Mining Water Ice on Mars

louis · 2018-06-25 17:45:05

People might be interested in this presentation on mining water ice on Mars - pretty detailed, including mining techniques.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file … elease.pdf

SpaceNut · 2018-06-25 18:40:15

Well just how hard is the Ice on Mars? What amount of Ice is dirt, sand, rocks versus actual water and not something else? What is the equipment needed to get the water and its energy expenditure to do so?

A single underground deposit of ice on Mars contains about as much water as there is in Michigan's Lake Superior, according to new research from NASA. The deposit rests in the mid-northern latitudes of the Red Planet, specifically in the Utopia Planitia region. Discovered by the Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARD) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the deposit is "more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico," according to a NASA press release. It ranges in thickness from about 260 feet to about 560 feet, and has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well. None of the ice is exposed to the surface. At various points the dirt covering it is in between 3 and 33 feet thick.

Incredible Technology: How to Mine Water on Mars

6th annual NASA Robotics Mining Competition The Challenge of Mars Mining

Void · 2018-06-25 21:09:58

I did not think I would intrude, but here I am.
Your Materials I did study. Interesting. One thing I did not notice in your stated materials is the amount of air/porosity (Voids ) in the deposit.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-bl … -mars.html
Quote:

This value is lower than what is expected for pure water ice. Ideally, pure, solid water ice would have a dielectric of 3.0-3.2. In reality, we often have different materials in the mix. Rock, water ice, and porosity (i.e,. air) are in a three way tug-of-war over the dielectric constant result. Porosity pulls it down from 3, towards 1, and lithic (rock) content or dust brings it up towards 6–8. My work used a handy ternary diagram from Bramson et al. (2015), to come up with a possible combination of material that is consistent with our result. This amounted to a value of 50–80% water ice, 0–30% rocky content, and 15–50% porosity. So, think of a mostly icy but somewhat porous subsurface, with a bit of dust and lithic material mixed in.

This is my opinion, and only an opinion:

In my opinion the porosity may present a danger and also perhaps an opportunity.

We do not know the nature of this porosity. Is it tiny bubbles in the wine that will not make us whine, or is it possibly a network of vein like Crevasse's?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevasse

Will heavy machinery, sink in or crash into a Antarctic like Crevasse? Will humans?

So, first step is to consult the fracking community for shale oil:
https://www.microseismic.com/solutions/ … g-mapping/
Figure out how you are going to do 3D or even 4D monitoring of the site you want to mine, perhaps from a small rover. I got word of this from reading the materials of "Peter Zeihan" by the way.

A mining method I would like to consider would be to put a round turret with a 3d pointing method onto the ground at a desired location after clearing sufficient overburden to allow it to shine a laser at the ice. It will shine down below itself but off to the side at an angle as well.

If it pointed strait down it would undermine itself, and the rock and dust content of the mix would soon impede contact with fresh ice.

It should be possible to rotate the turret a full 360 degrees, and to angle it down at the angle desired. If a greater ice content and lesser regolith content, then the angle can be deeper. If higher regolith to ice ratio, then a shallower angle is needed.

The reason for the angle is that you want the regolith to fall down to the floor of the excavation that is being carved by this method. Presuming you have a method to remove the heated ice as a vapor, then you are creating a shape in the deposit which would be a double cone void. That is the turret would rest on a carved cone of untouched deposit. It would carve a cone shaped void, and of course the roor of the void would be conical, which may allow it to hold weight and not collapse. If necessary, a full 360 degree sweep does not have to be done. You could leave parts as periodic roof supports.

If you were intending to liquify the ice, then you would need a machine which could be charged by the lasers light on solar cells, to absorb by some means the small amount of liquid that might be the result of the laser. But due to the porosity of the deposit, I would be concerned that you could not pressurize the Cone-Void. The air pressure inside the Cone-Void might need to be at Martian local ambient.

