at monthly public meetings.

Is that a threat? You realize a skilled IT person can trace back your IP address.

Dook wrote:

I don't need to know how to do anything when I can just pay people to do those things for me.

Mars doesn't have people you can hire for peanuts. You have to do everything yourself. If you can't, then you don't belong on Mars.

Dook wrote:

I don't understand the basics? You mean like how to make swords on Mars? Those basics?

Do you know how to make a hammer? How to make a screwdriver? How to make any tools? When your fancy stuff with "Made in China" stamped on them break, what are you going to do? Send an email for a replacement? From China, while you're on Mars? When your life support equipment breaks, and spare parts are on order but will take 26 months to get there (or 17 years by your schedule) how long can you hold your breath?

Dook wrote:

Your taxes fund the Canadian Space Agency? Wow. Thanks for the arm on the Space Shuttle. That was soooo incredibly important. You know that was just a nice little hand out to make you guys feel like you have a real space agency, right?

NASA wasn't able to design or build it. And you obviously forget, in 1961 NASA planned to land the Apollo CSM on the surface of the Moon. That's why the Service Module engine was so large. It was an engineer from Canada who proposed spitting it into Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and Mothership (CSM). That same engineer designed the landing legs for the LM. After the Kennedy administration pressured Canada to cancel the Avro Arrow, NASA had first pick of Canada's best and brightest. A contractor in Quebec manufactured the feet for all Apollo LMs. I'm sure America would have eventually figured out how to go to the Moon without Canada, but it would have taken more time. But when the Soviet Union broke up, declassified documents from Russia stated they tested their LK in Earth orbit 3 times in 1972. They were ready to go to, but was cancelled by Russian politicians because Apollo 11 had already been them. So if Apollo 11 had been delayed due to Canada not helping, there's a good chance the Soviets would have gotten to the Moon first. Yes, the Russians were not working alone either. They had help from the rest of the Soviet Union, primarily Ukraine. But if Ukraine continued to help Russia with their space effort as much as they did, but America did not have help from Canada, then the Soviets would have gotten to the Moon first.

So stop dis'ing Canada!

Dook wrote:

Canada built a wake observing satellite? We don't reveal our top secret satellite capability. It's okay that you guys up there "think" you invented it first. Why didn't you launch the satellite yourselves? Oh, you can't, that's why. But good job on the satellite anyway.

Continue to think that. Canada invented it. And Canada didn't even try to invent a wake observing satellite. Canadian scientists worked on a satellite to measure sea ice in Canada's arctic; to measure where it was safe for an icebreaker to sail, and where it wasn't. The "wake" thing was pointed out by the US military after they looked at our specifications.

Dook wrote:

We don't owe you anything.

When I was a child, a representative from the Soviet Union came to my city with a working scale model of a Soyuz launch vehicle on its launch pad. He tried to get Canada to support the Soviet space program. Canada chose to support NASA instead. And you claim you owe Canada nothing? Canada's Avro Arrow was the most advanced fighter jet of its time, but the American administration put pressure on Canada to cancel it. Canada's pride was destroyed. And you claim America owes us nothing?

Dook wrote:

This is not a US only issue. Your country is free to conduct it's own Mars mission any time it wants to. I think we will be waiting a long, long, long time for that to happen. Libya will probably make it to Mars before you do.

Canada partnered with Russia and Ukraine? Together we could achieve more than any one country in the world. Robert Zubrin proposed a Mars mission launched on Russia's Energia launch vehicle. You realize that could still happen.

Dook · 2017-05-09 20:08:02

RobertDyck wrote:

