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karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Snowball Mars is not at all some scary scenario. We have the means to concentrate lots of solar light on it, even if it was on some interstellar distances...

Fast terraforming ( if any) is the only reasonable approach. Mars has monolite crust - this is an advantage.

All Mars needs is its atmosphere to be refilled with the missing gases ( hydrogen and nitrogen mostly ). WE have lots of both stuffs in the Higher  system. These stuffs contain also the necessary transport and processing energy in their orbital momentum... The only problem to solve is how to organize the process for deorbiting the necessary quadrillion of tonnes N and H to Mars ( infinitezimal part of the total Outer system reserves). Self-replicating system powered by the GPE ( gravitational potential energy ) of these bodies ( letting binaries of KBOs or closer grouped objects to merge ) should do the job. The task is more of programming the hardware, not in some giant scientific breakthroughs. The giant sci-brakethroughs would rather make the terraforming ( especially of Mars ) obsolete...

After you add the H/N+  just warm a little -- quite small asteroid would give you all the aluminium and carbon to make several global soletas. If you think this is fragile make 10 soletas, keep them around Mars, direct the 10fold excess of solar power into industrial processes...

RedStreak

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From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

[color=#000000]I agree with both Cindy and Mr Carnes. I think it would be acceptable to live in big domes of the size of a small village, 2 0r 300 meters diameter, as long as there is some green stuff inside, like a parc with a pool, but I also would like to be ouside without a 200 kg suit.

I thought of one potential Rapid Terraformation Senerio that might satisfy those arguing for "domed" versus "global" terraforming:

Doming Hellas Basin.

The Hellas Basin is the largest crater on Mars and in the earliest epoch of Mars may have even hosted a sea itself.  If global terraformation were to happen it would be the first region on Mars to sport long-term lakes of water and the first region under an oxygen atmosphere pressurized enough for breathing.

Constructing a massive dome over Hellas would easily be the future equivellant of a cathedral, requiring at least two, three generations even coupled with autonamous machinery and both genetic genineering and nanotechnology.  However compared to a space elevator (for those boasting for a 10,000km+ ribbon-thin elevator surely a mere 20-odd-mile-high dome would be achievable with late 21st century knowledge) thats vulnerable to speeding space debris and the millenia needed to alter an entire planet such a dome would be a feesable national/international project much as the Statue of Liberty was to late 19th Century France and America.

For those still pressng for a green Mars, Hellas Basin alone IS a decent-sized region.  Even when sealed and pressurized alot of work will be needed to cultivate, heat, and eventually maintain a habitat close to the size of the continental USA; surely a good 'test' of terraformation.  Because of its size and the dome looming very high it would be a far cry from the mall-esque interior of even a superdome.

As a final plus the dome superstructure would prevent water dissociation that vaporized a good portion of Mars' original water table and any atmosphere loss.  This same tech could be done in smaller craters but I think it'd work best on Mars versus Luna because of Martian water.  A glass panel may crack once in a great while but giving the dome layers and that an atmosphere on a regional scale takes quite a bit of time to escape and its a relative minor problem - gives the dome inhabitants a constant job and maybe sport a glass economy. 

This is just a handy thought experiment and a compromise for the troubles of terraforming and the confines and technical challenges of a would-be 'Biosphere 3' greenhouse dome.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

How to contain the pressure ?
On Earth, one atmosphere is 10 meters water pressure.
On Mars it would be 10/0.38= 26 meters.

Network of cables, holding down the roof ?
Army of Martian dust sweepers ?

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

With double layer plastic sheet dome , filled with 26-30 meters of water between...

RedStreak

Banned

From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Army of Martian dust sweepers ?

The majority of the dome would be 20 or so miles above the average Martian surface but true, admittedly dust storms could reach above even that on occassion.

The dust sweeping would clean the glass, but also think of it as resource gathering.  A good portion of that same dust could be forged into the metals and glass needed for dome repair.

RedStreak

Banned

From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

With double layer plastic sheet dome , filled with 26-30 meters of water between...

I am not certain water would be nessisary.  With a 20+ miles height I wouldn't doubt that clouds could form within the dome and create a localized water cycle.  Between a full Earth atmosphere of pressure, clouds, and the metal/glass infrastructure it would cut down a huge portion of incoming radiation.

