Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

victoriabam · 2019-04-04 09:00:32

Love to hear the story. Being a explorer not always means the expel of diverse nature.

SpaceNut · 2019-04-05 21:02:17

We will have water that is recycled with the help of life support but over time we will want to be able to switch over to more natural method to save the equipment.

How to Make a DIY Water Filtration System Using Sand or Gravel

https://itacanet.org/eng/water/Section% … _CAWST.pdf

SpaceNut · 2019-05-29 21:18:14

Comets and breathable air for mars

louis · 2019-05-30 04:40:02

That's a very interesting development Spacenut.

We already have ways of releasing oxygen but I guess this all comes down to what the energy input is per yield of oxygen. This new approach might potentially be more energy effective in the long run...who knows?

One thing I would recommend for everyone is checking out the weight of an atmosphere. We produce about 40 billion tons of CO2 working flat out, all 7 billion of us!, and that is just a pinprick in terms of atmospheric mass. Any project to create a new, breathable Mars atmosphere will be a truly huge undertaking. My feeling is that heating up the planet with reflectors (maybe much closer into the Sun, in terms of orbit), may yet prove the most cost effective method in terms of raising pressure. But yes, then you need to work on making it breathable. That may be quite a long term project.

SpaceNut · 2019-06-03 21:33:30

Power from waste water

Between flushing the toilet, bathing, and washing dishes, the average person in the United States generates almost 100 gallons of wastewater each day. And dealing with that water requires a lot of resources. In fact, treating water, including sewage, accounts for 3 to 4% of all the energy used in the United States.
But imagine if that water – even sewage – could itself be used to help generate energy. We're going to take you inside a utility plant in suburban Chicago that's doing just that. It's generating all the power it needs to run … just using the waste that it collects.

SpaceNut · 2019-06-29 09:37:40

The key to succeeding on mars will be partly in what we do bring but also from what we use of mars Paragon Space Development Corp awarded NASA contract for ISRU technology for the development and testing of the ISRU-derived water purification and Hydrogen Oxygen Production (IHOP) affordability of future human spaceflight missions by limiting the need to launch supplies, such as oxygen, water, and propellant from Earth.

The IHOP system purifies naturally occurring deposits of water and generates oxygen and hydrogen at commercially competitive scales. Once delivered to the moon, IHOP will provide the water and oxygen needed for a continuous human presence on the moon, and the low cost propellant needed to explore the solar system.

lightweight electrolyzer technology which is the direct product of over 30 years of PEM electrolyzer development with NASA for life support, energy storage and ISRU

kbd512 · 2019-06-29 11:50:33

SpaceNut,

Paragon SDC has been leading the charge for better life support technology for space applications and I've posted about the research work they're doing for NASA a number of times in various topics. They're the ones who have come up with some of the most highly efficient, lightweight, low-power-consumption technologies for air and water recycling for NASA and others. They were always an obvious choice to develop life-support-related ISRU technology for Mars. Giner Inc, the company developing the electrolyzer, does work for the Navy, as well as other branches of our military.

SpaceNut · 2019-09-11 18:56:26

Priority list:
Oxygen generation systems
water generation
Food greenhouse
waste removal and recovery or recycling ( feed stock for oxygen and water)
power (progressive use of kilowatt reactors and solar array farms)
new shelters and structures to be built by priority