Dook wrote:
If I don't know how to do anything I should stay out of the way? Oh, another internet control freak who gets upset when someone has different ideas. Let me give you some real advice old man, if you can't keep your cool on the internet, don't use your real name and don't publish that you can be found at monthly public meetings.
Is that a threat? You realize a skilled IT person can trace back your IP address.
Dook wrote:
I don't need to know how to do anything when I can just pay people to do those things for me.
Mars doesn't have people you can hire for peanuts. You have to do everything yourself. If you can't, then you don't belong on Mars.
Dook wrote:
I don't understand the basics? You mean like how to make swords on Mars? Those basics?
Do you know how to make a hammer? How to make a screwdriver? How to make any tools? When your fancy stuff with "Made in China" stamped on them break, what are you going to do? Send an email for a replacement? From China, while you're on Mars? When your life support equipment breaks, and spare parts are on order but will take 26 months to get there (or 17 years by your schedule) how long can you hold your breath?
Dook wrote:
Your taxes fund the Canadian Space Agency? Wow. Thanks for the arm on the Space Shuttle. That was soooo incredibly important. You know that was just a nice little hand out to make you guys feel like you have a real space agency, right?
NASA wasn't able to design or build it. And you obviously forget, in 1961 NASA planned to land the Apollo CSM on the surface of the Moon. That's why the Service Module engine was so large. It was an engineer from Canada who proposed spitting it into Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and Mothership (CSM). That same engineer designed the landing legs for the LM. After the Kennedy administration pressured Canada to cancel the Avro Arrow, NASA had first pick of Canada's best and brightest. A contractor in Quebec manufactured the feet for all Apollo LMs. I'm sure America would have eventually figured out how to go to the Moon without Canada, but it would have taken more time. But when the Soviet Union broke up, declassified documents from Russia stated they tested their LK in Earth orbit 3 times in 1972. They were ready to go to, but was cancelled by Russian politicians because Apollo 11 had already been them. So if Apollo 11 had been delayed due to Canada not helping, there's a good chance the Soviets would have gotten to the Moon first. Yes, the Russians were not working alone either. They had help from the rest of the Soviet Union, primarily Ukraine. But if Ukraine continued to help Russia with their space effort as much as they did, but America did not have help from Canada, then the Soviets would have gotten to the Moon first.
So stop dis'ing Canada!
Dook wrote:
Canada built a wake observing satellite? We don't reveal our top secret satellite capability. It's okay that you guys up there "think" you invented it first. Why didn't you launch the satellite yourselves? Oh, you can't, that's why. But good job on the satellite anyway.
Continue to think that. Canada invented it. And Canada didn't even try to invent a wake observing satellite. Canadian scientists worked on a satellite to measure sea ice in Canada's arctic; to measure where it was safe for an icebreaker to sail, and where it wasn't. The "wake" thing was pointed out by the US military after they looked at our specifications.
Dook wrote:
We don't owe you anything.
When I was a child, a representative from the Soviet Union came to my city with a working scale model of a Soyuz launch vehicle on its launch pad. He tried to get Canada to support the Soviet space program. Canada chose to support NASA instead. And you claim you owe Canada nothing? Canada's Avro Arrow was the most advanced fighter jet of its time, but the American administration put pressure on Canada to cancel it. Canada's pride was destroyed. And you claim America owes us nothing?
Dook wrote:
This is not a US only issue. Your country is free to conduct it's own Mars mission any time it wants to. I think we will be waiting a long, long, long time for that to happen. Libya will probably make it to Mars before you do.
Canada partnered with Russia and Ukraine? Together we could achieve more than any one country in the world. Robert Zubrin proposed a Mars mission launched on Russia's Energia launch vehicle. You realize that could still happen.

A skilled IT person can trace IP addresses? Have fun with that. Make sure you bring your Uhlfberht sword.

Mars doesn't have people I can hire for peanuts, they have to do everything? No, they don't have to do everything. They have to maintain their life support equipment and grow food. Why would you think they would have to do everything?

Do I know how to make a hammer or a screwdriver? I don't have to know how to make them, I have plenty. A Mars colony will take some along.

When my fancy stuff that says made in China breaks what am I going to do? I buy another one. How would a Mars colony break a full metal hammer?

When life support equipment breaks what are they going to do for 26 months until a new one gets there? The crews main function is to survive, so, they will be trained on how to fix all the life support equipment and they will have at least two mini-Moxies and spares to repair both of them at least twice.

Name the life support equipment components that you can make with a small forge? An electric motor? Nope. A vacuum pump? Nope. Bearings? Nope. Filters? Nope. O-rings? Nope. P sensors? Nope. Magnetrons? Nope. Wave guides? Nope. An amine bed? Nope. A zeolite panel? Nope. A solar panel? Nope. An RTG? Nope. A reactor? Nope.

So, you want a forge so they can make a hammer on Mars when all they have to do is bring one.

NASA wasn't able to design or build the space shuttle arm? So, US companies designed and built the Apollo capsule and the space shuttle but we couldn't design and build a space arm that is so weak that is can't even lift itself on the Earth?

I should stop dis'ing Canada? I'm just defending myself. We don't have to agree. I'm okay with that. I don't run away from disagreement. This is complicated stuff and none of us knows everything.

Canada invented the wake observation satellite? Okay, fine.

Canada chose to support NASA instead? Did you give us money? What was the support?

Canada's Avro Arrow was the most advanced fighter jet of it's time and the US put pressure on Canada to cancel it? I looked it up, it seems that it probably was the most advanced fighter of the time but it was cancelled by Avro because they couldn't sell it to the US. Also, it seems the Avro company had a Russian agent working for them.

I've been all over the world, visited 14 different countries and most of them multiple times. Every country has people who blame the US for everything that ever happened or didn't happen to their people. Jealousy is a dangerous thing.

We don't owe you or anyone else a thing. NASA screwed up the 90 day report but that probably saved lives because some of the technology wasn't ready yet.

Canada could partner with Russia and Ukraine and go to Mars? I don't think Ukraine is going to partner with Russia on anything. But Canada could join up with Pavlovs dogs. See ya, wouldn't want to be ya.

Last edited by Dook (2017-05-09 20:13:27)

SpaceNut · 2017-05-09 20:22:12

Dook wrote:

SpaceNut wrote:
Dook the post # 259 is very much off topic and belongs elsewhere, please this is not a political topic and is not in that allowed for content forum subfolder area.......
Okay, sorry.
How is post #253 on topic?

Yes, I did not warn the war reference as off topic but there is a difference to being a volunteer 20 something and a drafted young man which is where it was going. So lets both drop it....

Edit: also all others stop the jousting threats as well....

Lets get back to making life on mars sustainable, cheaper in the first place and as long lasting as Shuttle /ISS has been otherwise lets just cancel it before we start....

kbd512 · 2017-05-09 21:34:40

Dook wrote:

Why am I stuck on what a 3D printer can't do? Because the only reason to have one on Mars is to make rocket engines, not fix life support equipment. That's an agenda that does not put the crews life first. That's a design that increases risk. I know people can't plan anything complicated without putting their agenda first. I've seen it too often. We all saw it with the 90 day report, so NASA engineers can't even eliminate their agenda. Zubrin wasn't smarter than NASA, he just put the mission to Mars first.