RedStreak

Banned

From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

One more merit to terraforming-under-glass just a region of Mars:

As the Red-Green-Blue Mars trilogy time and time again brought up there will be those devoted for preserving the planet as hostile as it may be.

I'm not a fan of rock gardens myself but it might be wise on a scientific basis to preserve Mars for a while yet - it holds alot more of its ancient history intact than Earth while still accessible to human hands.

Also, just in case, if we find native life (most likely in some microbial form) this would allow it to be preserved while allowing humans their own refuge on an otherwise harsh Martian surface.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Spherical cap shape has problems.  Is it possible ? Worth the efffort ?
Slowly inflate as stadium air domes on Earth ?
Cables to ancor each portion ?

With double layer plastic sheet dome , filled with 26-30 meters of water between...

Living under a giant fish tank, with shielding and food production right above.
Practical when small, but how to scale up ?

Ground hugging solutions are easiest.
Perhaps only several meters high.
 

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Dome? The old faithfull http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome ...

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

MarsDog,

15.9 lbs sq/i is asking an awful lot of any material.
Differential between inside dome and outside Martian pressure.

Now I'm not saying a dome isn't possible, just saying robust structure is an understatement.

P.S 1/2 spinning gravity attraction was a very interesting read, i hadn't read that before and he made a very interesting flow to how everything works, just didn't want to fuel a fire any further with a response
Sometimes it's better to say nothing when no one is listening

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

One solution is to have dome curvature radius same as Mars.
No horizontal forces.  Honeycomb cells, structure able to withstand meteor strikes.
If one honeycomb is punctured, then other cells expand, filling hole till repaired.
But need dynamic compensation. Similar to adaptive optics telescope.

Geodesic dome would be optimal for constant gravity and pressure.
But decreasing pressure with height gives other shape (flat top).
Top part under tension, bottom under compression.
Optimized space frame ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame

Dome in the sky, in the shape of pie in the sky ?
 

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

MarsDog,

The idea of a double layered plastic with water in between is a great one for radiation control.

I wonder if that same layer as ice could be used to counter balance the structure or at least make it a more robust structure?

It might be an interesting construction project to build a big double layered pond that freezes solid, then just blow it up from inside to form the structure.

A few well placed internal guide wires for stabilization.

I agree the forces on any large structure on mars will have to be well thought out, and a pie shape with little differential over the entire structure will help minimize it.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

steel <5 GPa
Nano 130 GPa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraging_steel
http://physics.uwstout.edu/StatStr/Stat … cols65.htm
Hoop Stress = P R / t

Theoretical limits
Assume steel 1 GPa
Ground level radius of 1 meter thick steel enclosure

R = 10^9  1 / 101,325 pascals = 10^4 meters = 10 km

Carbon Nanotube 100 times greater or 1,000 km

Something large is possible, but details and safety ??
How to design self healing compartments ?

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

MarsDog,

Why stop at two layers of plastic as the structure?

If you make a blow up structure with 4 or 5 layers you could have a different pressure in each layer.

That should minimize the extreme pressure difference as each layer will only have 1/4 th or 1/5 th the total pressure.

If the plastic layers are honey combed like a bee hive and offset from each other the likeliness of a 5 depth tear is very unlikely.

A single honeycomb tear will only add its pressure to the next 3 honeycombs 1 layer up.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

In order to simplify have to go back to karov's ideas of

Geodesic - triangles for stability
Water layer on top for shielding

======================

10 km radius ring
cables from 3 different directions, to form the triangles
Water jacket on top, to balance air pressure
3 sided towers at each cable intersection  ?

======================

Then destroy as many meteors as possible in space.
Figure out how to repair damage from the ones that get through.

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

MarsDog,

Interesting, karov has a similar approach to the same problem.

With multi layers all pressured differently and a triangle or honey comb structure built right in to the layers, you should be able to do away with the need for guide wires.

With so many layers of material above the inside you probably won't need water as a shield or counter balance.
With many layers the structure would be well insulated from the outside elements and temperature, so little energy needed .

