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louis

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 7,208

Is this getting Boring?

Is underground the way to go on Mars?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNw4zRMZKls

Is the Boring Company really going to be big on Mars?

I am sceptical.  Firstly,  using boring machines is a resource intensive proposition.  You can get all the radiation protection you need from simple cut and cover methods (dig a trench, put a strong arch over it and cover with lots of regolith). Secondly, will people really want to live underground for most of their lives - I give that a resounding no. People will want to feel they are on the surface of Mars and they will want to orientate themselves to the landscape in my view. Even if on Mars one will only have a somewhat restricted and protected view of your surroundings (a little like those odd views you get of tarmac and planes from an airport terminal building, where you feel somewhat dissociated from the external world), that will still be much better than having no views.

I think we will find ways of recreating Earth-like environments. I have long proposed converting narrow gorges (either naturally occuring or artifically dug) into pressurised environments - almost like the equivalent of very large terrarium bottles. They won't be entirely closed systems - you will have venting to ensure no build up of humidity or toxins. These  could have some natural lighting with radiation protection, supplemented by artificial lighting in the Earth like solar range, or piped lighting.

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Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,433

Re: Is this getting Boring?

I agree that moving loose regolith will be cheaper than cutting through solid rock.  But there are a lot of reasons why covered habitats make sense on Mars.  For large pressurised volumes, it will be much cheaper heaping regolith over a support structure than attempting to produce transparent pressure vessels.

Then we need to consider radiation protection.  The dose rate on the surface of Mars is equivalent to the most heavily contaminated nuclear disaster zones on Earth.  Whilst it would not be immediately catastrophic to human health, exposure to it for decades would be as detrimental to health as living in the most polluted cities on Earth.

On top of that we have the rather extreme temperature fluctuations of the Martian surface.  Surface structures would need to consider brittle phase transitions and thermal expansion and contraction, which could do a lot of damage to some structures.  Plants in transparent domes may suffer frost damage.  The heating requirements of surface structures regulary exposed to temperatures that fluctuate between -20 to -100°C, will not be trivial.  And it isn't as if we have lots of cheap natural gas that we can burn in boilers to keep them warm.

So my thoughts are that aesthetics need to give way to practicality.  For most industrial and habitats needs, we will be building frames and pushing regolith over them.  It should actually to a very cheap way of building once we have systems in place to produce modular frames.  The high iron content of the soil may allow production of bricks by compression of fine regolith into repeatable shapes.  The iron oxides in the regolith can be reduced to iron using hot hydrogen and then melted in an electric furnace.  This allows spanning supports to be made from cast iron.  If water is available in sufficient quantities, we could cast large roof sections from gypsum and lift them onto supporting pillars.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-20 02:42:37)

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"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,110

Re: Is this getting Boring?

It is an important question(s).  What are the parts?
-Psychological?
-Physiological?

If those can be addressed, then I would suggest that simple quality of life will be important.

First off, you cannot be under natural sunlight on Mars and stay healthy.  In fact you would die quickly.

And natural sunlight on Mars is not the same as what we would want on Earth.

If you do have transparent structures, they will modify the spectrum for better it is hoped, but also may filter out things desired.

And there will be dust on the "Windows", and that will require cleaning.

Artificial light as practiced on Earth historically is unhealthy, lacking red and infrared spectrums needed.  Also, a simulation would likely need to have some U.V. to be a "Natural" simulation.

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A person could have a "Car", and an umbilical, and a upgraded SpaceX flight suit.  That could mobilize you outside, but you would be dealing with toxic exposure potentials, and some elevated dangers.  I think that a full space suit would be considerably more cumbersome.
And to operate such machines would be expensive, I am sure.  But such a setup might be important for certain types of outside work.  Such a worker might benefit from the experience.

A possible alternative to that would be avatar technology.  Two likely types: 1) Local to surface.  2) Trans orbital.

This would of course be involving virtual reality and an actual avatar machine, perhaps a bit like a Tesla Bot.

Local to surface would of course have the operator on the world that the avatar is also on.  Trans orbital, would have two cases I would mention.  Earth>Moon, and Mars Orbital>Mars Surface.  But there could be many others.

It is mostly preferred to have the humans on Mars, but what would be done, if it is discovered that children would grow deformed and unhealthy in the gravity field of Mars?  We don't know about that yet.  In the case that proved true, then the only other hope I can think of is to have settlements with synthetic gravity associated with the moons of Mars.

If that becomes the case, then only limited human presence on Mars would be sensible.  But Avitar presence might be very important.

What good would it do to put 1,000,000 people on Mars if they could not reproduce properly?  We just don't know yet, but there is a good possibility that it is a serious issue.  As for Synthetic gravity, we don't even know if that will work for reproduction but my bet is that it will.  We will find out about that as well.  Reality is going to impose itself, like it or not.

It is a very funny joke, that the Dream of Elon Musk may be more possible on the Moon, and the Dream of Jeff Bezos may be more possible in orbit of Mars. 

I would think that many of you Mars types would sink into depression if you thought that reproduction was not OK on Mars, but that may be real.

But, in my opinion it is a very good planet to have orbital habitats around.  You have the mass of Phobos and Deimos, and the CO2, Nitrogen, and water of Mars itself, if those moons do not have it.

The proposals that you two have made are great stuff, but we are going to have to establish some facts to tell their worth in reality.

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Avatar use may be very exciting.  Likely it would involve a computer at a safe location.  The avatar machine.  And of course a human in virtual reality booth.  The computer would likely be the default pilot of the avatar, but the human could travel along and also impose intentions on the process currently in play.

For Mars the time latency should be relatively small.  For Earth>Moon, or Earth>Orbit, the time latency will be annoying, but I am sure that people will learn to cope with it.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2022-04-20 08:36:32)

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Done.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,884

Re: Is this getting Boring?

We could have had an answer Tesla Roadster Finally Reaches Mars
but instead we got