You've stated your own belief about what I wanted to do, which is never something that I stated that I wanted to do. I said I wanted to repair rocket engines so we can reuse them. I have no desire to start a rocket engine factory on Mars. If the rocket engines I want to repair are the size of a mini-fridge, then I don't see too many issues with doing that.

Dook wrote:

You could care less about the WAVAR because it puts out so little? The mini-Moxies produce small amounts of oxygen but small amounts are enough as long as you don't waste it on rocket fuel. That's why you need more water, you need to make a whole lot of rocket fuel on Mars.

If that rocket fuel transports humans and cargo from orbit to the surface without requiring entirely new rockets to be built, at fantastic cost, then we might be able to afford a Mars colony. If the cost is high enough, then at some point we can't afford it. That's what the 90 day report was about.

If we have reusable rockets on Earth, reusable fusion driven rockets to transport humans and cargo to Mars, and reusable rockets on Mars to transport people and cargo from Mars orbit to Mars surface, then maybe the cost of the spacecraft and rocket fuel will be low enough to establish a permanent human presence on Mars. If everything is "use once and throw away", then it's basically assured that the cost will be beyond what Congress is willing to allocate to NASA and we'll have another 90 day report and nobody on Mars.

Dook wrote:

There is as much water in every cubic foot of regolith as there are in thousands of kg of atmosphere? Water can only exist between 33-36 degrees F before it evaporates. So, there is no water on Mars near the surface except salt water. The pure ice is going to be deep.

If sea water is boiled, do we get fresh water? Flash evaporation? Only easier in a near vacuum?

Dook wrote:

The rovers say there is water in the regolith? They're saying there is ice, not water. The water vapor freezes at night then vaporizes again the next day.

Water is water, whether it's a vapor, liquid, or solid.

Dook wrote:

Who cares if you have to shovel dirt into a bucket? But then you have to pressurize it to get water so that means a trip inside the habitat and each time you do that you lose some of your oxygen and pressure. That's like taking two steps forward and then two steps backwards. 90% of all water should be recycled anyway.

Pressurization is not required, nor desirable. Sealing is required, but the seal doesn't have to be perfect.

Dook wrote:

What we need is a large domed greenhouse that has a very strong foundation buried into the regolith to keep it from floating when pressurized. That alone would allow the regolith inside the dome to vent water vapor.

Agreed. Let's figure out how to do that. My idea was to sift or pulverize regolith and find Sulfur before people ever set foot on Mars, but you didn't like it because I needed an evil robot to make the product and an evil printer to lay the product down.

Dook wrote:

A 3D print head can probably be brought to a component to weld a crack? You could use the laser as a welding beam but it would take some practice. It takes months for welders to become proficient but it could be taught. I don't know that it could weld thin metal, like thin steel or aluminum tanks, maybe it could. Regular arc/mig/tig welders can't weld thin metal because it gets too hot and melts away as you weld. Metal has to be thick to be welded but I don't know if a 3D printer could do it.

Welding robots have been "taught" how to weld. Presumably, I could exchange another tool on the same robot for a friction-stir welding bit.

I want a tool set for a humanoid robot to perform tasks, either with or without human assistance. I want the tools to be compact devices that a human could potentially use. Obviously a human lacks the precision to use a 3D printer, but I meant welding tools and hand tools.

Dook wrote:

Chips are 3D printed? You mean sprayed.

I don't care what you call it, it's still the additive manufacturing principle using different tools and technologies.

Dook wrote:

Move the printer to weld up a stripped hole on a component? Okay, but that would probably be a whole other machine, some kind of portable laser/sprayer that a human would use to attempt to weld up a stripped hole. The human would have to practice for months on the Earth on steel and aluminum before they became proficient. Why do that when all you have to do is install a helicoil?

I want one metal print head with tubes of powders containing the aluminum alloys or titanium alloys. The tubes can be color coded. The colonists can use color coded engineering drawings of their equipment on an iPad to tell them what powder to load into the print head and they can fixture the broken components. The robot will also have the dimensions for the part, so it can move the print head over the affected area until the crack or chip is filled. It won't have to "find" the affected area, the colonists will have tools to tell them what's damaged, because even if they only had replacement parts, they still need to know what to replace.

Most of the components are aluminum alloys. Aerospace engineers have their go-to materials, like aluminum and titanium alloys, because they know how they work and how they fail. Small holes or chips in plates or cracks in welds can be repaired. It's been done already and it's basically micro-scale welding.

Dook wrote:

Can we combine a laser with the Voxel 8 sprayer? I'm sure there are small 3D printers that have lasers. You picked the Voxel 8, it just sprays hot conductive ink. The point I was trying to make was that you and Louis were lumping all 3D printers into one and attempting to say that they could do a whole lot more than they really can. If they can't make or repair most of the life support equipment then their use is very limited.

As previously stated, I wanted to have a set of tools of minimal size and weight that can repair, if possible. I'm not saying that no spare parts should be on hand. If there's one tiny component on a circuit board that fails and the rest of the board is a-ok, then I want to replace the component, restore the board to service, and keep the spare board for an event that requires a brand new board, like an electrical fire. It's also important to know what failed and how it failed so whatever is sent next doesn't fail in the same way.