If you insist on dealing with liquids, then in that case you might try using salts, to allow liquification at temperatures below the triple point of fresh water (We do not even know for sure that the ice is fresh water. Most likely close to fresh).

So then you would be dealing with absorbing a salty liquid, and then recycling the salt which would become a complex problem.

One relatively simple option might involve using the porosity to an advantage. If you could pull a vacuum on the cone shaped void, and Martian air were sucked in through the porosity structure, then you would assist in the evaporation of ice by lowering the pressure, and your vacuum system might capture the moisture which could be extracted from the air. This most likely would be done in the area of the Turret-Hub.

But if that does not work because the porosity does not really allow air in at a significant rate, then you could still use a rover, with a vacuum on it that would vacuum the vapors that came off of the laser beam contact with the deposit materials.

……

So if this is done and the cone-void is created, what might you do with it afterward?
If you could find a way to secure the roof and floor from leaking air, then you would have a cone-void ice cave, which would have a slanted floor. Could it be useful for storing food? Maybe something else? Well it is something to think about.

I don't intend to cause trouble, rather hope to offer a method to consider.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-06-25 21:40:04)

elderflower · 2018-06-26 08:29:56

I still like blasting, crushing and mechanical separation for the initial mining process. It uses only really well established techniques as used on Earth.

Void · 2018-06-26 12:59:25

Well, I read the materials that Louis and Spacenut provided, and it was indicated that the removal of regolith overburden would be quite a problem.

Further your comments do not address the possibility that the materials may be unstable due to porosity. Although the mix is 0–30% rocky content, there is so much, (15–50%) porosity that the specific gravity is rather low. That is less than for pure ice I believe.

I think the reason is that indeed through time there has been sublimation, and if so, then I would anticipate veins of porosity penetrating the ice/regolith mass. Heavy equipment could sink. Maybe even crevasse such as in Antarctica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevasse

Doing a vertical well, might produce somewhat, but the regolith would plug up the deepness of penetration as you either melted or sublimed the ice.

I think trying to deal with liquid water is a thing to prefer to avoid in the Martian situation.

I did suggest the use of a laser, but there would be other ways to dig such a cone shape. Don't want to overburden this post with them at this time.

Further, during the excavation of such a cavern, it should be possible to do forensics on how these materials were deposited. In detail, which will have science value.

Depending on the "Ground Truth/Underground Truth" discovered, it may be possible to do a rather productive variation on what I have suggested.

Dig the cone-void as previously suggested, but do not swing a full 360 degrees. Leave one or two pathways for vehicles or pipes to transport the water/ice/vapors.

Then as I said if the ground truth is appropriate then apply a vacuum to the cone-void. This would only work if the 3-30+ meter overburden would sufficiently hold the vacuum, and if the porosity was indeed linked by veins. Then the vacuum would facilitate the sublimation of the ice bounding the cone. Mostly the upper bound. The lower bound would be covered with soil/rocks that had dropped as the cone-void was created. This of course would undermine the upper bound materials until it collapsed. But your "Turret" and pathway should be OK. You could then remove the equipment and set up again with it elsewhere.

I am fairly sure that the amount of heavy equipment needed to be transported from Earth could then be kept to a minimum.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-06-26 13:10:25)

GW Johnson · 2018-06-26 13:45:26

Why not do something really simple? Drill down through the regolith overburden, into the ice deposit, and case that well. Then inject steam under pressure (one or a few atm) to melt a cavity down in the ice deposit. The solids content falls to the bottom of the cavity, leaving steam and possibly-salty water in the rest of the cavity.

Now, extend your pipe down your cased well to the bottom of the cavity (but above the separated solids) through the water before it has a chance to refreeze. Inject some more steam, to pressurize-further the cavity. Then just receive the possibly salty water driven right back up the well by the pressure.

Something very similar has been done in old oil fields for many decades. It's called a secondary recovery method, older than the tertiary method we call fracking.

