Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

Earthfirst · 2004-02-02 14:42:22

Here on earth poeple produce millions of tons of garbge which ends up in a sanition land fill. Unlike the dumps todays landfills seal everything and protect the envirnoment, with heavy plasic linears. When trash is put in it is sealed by dirt into cells, pipes are then laid inbtween the cells to gather up the by product or the rotten stuff methane gas. On earth gas is burned off to make power, but on mars it could be use to terriform the planet.
Once there are colonys on mars they will produce trash, instead of recycling it rot it. Landfill are a perfect way to protect living microbes on mars, instead of being exposed to the harsh condition they are protected, warm wet, and lots of food "trash". They eat and make lots of green house gases, also could just have microbe that make NH3 too. it a lot easyer than wanting for surcondiction to improve or eniger them. Think of not as a land fill but like a undergroud greenhouse. "A Bio Mound" This could be done fast a cheaply if there is one thing people make it trash use it as asset on mars.
A town of thousand on mars could produces tons of trash in a year and turn it into greenhouse gases, Methane could be used to make better ghg lik pcf, or rocket fuel. Just a idea of the usefulness of waste, dont forget humanwaste from the tolet bacteria love it too.

Rxke · 2004-02-02 15:23:10

I think that will happen, surely.

But why not mix some regolith in it, as a 'filler' and let it decompose, so you get compost (dunno if that's the right English word)

Here in Belgium we have these things running on a fairly big industrial scale: organic trash in- very fertile compost out, with additional methane (and CO2)

It works very well, because we have fairly stringent seperate waste-disposal system: organic waste; metal,plastic, and drinking cartons (wich are all fairly easy to recycle) and 'restfraction' (everything that doesn't fit in that category.
Oh yeah, and 'small dangerous waste' (batteries, solvents and that stuff...
And of course seperate used paper rounds, once a month...

So not a dump, but a processing plant, that uses the decomposed product as a fertiliser.

BTW, Earthfirst, you raving funny redneck, i see you're sober for a change!

:;):

(And now you'll tell me to go and take a swim, heh)

Michael Bloxham · 2004-02-02 23:11:46

A town of thousand on mars could produces tons of trash in a year and turn it into greenhouse gases...

Remember to tell this to NASA once we get a few of our guys up there, as an incentive for further colonization :;): . These musings arouse a curoisity: Have greenhouse producing microbes/bacteria etc, been evaluated as an agent of terraformation? I hear a lot about PFC factories and oxygen producing microlife, but I'm not sure I've heard about greenhouse-gas-emitting bugs.

dickbill · 2004-02-03 08:33:52

A town of thousand on mars could produces tons of trash in a year and turn it into greenhouse gases...
Remember to tell this to NASA once we get a few of our guys up there, as an incentive for further colonization :;): . These musings arouse a curoisity: Have greenhouse producing microbes/bacteria etc, been evaluated as an agent of terraformation? I hear a lot about PFC factories and oxygen producing microlife, but I'm not sure I've heard about greenhouse-gas-emitting bugs.

Terraformation od Mars is a big scale issue. At a smaller scale, It has been tried in Biosphere I and II, in the desert of Arizona or New Mexico ?, well, in the US anyway.
There were very interesting experiences, some reports have been published in Science magazine. I remember some very Unexpected results: bugs proliferation, gas leak through and from the concrete, sick and starving biosphere crew buying pizzas from the local town, coral sea unexpectidly resistant in murdy water, increased concentration of CO2 that force to vent the biosphere from time to time to get some fresh air (cannot do that on MArs). Biosphere-I, as I remember, was described as a failure. It just show that reality is more complex than theory on the paper.

Earthfirst · 2004-02-03 10:52:10

Yes biosphere 2 did not work, I have been there it is a big green house in the foothills of the santa catilina mountions. The place is not realy in a desert but more of a desert grassland. I mean they must get like 13 to 14 inches a year half in summer other half in winter. The best time to vist is in winter the mountians are snow pack and make a great view.
It cost like 35$ us to get in last time I was there, I dint want to spend that much to see a big green house so I have never been inside it. The town of Orical and Cannadian del ore are nice towns, and catilina state park has great hicking trails to water falls. If I had my way I would terraform Mars to be just like Arizona.
Also I do not drink my brother posted that to make me look bad, He likes to play jokes like that.
Anyways landfills or as I call them bio mounds could be a cheap way to make greenhouse gases. Instead of having big factories that cost big dollars. You could fill a small crater with the right stuff, like nitirates, food, micorbes, with pipes going though it. Seal it off air tight with dirt, then pump hot steam or water in. The micorbs will then start making NH3, methane, or even PFC if have the right stuff and bugs. All you have to do is just event the gas. These bio mounds could keep on producing gas for up to 50 years, best of all they make there own heat so all you have to do is just get them started and they do the rest. I know that the same process could be done in bio vats bat that would need big factories and power. My way much more simpler and cheaper, working with nature instead of tring to control it like they did at biosphere 2. By the Biosphere one is the earth not another green that came before it.

dickbill · 2004-02-03 11:45:01

By the Biosphere one is the earth not another green that came before it.

Bio-I never existed ? I always thought it was a first attempt.