I want the robots to employ mechanical precision that humans are incapable of and I want the humans to be experts in design, analysis, and testing. I can teach a robot to weld, solder, and machine components, but I can't teach a robot to understand why a machine was designed the way it was.

Dook wrote:

If the shipped backup motherboard has the same defect as the one on the Mars Hab then you can make a new one with a 3D printer? Okay, but that's a one in a million. Every system would be checked before flight. With Apollo they had full sized Apollo vehicles at home to test.

I don't see the crew as guinea pigs. I'm want them to have every tool and technology I can reasonably afford to give them to assure their success. Along with training and operational spares (I can only stuff so many complete systems into the physical volume of the spacecraft, even if weight was no issue), a robot, printers, and tools seem like logical things to give them. If they never need to use a specific tool, then maybe we won't send it on the next flight.

Dook wrote:

You have a sealant compound that you can squirt through a nozzle and make any shape or size part you need? That's silicone, not synthetic rubber, and you can't make a perfect torus shape. O-rings have to be the correct size. If they are too small they won't seal. If they are too big they will get pulled out of their channel when the component (like the piston in an accumulator) moves and they will get cut and no longer seal.

Space Environment Effects on Silicone Seal Materials

The seals on ISS are silicone, typically with Braycote greases applied to them. I was thinking about seals for airlocks, modules, and rovers. There's no issue replacing small O-rings. If the O-ring is something a person can fit through, then maybe we need to try to resurface that seal before we dig into the spares.

Dook wrote:

The 3D printer would have blueprints for every component? It might be able to spray synthetic rubber into a new o-ring. I don't know if they can do that, maybe they can. Even if they can that's only a few of the life support equipment pieces they can make, it's not enough to justify taking one on the first mission. Once enough buried habitats have been built and growing plants is successful then we can try to establish some production, but the first focus is on survival.

The printer is a tool, no different than a screwdriver. The robot is a tool. I want to send enough tools to ensure that the right tool is available for the job.

Dook wrote:

How is resurfacing different than recycling? That's fine. Once we have enough buried habitats, many life support systems working well, and hydroponics growing plenty of food we can try to have some small production that recycles some of the old seals.

I want to try to extend the life of the seals to the extend possible with greases. If that fails, resurface. If resurfacing fails, replace.

Dook wrote:

How much power do the rack and pinion motors use? Not a lot but it's extra complexity.

Is some complexity allowable if it dramatically lowers the power requirements? Is a high power requirement not a complexity unto itself?

Dook wrote:

I threw this WAVAR idea out there? Zubrin published the idea of using a zeolite bed and a microwave to get water on Mars. Louis found the U of Washington WAVAR, not I. I just agree that it's the best idea so far for getting water on Mars.

If you have a LOT of power available, then WAVAR is probably workable. If you do EVA's every day, water will be lost. The entire purpose behind WAVAR was to replace those losses. Recycling wouldn't be enough and they knew it.

Dook wrote:

And I did not claim they were wrong about the power requirement, I said something's not adding up. Don't act like you never get any of this stuff wrong, you thought the WAVAR used seed hydrogen.

I make mistakes, too, and never claimed or thought otherwise. To be honest, I stopped reading after I looked at the mass, power requirements, and output.

For a fan with that mass flow in an atmosphere that thin, the power requirement looks a little low to me. However, they did indicate a power requirement up to 15kWe. If I already know that I need a fission reactor, then I feel like I would do a trade study on some minor compression to increase mass flow.

Dook wrote:

I want to change the WAVAR? Yes, I want to remove the rack and pinion and keep the zeolite panels fixed in place inside a microwave and have fans blow and pull Mars atmosphere through the zeolite panels.

I think you're going to have to set it up on the ground, use a turbine to achieve some minor compression, and allocate a bit more power. I think the result will yield more water, faster. If WAVAR breaks, then no output, so I would use multiple smaller units. Smaller redundant units are preferable to a single large unit that is difficult to work on as a function of its location (atop the module, a fall hazard) and size (components so heavy a human can't easily lift them).

Dook wrote:

I think welding something that's moving is simple? In high school I took a welding class for two years. I learned arc, MIG, flux core, and a tiny bit of TIG welding. Normally, the item being welded doesn't move and the welder moves the rod. With a fixed 3D printer/laser you would have to move the item being welded because the 3D printer can't scan the item and determine on it's own where to weld and how much material to place.
On assembly lines robots move heavy pieces and install them correctly? Ask that robot to fix a crack and see what happens.

You mean tell the robot what to do and put the robot in front of the work pieces?

I told you I want to train humans to analyze, test, and interpret results.

Dook wrote:

You can kick a robot and it will keep standing? That's great. Can it look at equipment and choose the correct action to fix it?

If the humans are still alive, does it have to? If the humans aren't alive, does it matter?

Dook wrote:

A robot that scoops dirt into a bin would get more water in a day than a WAVAR would in a month? I like that idea too, not the robot part though. If there was an aluminum cart with an access door, in the morning whenever the crew was outside the crew could pour in regolith and close the door. As the cart warmed up in the day the ice in the regolith would warm and evaporate. An internal vacuum pump in the cart could take in and compress the water vapor into a removable tank. The cart would have a lower regolith dump door that the crew would open to release the old regolith into a bucket and take it and dump it somewhere and get a new pile of dirt. Every once in a while the crew would remove the portable pressurized water vapor tank and take it inside the habitat to release it inside. A dehumidifier would condense the water vapor into water.

