Sagan City - what will be there?

louis · 2018-04-13 17:30:27

OK, I'm calling the first sizeable settlement on Mars "Sagan City" but you can call it what you like...

Plot0001

The important question is: what will be there? - OK, let's say in the first 20 years. What do you think?

1. I definitely expect a big involvement by one or a number of Earth-based universities. Even if places like Harvard, UCLA, Paris, Bologna and Cambridge didn't immediately think of the idea, scientific experimentation on Mars would draw in universities. By HL (Human Landing) + 20 years I would definitely expect a university to be established there in some guise maybe a combined teaching and research facility for postgrads?

2. I expect huge methane/oxygen storage as being the simplest way to store energy. So, there will be significant methane/oxygen heating and electricity-generation plants.

3. Recreational facilities will play a bigger part than we expect in Sagan City. Because the inhabitants can't really get "outside" it becomes all the more important to feel like you have some sort of freedom within the pressurised environment. I think we will see extensive cycleways going underground, through tunnels, via atriums into natural gorges which have been covered and pressurised and filled with Earth-type flora and fauna.

4. The Spaceport is going to be a big part of the city. So imagine maybe 20 or 50 BFR type vehicles in a row, ready to take off and numerous other landing pads.

5. A new arrival in Sagan City: "The Terraformation Institute" - with $100 billion of funding from Earth-based philanthropists who want to kick-start terraformation on Mars.

IanM · 2018-04-14 18:30:49

Sanitation might be an issue. Depending on the size of the settlement the houses would either be connected to septic tanks or to a unified waste management system. We could burn waste to provide extra energy like they do in the Nordics.

louis · 2018-04-14 19:44:13

Incinerate sewage? We do the same in parts the UK...of course on Mars you need to expend energy to isolate oxygen, but maybe plants can do that for us. However, I suspect human faeces and urine will be wanted for agriculture on Mars.

IanM wrote:

Sanitation might be an issue. Depending on the size of the settlement the houses would either be connected to septic tanks or to a unified waste management system. We could burn waste to provide extra energy like they do in the Nordics.

IanM · 2018-04-14 20:46:51

Human excrement is too "hot" (i.e., has proportionally too much Nitrogen) for use as compost and unless early Martians have a really high-fiber diet might burn the plants. Same thing with the dung of horses and poultry, making ruminant feces ideal, albeit very rare on Mars. Perhaps we could use toilet paper to increase the Carbon content to make fecal matter compost-worthy.

RobertDyck · 2018-04-14 21:44:38

As I have posted several times, I believe Mars will be vegan for a very long time. Keeping livestock is so expensive in terms of energy and resources that Mars will have to be very well developed, and very rich before the first livestock is brought to Mars. That means Mars will be vegan for a very long time. Not for any philosophical reason, but just practicality and economics.

I also posted that Mars will not use toilet paper. Mars has no trees, and building pressurized greenhouses with water recycling, temperature control, soil treatment, and fertilizer, cannot be justified just for toilet paper. Instead Mars will use a Japanese invention called "Washlet". It's a combination toilet and bidet. Yes, the bidet was invented in France, but Japan integrated a bidet seat with a flush toilet. The washlet uses water, air, and electricity, nothing more.

Human excrement has a lot of nitrogen, but Mars soil needs nitrogen. Greenhouse soil will be depleted of nitrogen by food crops. It's just a matter of closing the cycle.

louis · 2018-04-15 06:24:54

They definitely used to use it in Korea...but maybe they had a high-fibre diet back in the day? I doubt it would be thrown on soil raw in any case...probably undergo some processing, so that issue of having too much nitrogen could be addressed.

IanM wrote:

Human excrement is too "hot" (i.e., has proportionally too much Nitrogen) for use as compost and unless early Martians have a really high-fiber diet might burn the plants. Same thing with the dung of horses and poultry, making ruminant feces ideal, albeit very rare on Mars. Perhaps we could use toilet paper to increase the Carbon content to make fecal matter compost-worthy.

louis · 2018-04-15 06:30:14

I was reading today in the newspaper that the Impossible and Beyond burgers are doing well in the USA and that now Whitecastle is going to offer one or the other, can't recall which, in its menu. I think something like the Impossible burger "meat" would indeed make a lot of sense on early H-Mars (we need a coinage for Mars with humans so H-Mars it is!) .

