Technology Updates

SpaceNut · 2021-01-17 12:39:12

solid carbon processing has atmospher and waste stream for elemental sources to derive through. Starting sequested with mostly oxygen or hydrogen locking it up such to require energy to break that bonding as in co2 or ch4. Some uses will require even more energy to further break its bonds like co to gain the carbon.

tahanson43206 · 2021-01-17 14:16:30

For SpaceNut ... would you prefer that I create the new topics?

What I have in mind are breakouts for:

1) CO/O2-CO2 (per GW Johnson)
2) Solid Carbon (per kbd512)
3) LNG (per kbd512)

What I'd like to see is concentration on specific technology development, instead of the distributed knowledge we are seeing today.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-01-19 14:21:46

The article at the link below is about an advanced gas turbine.

What makes the design stand out (for me at least) is the capability of running on hydrogen gas.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/el- … 00613.html

In addition, its green hydrogen compatibility provides a path toward zero-carbon emissions in the future. We are enabling EPE to achieve a Change in Power."

I'm picking up on this for the Mars situation.

SpaceNut has called for collecting the exhaust of power systems on Mars, and hot steam from a system like this could be/would be used to heat residence structures and business locations alike, before the condensed liquid finds it's way back to the original electrolysis facility.

Once the system is charged with a sufficient supply of pure water, it should be able to recirculate that water indefinitely, with only minor occasional topping off due to leaks that will probably occur.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-01-20 12:32:58

The article at the link below reports on what (sounds like) a significant advance in electric battery electrode design ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-car … 17690.html

While lithium-ion batteries use graphite as an electrode, the StoreDot battery works faster by replacing graphite with semiconductor nanoparticles that allow ions to pass more easily and quickly. The company expects to replace this electrode with silicon, a much cheaper component, by the end of the year.
Tesla is also working on developing silicon electrodes.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-01-20 21:21:10

For SpaceNut ... this item could (probably) fit well into multiple topics ...

The article at the link below is about MIT research to create plant material in the lab, similar to the way meat is cultured in the lab. Meat production is slowly moving out of the lab. I thought of this research as fitting ** very ** well into the Mars scenario, and even (potentially) into RobertDyck's Large Ship for life support and for production of useful wooden shapes.

There's still a long way to go from what the researchers have achieved. They've only grown materials on a very small scale, and will look to figure out ways to grow plant-based materials with different final properties as one challenge. They'll also need to overcome significant barriers when it comes to scaling efficiencies, but they are working on solutions that could address some of these difficulties.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mit- … 01617.html

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SpaceNut · 2021-01-20 21:26:05

No need for meat as we now have the impossible burgers and other meat substitutes that are all vegetables selling in your local markets….

tahanson43206 · 2021-01-21 13:11:38

The article with the heading below reports on decades of research leading to improved performance of "photocatalysis"

Unlike "electrolysis" which splits water using electricity, "photocatalysis" splits water using photons.

There might be application for this technology on Mars. However, a significant application might be in space, in habitats and in moving vessels.

In those environments, there will be an abundance of sunlight, and water is the natural result of the chemical processing of food by humans.

The article appears to be from the Science web site, but Yahoo refused to show a link.

Producing green hydrogen through the exposure of nanomaterials to sunlight
CNW GroupThu, January 21, 2021, 8:00 AM
MONTREAL and VARENNES, QC, Jan. 21, 2021 /CNW Telbec/

Splitting water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen has long been done by electrolysis. However, industrial electrolyzers are very energy-intensive and require large investments. The INRS and ICPEES researchers were rather inspired by a natural mechanism: photosynthesis. Indeed, they have developed specially engineered and structured electrodes that split water molecules under the sun's light. This is a process known as photocatalysis.

If someone can pull up a link to the article, I'd appreciate it.