As for the salt in the water, who cares? We need electrolyte to do electrolysis for hydrogen and oxygen; THERE IT IS!

For water needed fresh for drinking or agriculture, just let it freeze, and skim off the ice as it freezes. The salt stays in the brine. The ice you skim off is fresh. Mars is cold, you need no refrigeration for this!

As for the leftover brine, it could be a chemical feedstock, or you could let it go to waste, or you could even possibly use it for frack fluid if that sort of resource recovery proves to be needed.

Ice you can melt with solar thermal energy and waste heat energy from other power sources. Solar thermal works with diffuse radiation as well as beam radiation, by the way, unlike solar photovoltaic, which only utilizes beam radiation.

GW

louis · 2018-06-26 14:38:23

That sounds like what is described on page 46 of the presentation.

GW Johnson wrote:

Why not do something really simple? Drill down through the regolith overburden, into the ice deposit, and case that well. Then inject steam under pressure (one or a few atm) to melt a cavity down in the ice deposit. The solids content falls to the bottom of the cavity, leaving steam and possibly-salty water in the rest of the cavity.
Now, extend your pipe down your cased well to the bottom of the cavity (but above the separated solids) through the water before it has a chance to refreeze. Inject some more steam, to pressurize-further the cavity. Then just receive the possibly salty water driven right back up the well by the pressure.
Something very similar has been done in old oil fields for many decades. It's called a secondary recovery method, older than the tertiary method we call fracking.
As for the salt in the water, who cares? We need electrolyte to do electrolysis for hydrogen and oxygen; THERE IT IS!
For water needed fresh for drinking or agriculture, just let it freeze, and skim off the ice as it freezes. The salt stays in the brine. The ice you skim off is fresh. Mars is cold, you need no refrigeration for this!
As for the leftover brine, it could be a chemical feedstock, or you could let it go to waste, or you could even possibly use it for frack fluid if that sort of resource recovery proves to be needed.
Ice you can melt with solar thermal energy and waste heat energy from other power sources. Solar thermal works with diffuse radiation as well as beam radiation, by the way, unlike solar photovoltaic, which only utilizes beam radiation.
GW

Void · 2018-06-26 14:50:33

That is good, whatever is workable, then the tried and true is the safest.

You have accepted that the solids would drop to the bottom and make it harder to drill deeper, but maybe we don't care, if there is enough water to fill needs.

My concerns are about the porosity of course. Perhaps steam will fill the pores and so allow you to have effective pressurization to be able to retain and extract the steam and perhaps brine.

I am quibbling here, but I would like to know the amount of heavy equipment this would require. Of course I am concerned about the possible nature of the porosity and possible cave in's.

And I am sensible. If a method works then good enough. But as is typical here, there is an allergy to exploring new ideas, and Mars is not the same as the Greenland ice bodies. I will call your plan Option #1 in my little world, but will retain what I said as Option #2.

Just out of curiosity, does your method provide for gathering a scientific sample while you are drilling? I am guessing so. Granted, the primary concern is the water to make fuel and for life support, but the scientific information also further justifies human presence on Mars to the scientific community which may have objections.

Politics of course, in science.

Done.

RobertDyck · 2018-06-26 16:55:25

I was going to suggest the same thing GW did, but he said it first. And I got the idea from Mark Homnick of the Mars Homestead Project, phase 1. Heavy equipment, a tarp that doesn't let moisture through, and can be pegged to the ground. That is to collect any moisture that comes up. Seal it around the edges simply by burying the edges in dirt (Mars dirt). The centre of the tarp would have a large hose to collect steam, that steam would be routed to a cold tank to condense as water. A steam hose would deliver pressurized, hot steam. I visualize something like a hydraulic hose. A third hose would suck up water from the bottom of the pit. Water from the cold tank would be pumped back into a boiler to feed steam. Water from the suck hose would have to be filtered.