SpaceNut · 2019-10-16 20:46:55

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

“Typical” U.S. family of four:
100 gallons/person/day (379 kg/person/day)
–
This is both indoor and outdoor usage; 70% indoor and 30% outdoor
–
Source: U.S. EPA; https://www3.epa.gov/watersense/pubs/indoor.html
• “Typical” U.K. family of four:
30 gallons/person/day (112 kg/person/day)
– Source: http://www.ccwater.org.uk/savewaterandm … gewateruse
•
Summit Station, Greenland (winter): ~18 gallons/person/day (68 kg/person/day)
–
Based on an average population of four people
–
Source: Haehnel and Knuth “Potable water supply feasibility study for Summit Station, Greenland”
•
Summit Station, Greenland (summer): ~9.4 gallons/person/day (36 kg/person/day)
–
Based on an average population of 30 people
–
Source: Haehnel and Knuth “Potable water supply feasibility study for Summit Station, Greenland”
•
Mars Surface Crew (with laundry): ~3.5 gallons/person/day (13.3 kg/person/day)
– Based on a population of four crew
•
Mars Surface Crew (without laundry): ~1.6 gallons/person/day (6.0 kg/person/day)
– Based on a population of four crew

SpaceNut · 2019-10-22 20:59:56

Life Support: Air, Water, and Nutrition

Sample Menu
Some menus from past Russian and US missions:

Typical daily menu of a Soyez cosmonaut
Breakfast: Canned meatloaf, bread, chocolate sweets with nut praline, coffee with milk, prune juice
Lunch: Canned beef tongue, bread, prunes with nuts
Dinner: Caspian roach, bortsch, canned veal, rich pastry, black currant juice
Supper: Cream cheese with black currant puree, candied fruit, black currant juice

Now, for contrast...
The typical menu of an Apollo astronaut:
Breakfast: Apple sauce, sugar frosted flakes, bacon squares, cinnamon toast, cocoa, orange drink
Lunch: Beef with vegetables, spaghetti with meat, cheese sandwhich, apricot puding, gingerbread
Dinner: Pea soup, tuna salad, cinnamon toast, fruit-cake, pineapple-grapefruit drink.

Learning how to shift our diet is just as important as learning to grow these same foods on the cycle to be able to have these same meals....

SpaceNut · 2020-01-12 20:08:41

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file … 6-ADD2.pdf
Mars Design Reference Architecture 5.0 – Addendum #2

pg 430 has tables for what a crew will need.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-20 18:41:13

mixed topic that includes discusion on habitats which are crew size limited with supply resources possible with current day rocket payloads.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-24 12:47:48

The term shelter for the most part so far has been discussed as a place for man as a habitat but what about a garage to work in since working in a space suits on a rover or other items will be a non starter as the suits could get torn and then you are in real trouble.

tahanson43206 · 2020-10-07 08:18:42

The article at the link below reports on research in the United States on ways of growing rice that consume less water.

Google search: Growing rice and healing the soil

One of several links: https://voiceoflouisianaagriculture.org … outhern-us

The article does not describe the new method precisely, but it does provide hints for where details might be found.

The less water needed for a crop, the better (on Mars).

Edit#1: Wikipedia has an article on the subject ... the text is on the skeptical side

The essence of the method appears to be to keep soil moist rather than flooded, to plant the seedlings before they are two weeks old and when they show two leaves, and to space them some distance apart so they grow extensive root systems and leaf canopy.

The preferred method for planting appears to be hand planting due to the need to treat the plants gently so they survive transplanting.

For Mars, advances in robotics should permit their use with success. Hand planting of rice seedlings would qualify as menial labor anywhere, and it would be an unaffordable luxury on Mars. The exception is (to my way of thinking at least) if the planting is carried out as relaxation from stressful mental activity.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-12-15 20:37:09

So far we have been discussing what are the primary systems for life on mars and even with a backup of the same type we might just want to throw in another option of a second alternative to each of the things we need to provide for a crew to survive in a sustainable manner due to the uncertainties and due to the life expectancy of the equipment that we might use.

ex getting water
primary capture water excess from recycling
secondary capture water from methane production that is excess
third as in muddy surface melts collection to gather water from in greater amounts then to dig and process unknown levels which are trapped layers

Ex of fuel
primary is the Sabatier reactor using a variety of creation technology and catalysts
secondary is the methane wif's are to be found to have any reserves under ground is to drill and tap them for mans use.
third make use of hydrogen directly from electrolysis if Sabatier reactor fails