High school kids can get robots or remote controlled machines to dump dirt in a box and NASA has them do it every year. I would rather have a machine working 24/7 around the base, obtaining water. If the tanks are full or the machine breaks down, fix the machine and repeat.

Dook wrote:

That idea is fine to get some water at first. Once you use up all the nearby regolith you have to keep going out farther and farther away from the base. After some time the regolith near the base would collect ice and could be processed again.

Think about how much regolith you have to process before the machine "gets far out". 27 cubic feet per cubic yard. You'll never run out of drinking water. That's one less ridiculously heavy thing that has to be brought from Earth.

Dook wrote:

What is the amp-hour capacity of the Mars Hab batteries? Don't know.
For a rover to get where it's going faster than a human can walk it's going to need substantial battery storage? It would. What's the hurry? You guys are always in a hurry.

True.

Dook wrote:

Have I seen any electric vehicles using lead-acid batteries for power? Don't know, I never asked them.
No passenger carrying electric vehicle made anywhere on the planet today uses lead-acid batteries? Have you ever seen a golf cart?

I've never seen anyone using their golf cart for serious earth moving or long range transportation, but that's just me.

Dook wrote:

Autonomous cars are already scanning cracks and making decisions? They're scanning for objects but not identifying cracks, bends, and dirt smudges.

We already use machines to scan for cracks, the machines are just used by people on workbenches.

Dook wrote:

How much regolith can the Marscat move in one hour a day? Hmm, don't know. The front bucket would be 4 feet wide, about 1 foot deep. At first digging would be easy so maybe they could make 60 passes an hour for the first two weeks. Then as they got down they would hit permafrost and would have to let it heat up and evaporate, and they might hit rock, and they would have to drive the regolith up the side so they would be down to 40 or 30 passes an hour.

Rough figures, but indicative of the minimal amount of work required...

If we had a 10 yard high HESCO barrier, then all we need is about 1,145 cubic yards of material to create a suitable barrier for permanent settlement (2.5 yards of material). That would take about 64.5 days with Lead-acid batteries, assuming a fission reactor for recharging. We need 75kWh of capacity with Lead-acid to get us to 30% depth-of-discharge, so the batteries give at least four years of reliable service.

75,000 * .3 = 22,500

75,000 / 900 = 83

83 * 51.8 = 4,299lbs of Lead-acid batteries

80% depth-of-discharge is no real issue for Lithium-ion and there's far less voltage drop, so...

28,000 * .8 = 22,400

28,000 / 3,120 = 9 * 80 = 270lbs of Lithium-ion batteries

Alternatively, we use fewer Lead-acid batteries and kill them immediately or kill them in about a year.

With a fission reactor, we can recharge the batteries twice per day using the Lead-acid or four times per day with the Lithium-ion. So, 64.5 days with Lead-acid or 32.25 days with Lithium-ion.

This looks feasible, provided we use a HESCO barrier and there's a way to dump regolith into the barrier container. I can't recall if I've ever seen HESCO that high... crap. I need at least double the amount of material to stack HESCO that high. So 129 days with Lead-acid or 64 days with Lithium-ion. Even so, it's still doable. If there's a way to get that thing closer to the ground, this would be a whole lot easier and faster and safer.

Dook wrote:

I'm not against using lithium-ion batteries in the Long Range Rover and Marscat if they don't have electrolyte in them during the space travel. The water can be added when they land on Mars while they are still in the Rover Hanger.

There's no reason to do that. We can't even use the batteries until they have electrolyte. This idea is a non-starter for any battery chemistry. The batteries are nearly dead last on the list of things about EDL that concern me. The flight characteristics in an atmosphere as variable as Mars should scare the piss out of any engineer.

kbd512 · 2017-05-09 23:08:18

Dook,

Smooth surface silicone 3D Printing:

ACEO

3D Printing of Silicone Materials with Adjustable Density, Hardness, Media Mixing, and Colorization:

San Draw

I'm pretty sure NASA could license the technology.

Dook · 2017-05-09 23:36:15

kbd512 wrote:

kbd512

You want to repair rocket engines on Mars? I know.

If we reuse rocket engines on Mars it cuts the costs of a colony? I'm going to have to disagree. It cuts the costs of a plan that is even more expensive but it doesn't cut the costs of a plan that is more efficient.

With an efficient plan everything won't be used once and thrown away. It takes one rocket engine to send a Mars Hab and Rover Hanger to Mars, that same engine lands them.

Your plan only works if you have a habitat already built for the people to move into when they get there so the rocket can leave. And your plan requires delivery of large quantities of material or the collection of massive amounts of water to be changed into rocket fuel and massive amounts of regolith processing to get common elements and rare alloy elements. Your plan increases the risk to make money for a billionaire.

Everything is not thrown away with my plan. It's all used on Mars, except the rocket engines.

Is sea water is boiled do we get fresh water? You get hot fresh water vapor but yes.

It's easier to boil salt water in a near vacuum? It is. How are you going to collect the water vapor? With a WAVAR?