As long as the cold tank can condense steam into water quickly enough to prevent pressure build-up, equipment should be simple.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-26 19:04:57

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_still

This is the upside down tent used in the deserts to collect water from a pit.

Bringing the driest place in the world to life: 'Fog catchers' attempt to harvest moisture with huge nets in Chilean desert

http://airsolarwater.com/

Any moisture on mars that is evaporated once when it comes in contact with the tent will turn to liquid and roll down the length to a trough to collect it in. The tent could be just a dark black plastic for solar heat generation to drive the moisture condensation effect.

Void · 2018-06-26 19:38:47

First of all I presume that any of you will agree that it would be a good thing to be able to peer into the deposits with Microseismic method or something with a similar capability.
https://www.microseismic.com/solutions/ … g-mapping/

I am going to hope that somehow you will all agree with that.

Now as for drilling with a typical drill system as GW has suggested and Louis seems to have seconded, yes, as far as handling overburden, I think that idea wins hands down.

But now I am going to have to point out that each of you will need to provide a method where your equipment will not create a sink hole that the equipment will fall into.

I did study the materials of Louis again, and they do talk about it, in that case they indicate a reservoir filled with melted water, which presumably is to be extracted. They did mention that concerns to keep the overburden from collapsing are valid. (In different words).

The ideas you have presented are very interesting Spacenut, but here again overburden of 3-36? Meters, that you have to heat up first or remove. Again what happens to your equipment when a sinkhole forms? For that matter what is the scale of your equipment for dealing with overburden that deep and a mixed deposit of regolith, ice, and porosity? Rather large I think.

I am not trying to be impossible but I frequently get dismissed in a rude manner myself, so not too many tiny violins playing just now.

Our objective should be to succeed. By what can be discovered.

Perhaps GW could drill at an angle then he might avoid a sink hole possibility.

I have not seen anyone else address the porosity problem. Why not? I suspect that the upper layers are more porous than the lower ones.
That is intuitive as the lower you go, the more pressure from the deposits. Also, the closer to the surface the more likely that some pores will have formed from sublimation of ice.

If is the case, then we should be very fearful of driving heavy equipment on this surface.

But we don't know do we. And not all of the deposits will be the same. The specs suggest variations, so we would also need to figure out where we could do extraction and what the deposits specific characteristics are.

I tried to develop a variation of drilling, the cone-void. Got spanked away as usual. It has not been made elegant, perhaps never will be, and perhaps is not the best choice. We don't know yet.

But one thing I tried to get right from the start was a cone-pedestal to rest the equipment on, which hopefully would not be undermined.

Still, if you can successful deal with the pores, and if you can drill a upside-down lollypop shape where the stem is the drill hole and of course the sphere is where you have materials you can extract, and if you can do it without collapse, then fine. As I said, I am not in this to be important, I am in it to try to solve the problem with you guys.

I think I have raised some issues that need to be considered.

By the way, the cone shaped void might work very well for a habitat nearer the poles without such an overburden deposit, and without the porosity I presume. Then your hab would be at a blunted flat end of a cone pedestal, and you could extend downward to the ground line as you wished, perhaps to reach a mineral of importance. And while you were doing that you would be getting replacement/makeup water for your hab for your mining operation.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-06-26 20:02:35)

kbd512 · 2018-06-26 22:35:00

I still like the idea of putting a slug of carbide encased Pu238 down the bore hole on the end of the drill pipe after the hole has been bored. I would think anything hot enough to melt brass would generate enough steam pressure to get the job done. That way you don't need any pumping power. Some holes in a thermally conductive Aluminum drill pipe would cause the steam to rise on its own and then you could fill a comparatively much colder metal water tank on the surface that way.

Void · 2018-06-30 14:48:11

I am going to continue this discussion on my own terms more, at this location:
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8181&p=3

Starting on post #55.

I may very well borrow quite a few things from you guys.