Plot0004 first meantion of Bamboo use in Sagan City

Yes, I've also posted in favour of Japanese style cleansing. I've been to a paper mill, and it's really a huge investment for something that Aresians won't need. For office paper and newspaper, they can just use their tablets and as we agree, toilet paper is not require. For packaging, probably bamboo fibres could be substituted for paper packaging.

RobertDyck wrote:

As I have posted several times, I believe Mars will be vegan for a very long time. Keeping livestock is so expensive in terms of energy and resources that Mars will have to be very well developed, and very rich before the first livestock is brought to Mars. That means Mars will be vegan for a very long time. Not for any philosophical reason, but just practicality and economics.
I also posted that Mars will not use toilet paper. Mars has no trees, and building pressurized greenhouses with water recycling, temperature control, soil treatment, and fertilizer, cannot be justified just for toilet paper. Instead Mars will use a Japanese invention called "Washlet". It's a combination toilet and bidet. Yes, the bidet was invented in France, but Japan integrated a bidet seat with a flush toilet. The washlet uses water, air, and electricity, nothing more.
Human excrement has a lot of nitrogen, but Mars soil needs nitrogen. Greenhouse soil will be depleted of nitrogen by food crops. It's just a matter of closing the cycle.

Last edited by louis (2018-04-15 12:21:12)

SpaceNut · 2018-04-15 08:42:41

louis wrote:

2. I expect huge methane/oxygen storage as being the simplest way to store energy. So, there will be significant methane/oxygen heating and electricity-generation plants.

I do see with the quatity of 20 to 50 BFR's that we will have of lots of fuel storage with the recycling of them.

louis wrote:

4. The Spaceport is going to be a big part of the city. So imagine maybe 20 or 50 BFR type vehicles in a row, ready to take off and numerous other landing pads.

I hope there is a plan to recycle/ reuse all of the BFR and not have a mind set of bringing stuff only to leave them empty in the city like the ghosts of the past.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-04-15 09:53:08

Well, Elon came up with the first "industry" on Mars, a candy factory making "Mars bars." Thankfully he has an amazing sense of humor.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-04-15 10:06:08

As the old ex-rancher on the website: what's really the answer is a composting system, where the human wastes are combined with the vegetable wastes; stalks, inedible leaves, etc., from the greenhouse. Mixed with the human wastes will rapidly get rid of the odors and "poop texture," especially when well composted with other wastes. I don't know if they still make a fertilizer called Milorganite, which was made from the sewage waste in the city of Milwaukee?

IanM · 2018-04-15 11:31:25

RobertDyck wrote:

I also posted that Mars will not use toilet paper. Mars has no trees, and building pressurized greenhouses with water recycling, temperature control, soil treatment, and fertilizer, cannot be justified just for toilet paper. Instead Mars will use a Japanese invention called "Washlet". It's a combination toilet and bidet. Yes, the bidet was invented in France, but Japan integrated a bidet seat with a flush toilet. The washlet uses water, air, and electricity, nothing more.

We'll still need paper/cloth products for other things (such as paper towels, paper, textiles, etc.), so making toilet paper from the same process shouldn't be too difficult. We don't even need trees, perhaps we could use such things as papyrus or bamboo. I agree that washlets would be more efficient, but toilet paper isn't completely out of the question. That said, Oldfart has also come up with a solution but using composted plant matter to "cool down" the human excrement so that it's more palpable for plants.

RobertDyck · 2018-04-15 12:25:21

The reason a company in Japan developed Washlet was that in Tokyo most homes are not connected to any sort of sewer. Each house has a septic tank. Toilet paper clogs the septic tank. The tank has to be drained by a truck, hauled away for safe disposal. The North American name for a truck that does that is honey wagon. Toilet paper fills the septic tank a lot quicker, and clogs the siphon hose the truck uses to empty it. When I was in elementary school, one day the school took us all for a field trip to the city sewage processing facility. The first step in processing city sewage was a large tank with rows of rakes across the top. Toilet paper would float, the rakes would catch it. This tank was the size of an Olympic swimming pool, but you REALLY don't want to swim there. It's entire purpose was to remove toilet paper. Mars will recycle everything; sewage will become compost as Oldfart1939 described. Rather than separating out toilet paper, it's far simpler to not use it in the first place. I don't remember what they did with used dirty toilet paper. The word "ew!" comes to mind.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-04-15 15:24:49

Different brands of toilet paper have different properties w/r to "wet strength." I lived for 22 years at my ranch w/o problems with getting the system stuffed with paper by avoiding Kleenex tissue. We found that Charmin fell apart pretty easily and could be digested by septic tank bacteria. Toilet paper can be digested and become compost, too. It will add "tilth" to the soil, even incompletely digested.

louis · 2018-04-15 15:25:50

I guess on Mars if were silly enough not to use it as fertiliser you could simply freeze it outside and then have robot rovers remove it to a distant shaded crater.