Let's figure out how to build a strong foundation for a domed greenhouse? I was thinking of digging out and area, 85' circle that is 17' down and has 45 degree tapered sides, building seven cylinder habitats, burying them in regolith, as we bury the habitats we install 11 foot tall upside down "T" foundation sections made of carbon composite with steel rebar built in every foot or so. The upside down "T" foundation sections would have regolith piled on them and they would be arranged in a circle, 314 foot circumference for a 100 foot wide dome. The top of the buried upside down "T" section would stick out of the ground a bit, and so would the steel rebar, so a polycarbonate greenhouse panel could be bolted to it. If the upside down "T" section base was four feet wide I think it would have 1.4 million pounds of regolith on it so it would exceed the 1.2 million pounds of uplifting force caused by pressurizing the greenhouse to 2 psi.
Robots just can't do enough complicated tasks yet.

Welding robots have been taught how to weld? They can't look at something and see where to weld or choose whether to use a rod, wire feed, or tig.

3D printers can weld up cracks? The 3D printer could have a pre-programmed welding mode. I don't know if they have that ability now or not. Someone would have to tell the 3D printer exactly where the crack was on it's AutoCAD file of the object and the 3D printer would spray material over it. I don't know if just doing that would work. Cracks in thin aluminum airframes or thin steel tanks are not welded, they're stop drilled and patched. Cracks in thick aluminum and thick steel can be welded but you have to get penetration completely through the object. Sometimes you have to cut out the crack completely then weld it up.

You want to have a set of tools to repair things, like replace a chip on a motherboard? A soldering iron would do it.

The seals on the ISS are silicone and maybe we could resurface them with a 3D printer? Yeah, some of those seals are huge. I didn't read the entire thing, it seems that silicone withstands radiation the best. I think trying to resurface a seal is going to be more trouble than it's worth. A large circular seal would have to be moved under the 3D printer perfectly to add material in exactly the right amounts. I think you might look to recycling the silicone in some kind of heater that melts it then use that material in the 3D printer to just make a whole new one. I don't know how a 3D printer would make a circular silicone seal that is 16 feet across though. The 3D printer would have to be on a circular track.

A 3D printer is a tool? It is. It can do some things but it's not a game changer like some people think.

You want to extend the life of seals with greases? Each seal type uses a different type of grease. Black synthetic rubber o-rings for hydraulic applications use hydraulic fluid, not grease. Grease deteriorates rubber. Brown o-rings for gas applications use a different type of grease, I can't remember what it is right now. Silicone seals, I don't know. Lubricating the seals usually helps them slip over a piston or whatever but doesn't really extend their life.

Complexity is allowable if it dramatically lowers the power requirements? Correct. Why would a WAVAR with zeolite panels fixed inside a microwave need more power to vent them?

Recycling water on the ISS is not enough probably because they're not getting all the water from feces waste. If the Mars base buried habitat has a solid waste settling tank the water would remain in the habitat.

You would rather have a robot collecting regolith around the base and have it dump regolith in a box? That's fine. I don't think it could operate 24/7, it would have to recharge some time.

You've never seen anyone using their golf cart for serious earth moving or long range transportation? When on Mars, do as the Martians do.

We already use machines to scan for cracks? You mean a non-destructive inspection machine? They don't work by themselves. Someone has to dip the material, magnetise it, then inspect it with a magnefying glass and look for cracks.

I'll address the Marscat digging in the next post. It's going to take more than one Marscat working more than one hour a day.

Dook · 2017-05-09 23:37:29

Marscat

My idea is to have seven 25' buried circular cylinder habitats each connected by a short 5' hallway with the living habitat at the center and six hydroponics and growing habitats around it.

The habitats would be 8 feet tall, have a 6" ceiling panel, and be buried under 8.2 feet of regolith so we would need to dig down 17 feet and level the bottom.

So, digging a circular pit 17' down and 85 feet wide at the bottom would require moving about 96,417 cubic feet of material. Tapering the sides to a 45 degree angle would require moving about another 43,350 cubic feet of material. So, that is a total of 139,767 cubic feet, if my math is correct.

A Marscat that is the same size as an Earth bobcat has a 5.6 foot wide by 2 foot deep bucket. So, that's about 11.2 cubic feet of material per load. If the Marscat can make 60 passes an hour, one a minute, it will move 2,016 cubic feet in three hours. Using three Marscats that would be 6,048 cubic feet moved a day.

It would take 23 days to dig out the pit before you could start to build the seven buried cylinder habitats.

The three Marscats (1,600 lbs each, total of 4,800 lbs) would be in the Rover Hanger along with a Long Range Rover (2,000 lbs) and a tracked Mars cart.

Last edited by Dook (2017-05-09 23:37:44)

Dook · 2017-05-09 23:47:40

kbd512 wrote:

Dook,
Smooth surface silicone 3D Printing:
ACEO
3D Printing of Silicone Materials with Adjustable Density, Hardness, Media Mixing, and Colorization:
San Draw
I'm pretty sure NASA could license the technology.

I'm not saying you can't print silicone seals. I think trying to add an extremely thin layer of silicone, or other seal material, to a seal to resurface it is not worth the time or effort.

Even if you could do this, the center of the seal would still be hardened and would be prone to breaking. If it's an o-ring that is hardened from heat or brittle from cold, they usually break when you remove them because you have to stretch them to get them off a piston.