My vision of terraforming is that Mars should not be transformed 'from the outside'. If you want to use isolated biodomes to ferment biomass and produce fermentation gases (provided can you find a lot of nitrates in the soil, which is not obvious), you are using an 'external device' with an 'alien ecologic system'.
I would prefer that Mars would terraform by itself, from within its own capabilities (like a Gaia concept) , after a slight gentle push. Yes you can use microbes, PFC, orbiting mirrors etc, but they have to be integrated in a global Martian ecology -durable robust and flexible-
For example, PFC, if they could be produced by genetically engineered microbes able to sustain mild martian conditions, that would be better that if the PFC were produced massively in huge chemical reactors.
I think future terraformers will have to develop their own ethic. I don't think that the first martians, once that have been use to survive and live in a given martian landscape, will want that landscape to change too quickly.

Earthfirst · 2004-02-04 11:20:17

Yes biosphere 1 is the earth, I quess biosphere 3 could be mars if life is there. I rembered that the reason it failed was that they had to many oxygen consuming micorbs. Even though a hectar of forest produces a lot of oxygen bacteria fungi use alot. It was like having thousand people there, about the same in mass as people. In many ways they over did things at bioshere 2, providing a too rich of environment. They tired to make an entire eco system by adding some trees or reeds that they dug up. It was out of balance. I thought that if they sealed the place up for 10 years things would balance out like they do in nature, the fish and other large animals could be add once the carbon and oxygen were stable.
Its easy to make enough oxygen for people when you use hydroponics, its just people and plants. But in trying to create an eco system you added microbs which use oxygen too. This is somthing to consider on mars when bliuding a dome. Do you try to recreate on earth like place with forests, farms, lakes, and streams. Or just have hydroponics to make food and O2. You could grow a forest of trees, citrus, nuts, using hydroponics but that does not seem natural.
Thats my it is better to have the micorbes out of your dome in a bio mound making greenhouse gases instead of using your air.
As for an ecosystem on mars I think would learn a lot more about the earth if made one on mars, thing we protect are own ecosystem here better. So by terraforming mars human learn how there own home works and gets a new place to live!
By the way I like bush, even he pushing for the moon, because if a democrate gets in he wont care about any thing to do with space. Rather to money away to pay for social programs for minorites. That is what happen after we went to the moon. What have done there is just as much social need as before, and china has a better chance of getting to the moon and mars than we do. To tear down old glory and put up there red flag, screw poor people let go to the moon and mars, they alwise become day workers.

SBird · 2004-03-19 14:03:16

Actually, Apollo got shut down by Richard Nixon to help cover the cost of the Vietnam War but that's rather incidental. Bush's interest in space is one of the few things I like about his presidency but I'll take what I can get.

The idea of using landfills is not bad - it's kind of like a proposal that the Brazilian(?) version of the Mars Society is developing right now. They're working on developing autonomous greenhouses that could be set up by the millions all over Mars. Basically, you've got a smalll bubble greenhouse that is kept warm by the greenhouse effect (suprise). Inside, you've got plants and microbes converting the Martian atmosphere into something more palatable. Evey once in awhile, you let the interior and exterior air mix to bring in more CO2 and to let out the O2, CH4 and other stuff that been made in the meantime. It turns out that this approach, if feasible, would actually be much cheaper and faster than things like orbital mirrors.

I think that successful terraforming of Mars is going to require the use of every bright idea we can think of - landfills, greenshouses, orbital mirrors, etc.

BTW, you are correct about the technical reasons for Biospheres 2's failure. However, I think that there's a deeper underlying reason for the failure. For one, it was a poorly designed project from the start - trying to fit an ocean, jungle and grassland into the same greenhouse was just stupid. Also, the thinking behind Biosphere 2 is similar to pre-Zubrin in-situ resource utilization. Basically Biosphere 2 required that everything be self-contained. This really isn't a viable option then dealing with something that small. If Biosphere 2 had been allowed to occasionally bring in outside atmospheric gasses, etc, it would have done much better.

On MArs, we'll have the capability to generate huge quantities of O2 from the native atmosphere. The nuclear reactors Zubrin uses for Mars Direct give quite a bit of lattitude in being able to manually tweak the environment. Although terraforming MArs won't be simple, it wil be easier than Biosphere 2 was.

MarsDog · 2004-03-25 04:18:12

Carl Segan's proposal to crash comets, to supply water, would have the extra benefit of heating up Mars.
There are large cometlike objects in the outer solar system, some several hundred miles in diameter.

Rxke · 2004-03-25 06:16:31

Impacting such big asteroids or comets would not be such a good idea, IMHO.

Two reaons: the impact would release *a lot* of CO2, trapped in the subsurface, by outgassing, wich would not be so good for long time plans (breathability)
And it would release *a lot* of dust in the atmosphere, reducing insolation, and maybe creating huge year-long, global dust storms... Making matters even worse. I think (not sure, should calculate that) the energy from the sun, unblocked, would add more heat than one single 'hot impact' on the whole...

Inserting said objects in a orbit that let it 'aerobreak' on the other hand, would let it decompose into the atmosphere, adding lots of H2 and O2 (and H2O, O3...) Much cleaner, you don't raise the partial pressure of CO2 that way, only the 'good' stuff gets added...

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#1 2004-02-02 14:42:22

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#2 2004-02-02 15:23:10

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#3 2004-02-02 23:11:46

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#4 2004-02-03 08:33:52

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#5 2004-02-03 10:52:10

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#6 2004-02-03 11:45:01

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#7 2004-02-04 11:20:17

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#8 2004-03-19 14:03:16

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#9 2004-03-25 04:18:12

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

#10 2004-03-25 06:16:31

Re: Landfills on Mars - A way to heat things up.

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