I have to say that although you are very good at the things you do, you are not really adaptive enough in my opinion. Get mad if you like, but you always resort to the tried and true, which in the end prevents you from finding the new.

Any attempts to invent always meet with a clubbing event, and then some type of effort to establish pecking order.

But as I have said, you have been helpful, but I also want to be able to do more than extract water, but to adapt to Mars, and utilize to fullness how it is not like Earth while indeed when appropriate, adopting things from Earth.

Last edited by Void (2018-06-30 16:25:17)

SpaceNut · 2018-06-30 17:47:07

It has been hard to get what we need without bringing it to mars and of course doing more with less as well since mars has alot but its in the wrong format for direct use and requires other methods to get what we want.
Since the rovers indicate water in some amount maybe just digging a tunnel under ground and capping the ends to make a chamber that one could increase the heat content within in order to drive a moisture to be turn to vapor to which we can then cool and cause it to drip into a pan from the cieling of the tunnel. Use solar and heat exchanger to do the heating and cooling from the mars daily cycle.

elderflower · 2018-07-01 06:21:51

Maybe, just maybe, it isn't 100% water ice with porosity. The density of methane clathrate is about 900 Kg per m3. This kind of stuff would give the Hydrogen signal that has been inferred. If it were clathrate the methane supply question would be solved.

Terraformer · 2018-07-01 07:01:12

I'd love for there to be a mission that uses a mirror to focus intense sunlight on the surface of Mars, and analyses the results. If it's water, that should be clear. Clathrates too. It shouldn't be a particularly expensive mission, either.

elderflower · 2018-07-01 08:22:21

Or the idea of dropping penetrators from orbit. This will give a blast of hot gas, dust and vapours whose signals can probably be captured by existing assets. It would also give a seismic signal so a few seismometers should be landed first.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 08:32:30

The siesmic unit will be on mars soon with Insight unless we have another miscalculation of metric vs english measurements and we end up with an impactor unplanned.

I do agree elderflower that we need a better answer as to what the hydrogen signature is for any landing selection site long before man goes to aid in the planning of the mission.

Terraformer · 2018-07-01 08:41:04

It's what we did for Luna.

Could we add an impactor to the next mission, whatever it is?

Terraformer · 2018-07-01 08:43:20

Well, the next orbiter mission.

I wonder how small it could be? Maybe the Mars Society could team up with a university and SpaceX to do it?

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 09:06:16

Information on the Lunar impactor size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Impact_Probe part of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 in conjunction with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCROSS to be able to observe the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water

https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/j … ccess.html

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/l … actor.html what was used is the Centaur upper stage rocket weighing in at 5,216-pound.

Void · 2018-07-01 10:03:39

Natural impacts observed showing apparent water ice:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/s … artianice/
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/scient … rs-on-mars
Ice Cliffs:
2020 Rover has ground penetrating radar?
https://thesciencepage.com/researchers- … e-on-mars/
U Gals and Guys have already reviewed this:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/steep- … buried-ice
Yes, I suppose I am double dipping, as I created my own spot to blab on this subject in General Systems. However here I will constrain myself and leave plenty of room for others to express themselves. But Elderflowers query prompts me to return to a previous entry made somewhere else on this site.
By characterizing the near surface icy environments with both the natural impactors, and the exposed cliffs, I am sure that Nasa already knows quite a lot.
Build an impactor:
If you were to build an "Unnatural" impactor, I would say of course give it a necessary heat shield, but compose it's interior dominantly with flamable metals, metals that ignite/explode in water.
The impactor if successful in penetrating to the ice, would we hope explode, with both the energy of the impact and the explosion perhaps clearing the regolith/dust top layers. Also pulverizing the ice local to the impact. Residual fragments of metals might smolder for a bit, depending on their reactions to the materials they were exposed to. All this observed from elsewhere may give some indication of what was impacted.