RobertDyck wrote:

The reason a company in Japan developed Washlet was that in Tokyo most homes are not connected to any sort of sewer. Each house has a septic tank. Toilet paper clogs the septic tank. The tank has to be drained by a truck, hauled away for safe disposal. The North American name for a truck that does that is honey wagon. Toilet paper fills the septic tank a lot quicker, and clogs the siphon hose the truck uses to empty it. When I was in elementary school, one day the school took us all for a field trip to the city sewage processing facility. The first step in processing city sewage was a large tank with rows of rakes across the top. Toilet paper would float, the rakes would catch it. This tank was the size of an Olympic swimming pool, but you REALLY don't want to swim there. It's entire purpose was to remove toilet paper. Mars will recycle everything; sewage will become compost as Oldfart1939 described. Rather than separating out toilet paper, it's far simpler to not use it in the first place. I don't remember what they did with used dirty toilet paper. The word "ew!" comes to mind.

elderflower · 2018-04-16 04:59:52

In place of modern toilet paper the Romans used a sponge on a stick which they rinsed out in a flowing fresh water rille. They didn't have soap so we could do better using soap or detergent as well.

louis · 2018-04-16 07:02:40

Yes, I've always felt it would be difficult to get modern folk to use such an implement. However, perhaps with a sterilisation unit...like the ones dentists use...

elderflower wrote:

In place of modern toilet paper the Romans used a sponge on a stick which they rinsed out in a flowing fresh water rille. They didn't have soap so we could do better using soap or detergent as well.

RobertDyck · 2018-04-16 08:25:45

elderflower wrote:

In place of modern toilet paper the Romans used a sponge on a stick which they rinsed out in a flowing fresh water rille. They didn't have soap so we could do better using soap or detergent as well.

I heard one person claim Romans were the first to use soap. That person claimed soap built civilization. Well...actually you're right, most Romans didn't. They preferred to coat their body with oil, then scrape it off. Weird. Romans also built public baths, as large as a swimming pool and heated with a wood fire fuelling an elaborate heating system under-floor and in-wall. All that and they didn't use soap? Uh...

Wikipedia: Soap

Ancient Middle East
The earliest recorded evidence of the production of soap-like materials dates back to around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon. A formula for soap consisting of water, alkali, and cassia oil was written on a Babylonian clay tablet around 2200 BC.
The Ebers papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) indicates the ancient Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance. Egyptian documents mention a similar substance was used in the preparation of wool for weaving.[citation needed]
In the reign of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), a recipe for soap consisted of uhulu [ashes], cypress [oil] and sesame [seed oil] "for washing the stones for the servant girls".
Roman Empire
The word sapo, Latin for soap, likely was borrowed from an early Germanic language and is cognate with Latin sebum, "tallow". It first appears in Pliny the Elder's account. Historia Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes, but the only use he mentions for it is as a pomade for hair; he mentions rather disapprovingly that the men of the Gauls and Germans were more likely to use it than their female counterparts. Aretaeus of Cappadocia, writing in the first century AD, observes among "Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances that are made into balls [...] called soap". The Romans' preferred method of cleaning the body was to massage oil into the skin and then scrape away both the oil and any dirt with a strigil. The Gauls used soap made from animal fat.
Zosimos of Panopolis, circa 300 AD, describes soap and soapmaking. Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribes washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. The use of soap for personal cleanliness became increasingly common in the 2nd century A.D. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best.