Seals should always be replaced. If you want to melt the old seals and recycle the material and use it to make new seals, that's okay.

louis · 2017-05-10 01:26:53

I think your 8 feet of regolith shielding is excessive from everything I have read, especially as plants handle Mars level radiation v. well.

I agree with a high ceiling if we can manage it, because that enables more plant trays. Not sure why you want to build a complicated system why not build straight trenches out from a central habitat like a cross?

My real concern though is health and safety,as the more you attach in a pressurised environment to your central habitat, the greater the scope for disaster, specifically fire or a catastrophic pressure event - but also if we are talking about a farm hab environment, spread of mould or other pathogens.

Dook wrote:

Marscat
My idea is to have seven 25' buried circular cylinder habitats each connected by a short 5' hallway with the living habitat at the center and six hydroponics and growing habitats around it.
The habitats would be 8 feet tall, have a 6" ceiling panel, and be buried under 8.2 feet of regolith so we would need to dig down 17 feet and level the bottom.
So, digging a circular pit 17' down and 85 feet wide at the bottom would require moving about 96,417 cubic feet of material. Tapering the sides to a 45 degree angle would require moving about another 43,350 cubic feet of material. So, that is a total of 139,767 cubic feet, if my math is correct.
A Marscat that is the same size as an Earth bobcat has a 5.6 foot wide by 2 foot deep bucket. So, that's about 11.2 cubic feet of material per load. If the Marscat can make 60 passes an hour, one a minute, it will move 2,016 cubic feet in three hours. Using three Marscats that would be 6,048 cubic feet moved a day.
It would take 23 days to dig out the pit before you could start to build the seven buried cylinder habitats.
The three Marscats (1,600 lbs each, total of 4,800 lbs) would be in the Rover Hanger along with a Long Range Rover (2,000 lbs) and a tracked Mars cart.

kbd512 · 2017-05-10 01:59:39

Dook,

Salt Water to Fresh Water Collection System:
Tank within a tank.

Seals:
Silicone is used because it's the only material that withstands the temperature extremes without becoming brittle. Braycote is the grease used on the ISS seals to prevent adhesion during undocking. It prevents them from being torn or ripped off entirely. I seriously doubt NASA would use it if it damaged their seals. ISS is not what I would call a cheap lab toy. Besides, the monatomic oxygen and UV radiation already do enough damage to the seals as-is.

Shelter:
We need an architect to tell us what we can get away with.

Soldering:
Look at the board on a MacBook or iPad and tell me if you think you can solder a new chip without soldering multiple leads together. Maybe you could do it with a magnifying glass. That's what computers look like now, even stuff made by defense contractors for NASA. You need a magnifying glass to see all the components. There aren't teams of people soldering tiny little components to boards. It's done with robots.

Surface Transport:
Marscat can work, but not if it has 4,900lbs of batteries on it. The 270lbs of Lithium-ion batteries is more reasonable. When Boeing couldn't figure out why their batteries were catching fire, they asked NASA for help. NASA is using the same battery from the same manufacturer aboard ISS. Boeing made a mistake in how they designed their system. NASA doesn't have quite as many amateurs working for them.

Accidents with Energetic Materials:
Sometimes NASA ignores the manufacturers' advice and that gets people killed, but the agency's politicians make dumb decisions like any other set of politicians. Their engineers know better. Before Columbia was destroyed, their engineers wanted pictures of the wing because they thought something hit the wing. They wanted to re-task a spy satellite, but management turned down that request. Unfortunately for Columbia's crew, the wing was badly damaged. The crew were dead anyway since there was no way to get them, but at least everyone would've known what happened without having to figure out what went wrong. The only "mistake" was believing RCC could withstand hits from frozen, luggage-sized pieces of foam moving at airliner speeds. Turns out what killed them, extra foam around the LOX pipe to contend with aerodynamic heating, wasn't even necessary to have on the vehicle. That had to be a tough pill to swallow. My thinking was that Space Shuttle should have had a crew escape module like the F-111 and XB-70 to begin with. I asked that question as a kid. Someone was overly concerned with weight.

Complex Tasks:
We'll have to agree to disagree on robots being able to do complex tasks. The fact that they can't make every last decision without a modicum of guidance is not an indicator of general usefulness. They have their purpose, which is why we use them.

Astroturds:
I don't know if anyone has figured out what to do with all the volatiles. The water can be removed. Ask someone at NASA. Maybe they know.

WAVAR:
Explain what geometry you'd like to use to get more zeolite packed into a smaller cavity for the magnetron to irradiate.

As far as improving mass flow, RamGen might work. It's a supersonic CO2 compressor designed to use less power to capture CO2 from coal-fired power plants. 15:1 compression in a single stage. That's pretty substantial. Power... Better have lots of that. Filter... Hmm... Let's just say that it would be interesting.