……

It is apparent as well that there may be smaller ice patches very close to the equator.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ … fe-seekers

My guess on why is that at the sub-surface temperatures of Mars, for a body of ice covered in dirt, a thin salty film will eventually evolve to cover the interface between the ice and the drying effects of the atmosphere.
I think that the salty film with the assistance of the dirt, and low temperatures, can absorb moisture from the Martian atmosphere at times, and of course then also loose moisture to the Martian atmosphere, in cycles of season, and day/night. But that is speculation. Obviously some unexpected process is preserving the ice at locations where Nasa and other scientific oriented entities do not think it should have survived.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-01 10:11:40)

louis · 2018-07-01 12:53:35

I think looking at ice cliffs at latitudes of 55 degrees or more is not v. productive re Mission One...useful to know for later exploration.

Void wrote:

Natural impacts observed showing apparent water ice:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/s … artianice/
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/scient … rs-on-mars
Ice Cliffs:
2020 Rover has ground penetrating radar?
https://thesciencepage.com/researchers- … e-on-mars/
U Gals and Guys have already reviewed this:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/steep- … buried-ice
Yes, I suppose I am double dipping, as I created my own spot to blab on this subject in General Systems. However here I will constrain myself and leave plenty of room for others to express themselves. But Elderflowers query prompts me to return to a previous entry made somewhere else on this site.
By characterizing the near surface icy environments with both the natural impactors, and the exposed cliffs, I am sure that Nasa already knows quite a lot.
Build an impactor:
If you were to build an "Unnatural" impactor, I would say of course give it a necessary heat shield, but compose it's interior dominantly with flamable metals, metals that ignite/explode in water.
The impactor if successful in penetrating to the ice, would we hope explode, with both the energy of the impact and the explosion perhaps clearing the regolith/dust top layers. Also pulverizing the ice local to the impact. Residual fragments of metals might smolder for a bit, depending on their reactions to the materials they were exposed to. All this observed from elsewhere may give some indication of what was impacted.
……
It is apparent as well that there may be smaller ice patches very close to the equator.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ … fe-seekers
My guess on why is that at the sub-surface temperatures of Mars, for a body of ice covered in dirt, a thin salty film will eventually evolve to cover the interface between the ice and the drying effects of the atmosphere.
I think that the salty film with the assistance of the dirt, and low temperatures, can absorb moisture from the Martian atmosphere at times, and of course then also loose moisture to the Martian atmosphere, in cycles of season, and day/night. But that is speculation. Obviously some unexpected process is preserving the ice at locations where Nasa and other scientific oriented entities do not think it should have survived.

Done.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 16:43:21

Voids first article question is one of why did it take 3 months to observe any changes as the orbiter should be over that same point more than a 3 months window to refilm that area? It is also unknown as to when the strike occured.

Crater images from articles:
388654main_site2_fading_strip.jpg?itok=51EkDFoQ
Oct. 18, 2008, and again on Jan. 14, 2009

site5_fading_200pc_35meters_across_each.jpg?kvDCtOmTT4XxtqhBBIgwL5dSS_iLdSdn&itok=S5z0Yu1C
November 2008 and January 2009.

200 days after we first saw the ice, it was gone. MRO researchers had identified 80 to 90 craters around the Martian globe with ice in the bottoms. Several of the craters were also near the landing site of the Viking Lander 2. Viking also looked for water ice on Mars, but was only able to dig down about 6 inches (15 cm) below the surface about 4 inches (10 cm) shy of where the ice table sits.

Web searching for sites for the HiRISE camera eight locations exposing water ice exageration as detector can not determine water on hydrogen.

starting at depths of as little as 1 to 2 meters (3.2 to 6.5 feet) and extending up to 100 meters (328 feet) or more.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/nasa-confirm … days-mars/

Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.

Steep Slopes on Mars Reveal Structure of Buried Ice

Newly discovered sheets of water ice just beneath the surface on Mars hold clues to the planet's climate history, and could perhaps even yield drinking water for future astronauts.

