You are not logged in.
Hi Everybody,
I would like to elaborate on a thought I had earlier about creating a constituency for those of us who, want to see a continuos and expanding human presence on Mars.
We all would agree that the status quo is NOT working for us. It has become clear to me that as long as the pro Mars community does not command the monetary or political clout to move the rest of our societies we are not going to see sustainable progress.
Years ago I read two books that gave me some ideas, Ben Bova's Welcome to Moonbase, and Marshall Savage's, The Millennial Progect. The plans potrayed by either book are not in my opinion practical, but there are useful elements to both.
Savage envisions constructing a floating city of 100000 in the Indian ocean, and using the industries created there to finance expansion into space. Unfortunatly, the concept gets bogged bown in his visions of a new society : alot of New Age foolishness. Savage himself is reported in Wired magazine to have quit his own organization over squabbles about just how this new society would function. However the idea of free floating sea habbitats is hardly new Savages contributions in this area include:
-Ocean Thermal Energuy Converters (OTECs)
providing electricity
producing hydrogen fuel and fresh water
bringing nitrates to the surface for use in algae and seafood production.
-Accretion of structures using the calcium carbonate and magnesium.
The practicalities of these systems have been tested to various degrees at various institutions over the last thirty years but never combined as Savage suggested.
Creating a habitat for 100000 people was said to require 7 100MW OTECs six years to accrete the nescesary material. With an initial cost of $1.1B US to puchace the first OTEC, a ship and support equipment.
Details aside, I would like to suggest a corporation be formed to build something similar to Aquarius (Savages name for his city).
The corporation could build a smaller version of say 50000 people. Savage calculated that Aquarius would prduce enough products to bring in $8B, and due to the efficiancy of such habitats, have $4B-$5B in funds available for future projects each year. $2B would be enough for a robust industry lead humans to Mars program.
If 50000 people could be encoraged to invest $10,000, or some equivalent we would have half a billion dollars in seed capital.
Have to go, will elaborate later.
Offline
Well, there are three general problems with the Aquarius "space" colony as proposed by Savage:
1) Sea cement is much, much harder to accrete than Savage would lead you to believe. Many studies after the book was published have gone on to show that sea cement produced in real world environments is too weak to be used in structural elements, and too expensive to create. Without this in-situ resource, the cost for construction is astronomically high.
2) OTEC power has not been technically developed to any significant extent. OTEC, by it's nature, is a very inefficient system, and the conversion ratios shown in The Millennial Project are simply not possible today (without massive R&D).
3) Like many finantial statements made by Savage, the $8 billion income quoted in The Millennial Project was derived without taking into account the laws of economics, namely supply and demand. Aquarius would flood an already filled market with its massive number of exports, diminishing their value greatly. Taking economic factors into consideration, it becomes very unlikely that an Aquarian business model would even be able to break even, let alone fund an entire space program.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is a reason why the First Millennial Foundation never took off.
Offline
Can't do anything about the sea cement, but I'm sure OTECs will someday be more efficient. As for flooding the market, a larger population in the future=more demand. The Millenial Project is interesting, though flawed, but something great might eventually come out of it. If the OTECs just broke even with electricity generation, the cold nutrient rich seawater pumped up from the depths could allow profitable aquaculture. My proof? None. I just like the idea.
Offline
This whole idea seems very backwards to me when taking into concern the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration. Why spend the massive amounts of money on creating a sea colony that will be largely impossible to create much profit, when the same money could be spent on creating a lunar outpost which could in all possibility be just as profitable, if not more profitable (especially with the expansion of the space tourism industry). That seems like a much better first step into space than any sea colony. And that would get us much closer to Mars....
Offline
I agree. A sea colony sounds like a great idea, but it does not have much to do with mars. There maybe some ideas that would (sorry for this) surface in the sea colony, but there is much more that could be done and be more helpful.
Offline