RobertDyck · 2018-04-16 09:13:28

YouTube: How Its Made: Toilet Paper

Ask a Prepper: Homemade Substitutes for Toilet Paper

Who knew there were so many alternatives when it comes to toilet paper? But what if you could actually make your own toilet paper? If you have paper lying around the house, then you can! Here is what you will need:
Any paper, except for glossy magazine paper
A pot
Water
Aloe, baby oil, or any type of unscented lotion (these act as softening agents)
Witch hazel (optional; acts as an antibacterial agent)
Grass and leaves
Rolling pin
Mallet or hammer
Sheet or towel
Ladle or spoon
Large cutting board or other flat board
To make toilet paper, follow these steps:
Soak the paper in water first to remove as much ink as you can, especially if you are using newspaper. Once at least ¾ of the ink has seeped out of the paper you can pull it from the soak water.
After you soak the paper, place it in a pot with two handfuls of grass and leaves and cover with water. Bring this to a boil and allow it to simmer at a low temperature for one hour.
Bring the water to a rolling boil for half an hour. You can add water as necessary and you will find a foam forms on top that you will need to remove.
After boiling, the paper becomes pulp. You will now remove the pot from the heat and remove the water from the pot without disturbing the pulp. The best method is to scoop out most of the hot water, leaving the pulp intact, and then let the rest cool. If you do need to remove the pulp from the pot, do not let it dry out. You will need to put it back into the pot when the water is gone.
Once the pulp has been put back into the pot, mix in 4 tablespoons of oil or lotion, which will soften the paper, and just a few drops of witch hazel, if you are using it.
Spread the pulp mixture on a towel or sheet spread on a hard flat surface. You can roll it out with the rolling pin, getting it as thin as possible. If there are lumps, you can hammer these down with the mallet.
Lay the board on top of the rolled out pulp and weight down with heavy objects.
After 30 minutes, remove the weights and the board. You can then turn the towel or sheet over and pull it off of the toilet paper.
Put the toilet paper out in the sun to dry.
Once dry, you can cut it into strips.

Again, considering everything required to make toilet paper, and everything required to recycle or compost it, why? Toilet paper is a modern invention. As stated in the YouTube video, modern toilet paper was invented in 1857. It came in piles of pre-cut sheets until 1890; that's when one company introduced bathroom tissue on a roll. It's convenient in society with a continent of trees. Modern method uses recycled paper, but realize Mars won't have vast quantities of recycled paper either. The video mentions before toilet paper, people used leaves, corn cobs (I think people used husks, not the cob), newspapers, and mail order catalogues. This is the 21st century, there won't be any newspapers on Mars. We will have internet instead. When is the last time you saw a mail order catalogue? Again, we use internet instead. Technical journals will be sent to Mars via radio, cached on a web server, viewed via smart phone, tablet, or laptop. And when was the last time you got a printed user manual for anything? It's all online now. So don't expect vast quantities of paper that can be recycled for toilet paper.

Why do all that when a Washlet is so much simpler? Yes, it's new. When you go to Mars, you will have to learn new things.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-04-16 16:03:06)

louis · 2018-04-16 13:36:21

We had toilet paper on a roll way before 1980! They used to throw them at football (soccer) matches in the 1960s. But I agree with you, there must be ways to avoid paper production, and it is a substantial saving on energy and labour input. The Mars settlement will need to focus on life support, mineral extraction, basic industrial infrastructure, construction and rocketry. Paper production is an unnecessary and wasteful diversion (that indeed produces waste which then needs to be processed).

RobertDyck wrote:

YouTube: How Its Made: Toilet Paper
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wrg_6dny6Po/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEXCNACELwBSFryq4qpAwkIARUAAIhCGAE=&rs=AOn4CLAPwhWfWOP0r4uEbO0OE7rf4Y0K-w
Ask a Prepper: Homemade Substitutes for Toilet Paper
Who knew there were so many alternatives when it comes to toilet paper? But what if you could actually make your own toilet paper? If you have paper lying around the house, then you can! Here is what you will need:
Any paper, except for glossy magazine paper
A pot
Water
Aloe, baby oil, or any type of unscented lotion (these act as softening agents)
Witch hazel (optional; acts as an antibacterial agent)
Grass and leaves
Rolling pin
Mallet or hammer
Sheet or towel
Ladle or spoon
Large cutting board or other flat board
To make toilet paper, follow these steps:
Soak the paper in water first to remove as much ink as you can, especially if you are using newspaper. Once at least ¾ of the ink has seeped out of the paper you can pull it from the soak water.
After you soak the paper, place it in a pot with two handfuls of grass and leaves and cover with water. Bring this to a boil and allow it to simmer at a low temperature for one hour.
Bring the water to a rolling boil for half an hour. You can add water as necessary and you will find a foam forms on top that you will need to remove.
After boiling, the paper becomes pulp. You will now remove the pot from the heat and remove the water from the pot without disturbing the pulp. The best method is to scoop out most of the hot water, leaving the pulp intact, and then let the rest cool. If you do need to remove the pulp from the pot, do not let it dry out. You will need to put it back into the pot when the water is gone.
Once the pulp has been put back into the pot, mix in 4 tablespoons of oil or lotion, which will soften the paper, and just a few drops of witch hazel, if you are using it.
Spread the pulp mixture on a towel or sheet spread on a hard flat surface. You can roll it out with the rolling pin, getting it as thin as possible. If there are lumps, you can hammer these down with the mallet.
Lay the board on top of the rolled out pulp and weight down with heavy objects.
After 30 minutes, remove the weights and the board. You can then turn the towel or sheet over and pull it off of the toilet paper.
Put the toilet paper out in the sun to dry.
Once dry, you can cut it into strips.
Again, considering everything required to make toilet paper, and everything required to recycle or compost it, why? Toilet paper is a modern invention. As stated in the YouTube video, modern toilet paper was invented in 1857. It came in piles of pre-cut sheets until 1980; that's when one company introduced bathroom tissue on a roll. It's convenient in society with a content of trees. Modern method uses recycled paper, but realize Mars won't have vast quantities of recycled paper either. The video mentions before toilet paper, people used leaves, corn cobs (I think people used husks, not the cob), newspapers, and mail order catalogues. This is the 21st century, there won't be any newspapers on Mars. We will have internet instead. When is the last time you saw a mail order catalogue? Again, we use internet instead. Technical journals will be sent to Mars via radio, cached on a web server, viewed via smart phone, tablet, or laptop. And when was the last time you got a printed user manual for anything? It's all online now. So don't expect vast quantities of paper that can be recycled for toilet paper.
Why do all that when a Washlet is so much simpler? Yes, it's new. When you go to Mars, you will have to learn new things.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-16 18:52:33

The wet wipes are a big part of the deliverables to the ISS and have been recycled for there moisture in that they were allowed to air dry such that the station would have addition water and oxygen during the shuttle acident stand down while we searched for another means to send up supplies.

louis · 2018-04-16 18:58:11

Wet wipes are fine for the ISS but if you have 1000 people on Mars then all these products become an issue given how quickly 1000 x 50 grams x 600 sols becomes 30 tonnes. So I am definitely with RD on this: eliminate all such usage. We have an established technology that allows us to forgo all paper or other usage in a toilet situation.

SpaceNut wrote:

The wet wipes are a big part of the deliverables to the ISS and have been recycled for there moisture in that they were allowed to air dry such that the station would have addition water and oxygen during the shuttle acident stand down while we searched for another means to send up supplies.

elderflower · 2018-04-17 03:45:02

A few dozen kilograms of soap is a much better idea. You will have to use the Roman method as nothing disposable will be available for many years unless it is absolutely necessary, like surgical dressings perhaps.
It is true that Roman baths got pretty mucky as they didn't change the water, had no means of chlorination and didn't use soap.

IanM · 2018-04-17 07:55:02

Another thing we can do with human waste is use methanogens on it to produce methane, but that comes at a cost of not being able to then use that waste as compost. (EDIT: We'd also have to do it in an oxygen-free environment, but I guess that's doable with a septic tank.) I guess it would be up to the city to decide what proportion of waste to use to produce methane and what proportion to use as compost.

Last edited by IanM (2018-04-17 07:57:09)

louis · 2018-04-17 08:14:53

Hygiene products manufacture will have to be one of the first industries on Mars. It will have to be a vegetable soap I guess.

elderflower wrote:

A few dozen kilograms of soap is a much better idea. You will have to use the Roman method as nothing disposable will be available for many years unless it is absolutely necessary, like surgical dressings perhaps.
It is true that Roman baths got pretty mucky as they didn't change the water, had no means of chlorination and didn't use soap.

louis · 2018-04-17 08:18:18

More for the young Sagan City:

- An Earth Data Centre, containing copies of the digitised contents of major libraries, museums and other cultural centres on Earth. Would also contain all digital copies of film, TV shows etc.

- A Sports Centre. I predict basketball with modified hoops and balls will be the most popular sport on Mars.

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Sagan City - what will be there?

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