PIA22077_hires.jpg?HTf9W6yXxhS06sexvrusas_hTrZewEB3&itok=hdmhVZHT

The eight scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees are in both northern and southern hemispheres of Mars, at latitudes from about 55 to 58 degrees, equivalent on Earth to Scotland or the tip of South America.

Phoenix mission confirmed and analyzed the buried water ice at 68 degrees north latitude buried ice sheets that extend from the poles all the way down to 45 degrees.

images on this show where MRO has detected for 2 locations highlighted in blue.
https://www.slashgear.com/nasa-mars-orb … -11514914/

Void · 2018-07-01 17:55:04

Thanks for the nice posting Spacenut. Yes Louis, the high latitude ice displayed can only perhaps give us a model of what we might hope to find at lower latitudes.

So, this might be true, ice near the equator of Mars.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ … fe-seekers
If so, even still it does not evidence of shallow buried ice in the Valles Marineris.
But the following two references claim that there is a huge amount of buried ice there:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 5X13004145
Quote:

One million cubic kilometers of fossil ice in Valles Marineris: Relicts of a 3.5 Gy old glacial landsystem along the Martian equator

https://planetarygeomorphology.wordpres … eris-mars/
Quote:

However, little morphological evidence of past glacial activity has been described in the equatorial regions of Mars. A reapraisal and cartographic compilation of landforms in Valles Marineris (Gourronc et al., 2014) has revealed that this giant valley system that stretches over 2000 km along the martian equator, was entirely covered by a wet-based glaciated valley system during Late Noachian to Early Hesperian times, 3.5 Gy ago, and still contains huge volumes of fossil ice inherited from this ancient glaciation (Image 1). This supports the idea that massive wet-based ice deposits have formed at the Martian equator during the Late Noachian or Early Hesperian and have been preserved for their larger part until the

So, if a massive deposit of "Fossil" ice does exist in the rift valley, it must be very deeply buried so as to not show up on the radar probing.

Am I going to vouch for ice at the equator either in or out of the Valles Marineris? NO. I simply don't know. It is something I have read on the internet, and you can read it also. If it is fraud or a mistake, someone went to a great effort to make it look valid.

I will say this however. "Mars does not behave as we expect it to for buried water ice". We have plenty of evidence of that.

Way back when, in the time of the Viking probes, I know that they did not think that ice could persist at all below the polar ice caps. Not that they were stupid, but measurements apparently show that they needed more information.

As for ice on the equator? We need more information.

It may be however that a lower mid-latitude location would be a good place to refuel a BFS, if you can time the summers with the production and storage of propellants. If you can produce and store the propellants for refueling a BFS, then you did it.

But what about interference from dust storms? Not my problem, I am not going to Mars.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-01 18:11:47)

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#1 2018-06-25 17:45:05

Mining Water Ice on Mars

#2 2018-06-25 18:40:15

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#3 2018-06-25 21:09:58

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#4 2018-06-26 08:29:56

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#5 2018-06-26 12:59:25

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#6 2018-06-26 13:45:26

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#7 2018-06-26 14:38:23

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#8 2018-06-26 14:50:33

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#9 2018-06-26 16:55:25

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#10 2018-06-26 19:04:57

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#11 2018-06-26 19:38:47

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#12 2018-06-26 22:35:00

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#13 2018-06-30 14:48:11

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#14 2018-06-30 17:47:07

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#15 2018-07-01 06:21:51

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#16 2018-07-01 07:01:12

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#17 2018-07-01 08:22:21

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#18 2018-07-01 08:32:30

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#19 2018-07-01 08:41:04

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#20 2018-07-01 08:43:20

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#21 2018-07-01 09:06:16

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#22 2018-07-01 10:03:39

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#23 2018-07-01 12:53:35

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#24 2018-07-01 16:43:21

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

#25 2018-07-01 17:55:04

Re: Mining Water Ice on Mars

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