Fans are poor at generating mass flow, if power consumption is a consideration. Turbines are king. I know a little about fans and props, or at least enough to calculate how well they should work (this is something I personally find interesting because I'm building my own aircraft, but ask a pro if you want a better answer), but I need more knowledge about how turbines work, with respect to the math involved. RamGen is just a supersonic version of a turbine (no actual "blades" and more like a centrifugal compressor without the blades, are always supersonic in steady state operation) that uses aerodynamics that would ordinarily produce a lot of wave drag to compress CO2.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-10 08:37:55

If one wishes to see what robotics are capable of doing, then visit the BMW factory in Germany (Munich). The entire vehicle is robotically assembled with welds executed to a precision no human is capable of making. Everything is controlled by laser alignment. I had a tour of the factory 3 years ago while taking delivery of my new X-1. kbd512 is also correct in regard to soldering connections on circuit boards; it's simply on too tiny a scale for "soldering iron and solder" work by a human--unless the human does this type of work every day. Need a jeweler's loupe to work on such connections. Also: if we needed to bring along replacement circuit boards for all the controls and instrumentation of everything, we'd had literally hundreds--if not thousands of them. Instead we bring a 10% backup number of bare boards (at 10 % the weight penalty) and simply print as needed. Maybe this clarifies things as to weight penalties.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2017-05-10 09:05:14)

Dook · 2017-05-10 09:06:25

louis wrote:

I think your 8 feet of regolith shielding is excessive from everything I have read, especially as plants handle Mars level radiation v. well.
I agree with a high ceiling if we can manage it, because that enables more plant trays. Not sure why you want to build a complicated system why not build straight trenches out from a central habitat like a cross?
My real concern though is health and safety,as the more you attach in a pressurised environment to your central habitat, the greater the scope for disaster, specifically fire or a catastrophic pressure event - but also if we are talking about a farm hab environment, spread of mould or other pathogens.
Dook wrote:
Marscat
My idea is to have seven 25' buried circular cylinder habitats each connected by a short 5' hallway with the living habitat at the center and six hydroponics and growing habitats around it.
The habitats would be 8 feet tall, have a 6" ceiling panel, and be buried under 8.2 feet of regolith so we would need to dig down 17 feet and level the bottom.
So, digging a circular pit 17' down and 85 feet wide at the bottom would require moving about 96,417 cubic feet of material. Tapering the sides to a 45 degree angle would require moving about another 43,350 cubic feet of material. So, that is a total of 139,767 cubic feet, if my math is correct.
A Marscat that is the same size as an Earth bobcat has a 5.6 foot wide by 2 foot deep bucket. So, that's about 11.2 cubic feet of material per load. If the Marscat can make 60 passes an hour, one a minute, it will move 2,016 cubic feet in three hours. Using three Marscats that would be 6,048 cubic feet moved a day.
It would take 23 days to dig out the pit before you could start to build the seven buried cylinder habitats.
The three Marscats (1,600 lbs each, total of 4,800 lbs) would be in the Rover Hanger along with a Long Range Rover (2,000 lbs) and a tracked Mars cart.

Using 8.2 feet of regolith for shielding is the number that other people came up with, not I.

Plants handle Mars radiation well? The shielding is for the people, not the plants.

Why build a complicated system instead of straight trenches? I didn't think that circles were complicated but the reason is to keep everything close together so we could then build a 100 foot wide dome greenhouse over the top of it to provide heat and possibly be able to pressurized the dome to grow plants.

The more you attach to your central habitat the greater the chance for fire or pressure failure or mold or other pathogens? The buried habitat will be pressurized, the pressure will equal the weight of the regolith on top but even if a pressure loss does happen the habitats will be strong enough to keep from collapsing.

The chance for fire is always present if you have electronics. The growing habitats will be very simple, hydroponics with LED lighting and plastic grow tubs and trays so they're not likely to catch fire. The central habitat will be like the Mars Hab but you will have 4 crew who live there to fight any fire.

About the spread of mold and other pathogens, if you don't bring any there won't be any.

kbd512 · 2017-05-10 09:20:41

Those photos I posted of Zvezda's interior are what the inside of real tuna cans looks like, no matter who made it. There's more wiring, piping, and computer-controlled equipment than you can shake a stick at. Maybe there's a simpler way to do things, but every spacecraft I've ever seen looks like that. The engineers who design these things know what works and what doesn't. We've had decades of long duration space habitation. Certain things work well, others... not so much. Mostly, you'll find lots of redundancy. That's a good thing, because electrical and mechanical problems happen. Nothing as complicated as a spacecraft will ever be problem free, but if you have workable methods to resolve problems then it's not a death sentence for the crew.

Unlike what you see in Hollyweird movies, all airlocks are manually controlled with levers or cranks and designed in such a way that no human could actuate the airlock while it's pressurized. Docking and berthing locks are different. Those are electro-mechanical and also employ redundant systems.

SpaceNut · 2017-05-10 09:26:38

kbd512 post #265:

Rocket building and repair via the use of a 3 D printer is a leg up of commerce and export as well as for reuseability of rockets that once delivered cargo in a oneway mode to start a reuseable sycle once refueled. This is a step past exploration/science of the first few missions towards settlement or permanent presence and colonization in the future.

Dook post 267
This would lead to independance from the financial burden with an economy of retur for investment via exports of anything...

kbd512 post #265:

The rovers did find sulfur sub serface as the wheels churned it up as it drove through that area.

I got thinking about the use for waste heat and was thinking of using it to create air flow via updraft chimney shape with the WAVAR at the top to capture the moisture. It does not need to go all that high it just needs to act like a large area tent to allow for volume of heat to be obsorb to be funneled to the peak of each direction of intent to make it go through the units....

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