Ex to get oxygen
Primary would be electrolysis if we have a water source but what if the level of water can not be there for the throughput
secondary then we would need moxie or some other source to get the oxygen from....
third would be greenhouse out gasses of growing plants with selection geared towards those that provide an excess not food related

ex to get food
primary would be a green house above ground and below which include all the varieties of how we might grow it
for what would make sense in as the secondary to do is to grow food within the internal to the ship you arrive
Secondary are to use the leftovers to make methane
third with regards to the food type such as beets for sugar, corn for corn oil, Peanuts for peanut oil, olives for olive oil the list goes on....

ex shelter
primary is the ship you came in but we will want to stretch our legs as in getting out of the ship
secondary build from cargo ships a structure above ground with regolith covering to lessen radiation exposure
third would be underground boring, trenching and other techniques to make use of insitu materials to create the structure.

The thought is to come up with as many means to accomplish the same task....

Each choice we make gives a different level of energy required to achieve for the options if a primary does not work out or does not function after a period of time with a secondary most likely needing more energy to achive the goals of each item we need to survive with.

The most important item not in the title is power...

ex of energy
primary is nuclear in some form though getting it will be political and not in favor of the solar first plans
secondary is the solar battery storage systems
third is a mixed storage system of compressed gasses,
fourth would be internal combustion engine generators using excess methane or hydrogen plus oxygen production, this is related to the IVF engine that uses boiloff to maintain tank pressure and to lesson boiloff rates.
fifth is wind from natural and man made systems to be saved in batteries or other storage system

Last topic area is recycling
Reuse of plastics that are sent with supplies can be brought back to what I think is gasoline as its burnable once processed.
food waste plus all growth that is not edible for composting and more can be used for fuel as well

Tmcom · 2020-12-16 00:22:17

Or you could go down to the nearest creek?

SpaceNut · 2020-12-16 10:16:34

So far Tmcom, we have seen the mirages of streams but we did see muddy areas where its ice melted under the suns influences as seen by rover tracks in sandy areas that it went through.

kbd512 · 2020-12-16 16:59:38

SpaceNut,

Has anybody thought about the possibility of using geothermal power if they don't like nuclear?

SpaceNut · 2020-12-16 17:31:03

well Insight with its mole was to answer to mars internal heat possibility but until we send a real drill to mars we seem to be stuck in a rote.
If there is volcanic heat down inside mars I sure would call it a win....

Tmcom · 2020-12-17 04:52:13

SpaceNut wrote:

So far Tmcom, we have seen the mirages of streams but we did see muddy areas where its ice melted under the suns influences as seen by rover tracks in sandy areas that it went through.

Mirages maybe, but rain on Mars is a given,(no other explanation for water droplets on the rover).

SpaceNut wrote:

well Insight with its mole was to answer to mars internal heat possibility but until we send a real drill to mars we seem to be stuck in a rote.
If there is volcanic heat down inside mars I sure would call it a win....

There is, or recently volcanic activity was found by satellite.

SpaceNut · 2021-06-14 19:30:31

http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/books/ground/4.4crewfood.pdf

nice details

SpaceNut · 2021-06-20 17:50:00

https://www.growveg.com/guides/growing- … -a-family/

Research in the 1970s by John Jeavons and the Ecology Action Organization found that 4000 square feet (about 370 square metres) of growing space was enough land to sustain one person on a vegetarian diet for a year, with about another 4000 square feet (370 square meters) for access paths and storage – so that’s a plot around 80 feet x 100 feet (24m x 30m).
How much you can grow in this space will depend on your climate, weather and soil and, crucially, how much time you have. Tending to 4000 square feet, particularly at the height of the growing season, will take many hours a week.

So approximate 400 square meters per person required...needing water, warmth and simulated sun light....