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SpaceNut · 2021-01-21 18:16:51

Void and I have talked about the use of photons at least in the UV band at high power levels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocatalysis
Cobalt and zinc oxides are used to get the oxygen exchange.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs … .201801294
https://www.academia.edu/28677116/Revie … production
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-electroly … ndrum.html

tahanson43206 · 2021-01-21 18:22:51

For SpaceNut re #366

Thank you for those helpful links to background material. They will show the history that supports the new method (reported in the article above).

The UV method was inefficient, because the percentage of UV in sunlight is on the order of 5%. The new method greatly increases the percent of sunlight that can assist with photo-catalysis.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-01-24 19:50:56

For SpaceNut .... the article at the link below could fit in numerous topics ... The storage system was developed for Earth power storage in competition with batteries. It reminds me of a hydrogen storage system used on a boat that recently circumnavigated the world.

In any case, the oxygen released by the process is not mentioned, but it would be important on Mars.

The newly restarted Mars Oxygen might be a place to drop off a copy, for example.

The battery, the size of a fridge, contains an electrolyzer that breaks water down into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then stored in a set of canisters full of hydride—a fibrous metal alloy. The battery can be connected to a solar panel array, store the excess electricity it produces as hydrogen and then release the hydrogen to act as a battery and power various devices.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance … 00816.html

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SpaceNut · 2021-01-24 20:05:18

This reminds me of the flashlight fuel cell which was mention from the description where in water is added to the cell and then it powers the item to which its installed in until all the water dries out via the process....

post number 132 followed by kbd512 response.

tahanson43206 · 2021-01-24 20:43:22

For SpaceNut re #369 ... thanks for the reminder of the flashlight fuel cell ....

My understanding is the flashlight uses a chemical process, and the energy is pre-stored in the materials inside the flashlight.

In the case of the hydrogen battery, energy to be stored comes in from outside (renewable or traditional) and hydrogen is stored in metal matrix honeycomb-like material until it is needed.

One interesting aspect of the design that may catch the attention of future Mars residents is the expected long lifetime of the system ... It is expected to long outlast lithium battery technology. On the other hand, sodium liquid storage "batteries" are expected to last indefinitely, if I remember the articles about them correctly.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-01-27 19:45:17

For SpaceNut ... this item could go into several topics ...

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/mot … 00081.html

"COLDArm will be designed to operate in cryogenic environments using electronics and lubricant-free mechanical components that can function in environments as cold as –279°F. The design will reduce the power needed for a rover or lander's operations, enabling robots equipped with the arm to extend missions," explains Tom McCarthy, Motiv's VP of Business Development.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-02-02 19:54:45

For SpaceNut ... here's another item that could go into multiple topics!

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/unus … 00377.html

The Unusual Rocket Thruster That Will Send Humans to Mars
Caroline Delbert
Updated Tue, February 2, 2021, 2:45 PM
From Popular Mechanics
A new fusion thruster could carry humans to Mars 10 times faster than existing ideas.
Magnetic fields link and unlink, releasing a massive amount of power.
Directing the power outward turns the fusion reactor into a thruster.
A Department of Energy (DoE) physicist has a new nuclear fusion rocket concept that uses magnetic fields to make thrust. It’s a far-out idea that could carry astronauts to Mars.
The mechanism is already at play in Earth’s nuclear fusion reactors, as well as the solar flares of the sun. Could we really use linking and unlinking magnetic fields to make the long trip to the red planet?
“The device would apply magnetic fields to cause particles of plasma, electrically charged gas also known as the fourth state of matter, to shoot out the back of a rocket and, because of the conservation of momentum, propel the craft forward,” DoE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) said in a statement.

and ...

Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi first thought of the idea after hearing of the speeds that particles reach inside PPPL’s national Spherical Torus Experiment, a tokamak reactor. “During its operation, this tokamak produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids that move at around 20 kilometers per second, which seemed to me a lot like thrust,” she said in the statement. Her thruster basically works as a tokamak with one side cut out to release energy.

If I understand the report correctly, potential thrust can be greater than is possible with existing ion engine designs.

