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I will get back on the the brick dome project today. Between work and other hobbies, I have been stretched for time these past few weeks.
"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."
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For Calliban re #376
It is good of you to allocate a bit more time to this fascinating visiion! This concept deserves an opportunity to appear on a wider stage, and this forum is a perfect place to try out ideas and presentation. We have members who have already shown interest, and we may be able to inspire other members to comment or perhaps even assist with part of the development.
As I am seeing this, it is far more than a flash in the pan. Louis gave us the gift of the vision of Sagan City, and your vision has the scope that matches Louis'.
Gemini has identified a large number of craters where a dome of this size would fit nicely. I'd like to proceed to selection of a candidate location and begin constructing a project plan. We only have a limited amount of information about the materials available on Mars, but there may be enough to support development of practical construction plans.
Certainly digital tools exist for design of the shaped wedges that would allow you to create a structure of great strength. Your initial idea of bricks is a great starting point, but SpaceNut's idea of larger pieces to fit together seems to me well worth pursuing.
All the details of material sourcing, fabrication, fluids management, power management and many other aspects of a large urban project are well studied on Earth. I doubt there is much to be encountered on Mars that has not already been solved on Earth.
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For Calliban re post about location in City topic...
We have a crater offered as a site for a dome. Please examine that location to see how well it measures up to your criteria.
I am basing this on Louis having identified the Viking 1 site as a suitable location for Sagan City.
To me it seems likely the Viking 1 site was chosen by Carl Sagan and others at JPL as a good place to take a look at Mars.
Unless someone comes up with an alternative that is massively superior, it seems to me it is pointless to keep dithering
Eventually every square kilometer on Mars will be staked out and claimed by some person or an entity. There will be cities all over the planet. There will only be ** one ** first city, and I think Louis' idea is worth careful consideration for the first city.
The supply of water on Mars is a function of energy available. It is going to take a robust reactor to support the construction of the dome you've described, and if that much power is available there is power to fetch water from wherever it may be.
I'll try to obtain a history of why the Viking 1 site was chosen.
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For Calliban re recent post about tiers inside a dome...
Here is a link to an image that may be of interest.
https://newmars.com/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=7
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TH, that is marvelous! It captures the concept perfectly.
The idea of a layered city does somewhat undermine the original design intent of providing residents with an open, expansive environment. But the cost of the dome may necessitate compromise.
"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."
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For Calliban re #380
In case you missed it, I've directed/asked ChatGPT5 to find a crater near Viking 1 site that would meet your requirements.
Please take a look at the site on trek.nasa.gov/Mars, to see if it meets any of the criteria you established.
The proximity of the Viking 1 site means the location will be easy for potential funders to find, but the site is far enough away so that your activity should not cause concern about anyone worried about preserving the historical site.
I am hoping to learn more about remote sensing that might have been done about this specific Crater, but certainly a well equipped engineering robot needs to visit the site to confirm whatever remote sensing indicates, and also to go beyond to obtain ground truth. I have invited GW Johnson to think about setting up shop in a nearby Crater. GW's designs are more conservative than yours, but I think your concept has the greater star power, so funding is more likely.
Above all, since you are the only member of this forum who is qualified to design a fission reactor, I hope you will allocate some time to thinking about a reactor design that is well suited for this project. It crossed my mind that a well designed reactor might be able to land itself, by heating a supply of propellant. I suspect you have not been following work ongoing in the OpenFOAM topic, but to my astonishment, I learned recently that 20 kg/s of hydrogen can produce 5 tons-force if heated from 20 Kelvin to only 300 Kelvin. I bring this to your attention because an ordinary reactor might be able to generate 40 MW of thermal energy while doing something useful, like producing electricity for a lander. As you probably know from reading GW's many posts, he has designed complete systems for landing and moving about on Mars, but those designs depend upon ordinary chemical propulsion. Your knowledge of fission systems might provide insight into how thermal energy might be exploited to place a reactor right in the center of "your" crater.
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For Calliban re wedge shapes for all "bricks" ... The conversation at the link below is about how a Python program might be able to generate shapes for all the segments of a ray based design for a dome.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 19#p236019
I'm curious to know if you would be at all interested in seeing what the output of such a program might look like.
Are there any other factors than shrinkage that would be a concern for this concept?
Update: Congratulations on mounting the new rotor! https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 28#p236028
Best wishes for success balancing the rotor and completing the other finishing touches you described.
Update: Calliban, the link below pulls up an image from trek.nasa.gov/Mars showing the triangle of craters to the left of Viking 1 site, where there is a Crater of just the right size for your dome. Viking 1 is to the right. "Your" Crater is at the tip of the down arrow.
https://newmars.com/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=71
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For Calliban for lighting of interior of a large dome ...
The conversation at the link below contains a description of a kind of interior lighting that might be of interest.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 73#p236073 << scan down to blue section.
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For Calliban re original plan for interior of 200 meter dome....
Early on, when you were just starting your current study of what a dome on Mars might look like, you hand drew a layout of the floor of the dome. I'd have to go back to be sure, but that image has a permanent place in my memory. Details are missing, but the broad features are very much present.
Since then you have allowed yourself to venture toward considering dense housing .... I'd like to (at least try) to pull you back from that dense housing vision. My reason is straightforward... Earth history!
This afternoon I had volunteer duty setting up AV equipment for a presentation on the history of Art from about 1200-1400 ... That was a tumultuous time in Europe, where the presentation was focused.
The portion of the talk that really jumped out at me was a visit to an Italian plaza. This particular plaza is famous (I deduce) because I have seen it before, in other travel talks, but also because this presenter made a point of visiting while traveling in Europe.
What ** really ** hit me was how vital that bit of open space was to the community. Tightly packed brick buildings stretched away from the plaza in all directions. I am hoping you will return to your first vision, and let go of the dense packing vision you considered more recently. There are craters all over Mars. If you can design a setting that folks like to visit and to live inside, then it will be reproduced all over the planet.
Related to that is the possibility of putting dense, low-rent housing in the crater walls.
Your vision started with a concept of Amsterdam as a kernel of an idea, and with a brick catenary dome with the Ziggurat spiral boundary.
If you allow yourself to think of the dome as the high-rent district in a crater town, then you might be willing to consider low population density and agreeable living conditions, with provision for nearby Mars residents to visit for an afternoon or for a day or two.
Musical performances are most enjoyed with live performers and a live audience. Mars residents are surely going to have an unlimited availability of electronic media in their small family habitats, snug in the crater walls, but I'll be that when a National rock star (or Opera singer perhaps?) comes to town, the plaza would be a popular venue.
***
Part of the responsibility of the dome design team is management of power, heat, light, air, fluids and whatever else that concerns a city manager. As we work on the design of your dome concept, we need to insure that those bases are covered.
(th)
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