What you want to eat versus time to growth gives planting area required for each food that you would want in the menu. Of course staggered crops so that timing gets different foods for the menu.

each person at a min needs 400 m^2 of food growing area for on earth is 1kwm^2 x 400 = 400 kw x 9 plus hrs a day 3,600 kwhrs per crew member

some of this has been put in the crop as well as the various greenhouse topic

RobertDyck wrote:

Mars orbit gets 47% as much sunlight as Earth orbit, but we really need to compare surface. Earth has a lot of atmosphere; oxygen and humidity absorb significant light. Mars surface gets 53% as much light as Earth surface.
Some crops require full sun, such as grain, corn, etc. For crops that do, I have suggested a long-narrow greenhouse. Twice as wide as high, and much longer than wide. The long end oriented perfectly east-west. With flat mirrors outside the greenhouse, full length along both long sides. Mirror height the same as top of greenhouse. This does not have to track the Sun. At noon sunlight reflects from mirrors directly into sides of the greenhouse, so as much light from mirrors as directly from the Sun. That doubles insolation. At dawn light shines from east to west, reflecting off the mirror westward into the greenhouse, but still into the greenhouse. At dusk light shines west to east, reflecting eastward into the greenhouse.
Mirror angle will have to adjust for season, but only 1° every 14 Mars solar days (sols). That's every second week. That could be done with automation, or simply an astronaut in a spacesuit adjusting a support rod to the next notch.
Some crops that require full sun:
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Corn
Squash
Peppers
Cucumbers
Melons
Some crops that grow well in shade:
kale
lettuce
green onion (scallions)
spinach
Fiddleheads
Some crops that tolerate partial shade: (grow faster in full sun, but grow well in 4-5 hours direct sun per day)
Beans
Peas
root veggies (carrots, potatoes, etc)
Brussels sprouts
squash

tahanson43206 · 2021-06-23 09:11:40

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/holy … 42621.html

The scrubbers, as Pereira calls them, will focus on raw capture of CO2 rather than conversion (converting the CO2 into fuels, for example). Pereira instead explained -- with a heavy caveat that much about the end product still needs to be figured out -- that once a Holy Grail unit is full, it could be collected by the company, though where the carbon will end up is still an open question.

This technology would appear to be directly applicable to space habitat air management.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-06-23 18:11:29

The scrubber for earth have different characteristics since earth has so many more contaminants versus a mars use not counting the pressure differences.

We can always use such a system as you noted in any space we occupy not of earth since we do not have sufficient size to let a natural life support system do the work for free ( no energy required from an electrical source)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-07-10 14:17:29

Oil-Free Refrigerator Designed For Astronauts
https://www.achrnews.com/articles/14515 … astronauts

Modern Hydroponics
http://www.grozine.com/2014/06/01/moder … s-farming/

New Antarctic farm
http://inhabitat.com/new-antarctic-farm … degrees-f/

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#426 2019-04-04 09:00:32

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#427 2019-04-05 21:02:17

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#428 2019-05-29 21:18:14

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#429 2019-05-30 04:40:02

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#430 2019-06-03 21:33:30

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#431 2019-06-29 09:37:40

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#432 2019-06-29 11:50:33

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#433 2019-09-11 18:56:26

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#434 2019-10-16 20:46:55

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#435 2019-10-22 20:59:56

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#436 2020-01-12 20:08:41

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#437 2020-08-20 18:41:13

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#438 2020-08-24 12:47:48

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#439 2020-10-07 08:18:42

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#440 2020-12-15 20:37:09

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#441 2020-12-16 00:22:17

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#442 2020-12-16 10:16:34

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#443 2020-12-16 16:59:38

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#444 2020-12-16 17:31:03

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#445 2020-12-17 04:52:13

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#446 2021-06-14 19:30:31

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#447 2021-06-20 17:50:00

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#448 2021-06-23 09:11:40

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#449 2021-06-23 18:11:29

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

#450 2021-07-10 14:17:29

Re: Air. Shelter. Water. Food.

Board footer