However, unmentioned in the article is the important question of power to supply the engine.

A definite advantage is the ability to throw atoms other than just neutral gases (again if I understand correctly)

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tahanson43206 · 2021-02-04 15:01:56

For SpaceNut ... here's another update that could go into multiple topics ... it is about (another way to) store Hydrogen in a solid, except this material is a paste.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fate … 00818.html

Think of this like a hydrogen-flavored can of Campbell’s condensed soup: it reaches its full potential when combined with water and diluted to consumer strength. Because the paste is stable at temperatures up to almost 500 degrees Fahrenheit, it can carry larger amounts of hydrogen in a smaller form factor that’s also safer at almost any temperature in supply chains around the world. Baking-proof parchment paper will catch fire long before this hydrogen paste will.
The paste is made by combining hydrogen and magnesium into magnesium hydride, then adding an organic compound called an ester (formed by a reaction of alcohol and acid) as well as a metal salt (formed by a metal and usually an acid).

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SpaceNut · 2021-02-04 17:38:19

Yes we do have many products that make use of the hydrogen to hydrogenate the food and to allow batteries to be rechargeable but I would not really call them storage.

SpaceNut · 2021-02-04 21:15:03

A laser-light sensor that can identify bacteria in a wound may sound far-fetched, but it's already becoming a reality, thanks in part to NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

SpaceNut · 2021-02-20 14:31:05

We spoke briefly of this in housekeeping

This technology could transform renewable energy. BP and Chevron just invested geothermal energy

tahanson43206 · 2021-02-22 19:04:31

For SpaceNut re #376

Thanks for the follow up regarding the potential of geothermal energy!

This post is about a space oriented company applying its considerable talents to solving a massive Earth Mover challenge on Earth:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … d=msedgdhp

Geekwire
First Mode building hydrogen fuel cell to power one of the biggest zero-emission vehicles on Earth
Bryan Corliss 1 hr ago
What does Mars sound like? Here's the first recording in human history
Northrop Grumman spacecraft arrives at ISS
Seattle engineering company First Mode is building a hydrogen fuel cell generator capable of lighting up Lumen Field. But the technology is destined for an environment far from the bright lights of a football stadium.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-02-24 09:37:05

For SpaceNut ... this item could go several places, but I'll start it here ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-scientists … 10556.html

— CNN (@CNN) February 24, 2021
The Pentagon sent a prototype PRAM into orbit in May 2020 aboard its secretive X-37B unmanned drone. The 12-inch-square photovoltaic panel showed it's capable of producing 10 watts of energy, or enough to power an iPad, to transmit back to Earth, Paul Jaffe at the U.S. Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., told CNN. The advantages of putting solar panels in space include constant sunlight, more powerful light including blue waves filtered out by the Earth's atmosphere, and the ability to direct power to where it's needed most at any given time.

From my perspective, this is exceedingly good news! The small scale of the project is particularly exciting (to me at least)

We (humans) have been stuck in a mental trap created by Peter Glaser and others who proposed Solar Power Satellites....

There was no GOOD reason to design an SPS as large as a football field!

It is just human nature to think on large scales.

The Pentagon experiment is perfect for homeowners in the US and around the world.

A homeowner like SpaceNut could have a small SPS set up just for his use. The receiving rectenna would (presumably) fit on a city block, although I'd definitely be interested in details of how large the Pentagon experimental receiving antenna was actually was to receive 10 watts.

Never-the-less, to-order personal-SPS are going to be ** very ** attractive to people all over the world as soon as word gets out.

It isn't the demonstration by the Pentagon that is so important. What ** is ** important is the destruction of the massive scale mindset that has inhibited SPS for decades.

Bravo!

Peter Glaser
Peter Glaser, the father of the solar power satellite concept. (Image credit: Arthur D. Little Inc. ) Peter Glaser, a space pioneer who introduced the idea of using satellites to beam solar energy from space down to Earth, has died at the age of 90.
Jun 9, 2014
Peter Glaser, Father of Solar-Power Satellite Idea, Dies at 90 | Space
www.space.com › 26175-peter-glaser-solar-power-satellite-obituary
About Featured Snippets
Peter Glaser, Father of Solar-Power Satellite Idea, Dies at 90
celebrity.yahoo.com › news › peter-glaser-father-solar-power-satellite-idea-...
Jun 9, 2014 · Peter Glaser, a space pioneer who introduced the idea of using satellites to beam solar energy from space down to Earth, has died at the age of ...

Edit#1: I read another article on this announcement, and am disappointed to have to report the X37b test was NOT a full test of the system. It was apparently only a test of a solar panel that might be used in a full system. I suppose that is good news, but solar panels have been working in space for many decades now.

However, the ** real ** breakthrough remains ... the mind set of colossal SPS is set aside in favor of thinking of small systems able to reliably serve a much smaller customer requirement.

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Calliban · 2021-02-25 06:45:03

TH, that is an interesting development. From what I remember, the beam coherence for magnetron based microwave generators is poor. A satellite power station designed to serve a national grid would be located in GEO at at altitude of 36,000km. At that altitude, it would be in sunlight for 95% of the time. An SPS in LEO would be out of sunlight 50% of the time and it would be in darkness at the same time as your local night time.

Over a 36,000km distance the beam would attenuate to the point where any rectenna would need to be around 10km in diameter. I believe that this is why solar power satellites were planned for power levels of around 10GWe. It wouldn't be practical to power an individual home in this way because of the size of the rectenna.

That said, it is encouraging that microwave power transmission has been demonstrated through the Earth atmosphere. Manufacturing of SPS is one of the few Martian industries that could be profitable for direct export to Earth. It is energetically much easier to lift SPS components from the Martian surface into low Mars orbit, than it would be from Earth. An assembled SPS in low Mars orbit could be delivered to LEO using ion engines, powered by the SPS itself. A single 10GWe SPS would have a sale price of several tens of billions of dollars to an Earth based customer.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-02-25 06:46:24)

tahanson43206 · 2021-02-25 07:09:51

For Calliban re #379

Thanks for helpful (to me for sure) reminder of the reasons for the massive size of the original proposals for SPS in GEO!

My enthusiasm was released by the announcement of X37b research activity, but (of course) that work was done in LEO.

Your point about the time when the transmitter would be in position to deliver power is (of course) correct.

However, in an attempt to salvage something from the hint of an opportunity provided by the X37b announcement, I'd like to offer the suggestion that an SPS in Leo could deliver power to customers in its field of view for about 30 minutes at a time.

For a given 90 minute path that is near the equator, the satellite should be able to serve three customers.

If there were a constellation of these smaller systems in orbit, comparable to the Starlink system, then coverage over the entire Earth should be substantial.

Management of a fleet of these satellites would seem to be comparable to management of Starlink, with the additional challenge of pointing at specific locations on the ground with 1 meter accuracy.

***
Now I have to admit (with some embarrassmen) that the X37b study did NOT include transmission to the ground. I found a second article yesterday that contained more detail. All the experimenters were able to prove is that the solar panel worked. Why the Defense Department chose to publicize such a paltry accomplishment is a mystery to me.

Transmission through the atmosphere has been demonstrated for many decades. I don't know if any are still in service, but at one time, long ago, microwave towers were constructed to pass high volumes of data over considerable distances.

***
Your point about the size of the rectenna is a good one! If a project is sized to deliver 30 minutes of power to a given location, so that batteries can be charged to cover an entire 24 hour cycle, then it will become clear how much power has to be delivered through the atmosphere to a practical rectenna.

The numbers might be alarming.

There was concern about the relatively low levels of microwave energy that would be arriving from GEO stations.

Concern about what would be required for LEO delivery would be much greater.

On the ** other ** hand, folks at the poles of the Earth might not mind if microwave levels are greater, because reliable energy supplies are hard to come by up (and down) that way.

Polar satellites might be the right answer for customers in this locations, and fewer would be needed because they would be useful at both poles on the same orbit, although the value at a given pole would change throughout the year, as the Sun's apparent elevation changes.

That would certainly be a complicated Orbital Mechanics problem!

Thanks again for your reminder of the basics!

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tahanson43206 · 2021-02-26 12:42:37

For SpaceNut ... This announcement is another that could go multiple places ...

The proposal to drill (** really **) drill into Mars ought to appeal to more than one NewMars forum members ...

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nasa … 58225.html

The latest crop of NASA-backed concepts for far-out space exploration includes “borebots” that could drill as far as a mile beneath the Martian surface in search of liquid water, and a nuclear-powered spacecraft that could intercept interstellar objects as they zip through our solar system.
Researchers in Washington state are behind both of those ideas.
The borebots and the interstellar-object checker are among 16 proposals winning Phase I funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC.
For more than two decades, NIAC (which started out as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) has backed early-stage projects that could eventually add to NASA’s capabilities for aerospace technology and space exploration.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-03-16 11:54:26

For SpaceNut ... this item could go into your bicycles on Mars topic ...

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance … 49911.html

Technology
Startup founded by 'Survivor' champ debuts airless bike tires based on NASA rover tech
Darrell Etherington
TechCrunchTue, March 16, 2021, 10:46 AM
As NASA is quick to remind people, the investments it funnels towards space exploration often winds up improving life on Earth – and it's now in the business of speeding up some of that work through startups. SMART, a startup founded in 2020, has a partnership with NASA through the Space Act Agreement and is part of the agency's formal Startup Program that aims to commercialize some of its innovations. The young company today revealed its first product: An airless bicycle tire based on technology NASA engineers created to make future lunar and Martian rovers even more resilient.
SMART's METL tire is the the first fruit of the startup's work with NASA's Glenn Research Center, where NASA engineers Dr. Santo Padula and Colin Creager first developed their so-called 'shape memory alloy' (SMA) technology. SMA allows for a tire constructed entirely of interconnected springs, which requires no inflation and is therefore immune to punctures, but which can still provide equivalent or better traction when compared to inflatable rubber tires, and even some built-in shock absorbing capabilities.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-03-21 12:39:07

For SpaceNut ... it's a bit difficult (for me at least) to figure out a good fit for this item...

I'm posting it here because we're working on primitive automation in the ID Recovery project. RobertDyck's Large Ship ** cannot ** tolerate primitive automation. The equipment in this post in a tech newsletter is important (as I see it anyway) because it shows progress in improving the "intelligence" of control hardware, such as would be required all over the place in the Large Ship ...

Small Easy-to-Use Mechatronic PANdrive™ IO-Link™ Actuator Device
The new Trinamic-branded PD42-1-1243-IOLINK intelligent actuator enables modern smart factories to quickly and remotely adjust an actuator’s electrical characteristics to minimize factory downtime and maximize throughput. It combines a NEMA-17 stepper motor with controller and driver electronics. With Trinamic now part of Maxim Integrated, the PD42-1-1243-IOLINK uses the flexibility of Maxim Integrated’s MAX22513 IO-Link® transceiver to allow seamless configuring of all modes of Trinamic’s TMC2130-LA motor driver. As the industry’s smallest, lowest-power NEMA-17 PANdrive™ solution, the intelligent actuator monitors 50 percent more configuration and performance parameters to reduce commissioning times as well as improve the quality of predictive maintenance data.

I've saved time by not scrubbing company names. Please let me know if you want me to come back and do that.

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New Mars Forums

Announcement

#326 2021-01-17 12:39:12

Re: Technology Updates

#327 2021-01-17 14:16:30

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#328 2021-01-19 14:21:46

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#329 2021-01-20 12:32:58

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#338 2021-01-27 19:45:17

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#341 2021-02-04 17:38:19

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#348 2021-02-26 12:42:37

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