It makes for a pretty simply structure that is self supporting and only needs earth like atmosphere in the final bottom bubble, compressed Martian atmosphere for all other layers.

Clear plastic is probably not a great choice for mars, but lots of other similar materials can be used.

The biggest problem i see on a large dome on mars isn't the engineering, its the sand/dust storms wearing away the material.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

The reason why here now on Earth we don`t have too much geodesic domes is that such structures are with complex for prognosis structural behavoiur. Simple combinatorics of combining the stress parameters and input of too many, although simple , but numerous "sticks"...

That`s why perhaps the simplest and most known tech would be "horizontal" / flat ceiling ( i.e. following the equipotential of gravity) + vertical walls.

Excuse me I qoute this source, perhaps for thousandth time  , but see www.paulbirch.net , and especially the supramundane and terraforming-Venus-quickly parts...

gasbags / pneumatic panels are proposed both for outside-in supramundane structures horizontal presurization , and for the inside-out rotating space colonies again for horizontal separation of the vacuum from the terraformed area...

1. Vertical walls -- made by hexagonal base prisms - gas bags / pneumatic pannels , filled with original martian atmosphere - compressed to different pressure according to the hight,

2. Horizontal ceiling -- hexagonal bags ( indeed absolutelly the SAME PP = pneumatic pannels) filled with as big depth of water as necessary to counter-pressure the air inside...

If the standard pannel is -- say, 1km high with 1km side hexagonal prism ( the walls also could be "fractal" of many independently inflatable cubes of 1x1x1 meters... in order for easier cuts-in and out for puting cables, entrances, pipes, pumps, etc... ) , than even only one such prism-tent could be the seed of such Partial terraforming or indeed Gradual terraforming enterprise.

1. Send to Mars ( or whereever you decide ) a machine which compresses the CO2 air and + some local water produces contineausly 1m wide -- 1 mm thick sheet of polyethilene, glueing cubes of it. Gllue the cubes between eachother to form the prism. ( For simplicity the basic form could be a cube , not prism...)

2. Fill the cubes with water, regolith , air, what necessary...

...

10. With high enough vertical Pannels walls you don`t need ceiling at all if the surface gravity is OK.

MarsDog

Member

From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Interesting, karov has a similar approach to the same problem.

     Pressure vessel design (tubes and spheres) necessary on Mars but not Earth.
     Shielding with light elements (Hydrogen, possibly Boron) reduce secondary emission.

Clear plastic is probably not a great choice for mars, but lots of other similar materials can be used.

     Plastic has lot of Hydrogen atoms. Proton is similar mass to neutron. Good momentum transfer. 
     However, light pipes may provide a way to allow light while blocking radiation.

The reason why here now on Earth we don`t have too much geodesic domes is that such structures are with complex for prognosis structural behavoiur

     On Earth you only have to design for gravity.
     On Mars for gravity and pressure (hoop stress).

That`s why perhaps the simplest and most known tech would be "horizontal"

     Pressure up and down cancel, eliminating hoop stress.

============================================

Building big on Mars is inviting catastrophy. Perhaps only smaller sections which could be sealed off. Probability of large meteor hit should be greater than a million years. What is maximum radius for that ?
     

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Building big on Mars is inviting catastrophy. Perhaps only smaller sections which could be sealed off. Probability of large meteor hit should be greater than a million years. What is maximum radius for that ?
     

You can build enormous starting from small. If the basic block is a cubic cell with linear dimensions of say 3-4 meters, you could build with it - filling each cell with whatever necessary: compressed local atmosphere, brethable mixtures of various concentrations and pressure/density, water, dirt, regolith, marscrete... From the cubicells one could contineau with producing higher order cells ( like the relation bricks/house ).... I think on Mars depressurisation wouldn`t be cathastrophy provided active condition support. Pneumatic pannels of cubicells covering bigger and bigger part of the total surface. "Ocean" overhead if necessary for counter-pressure and radiation protection -- with fishes and seaweed of course -- the ceiling = osmotic membrane for water/heat exchange. A meteorite ( hardly ever will make it down to the surface unnoticed and undeflected ) would nock out only some cubicells, the expansion of the neighbours would fill the gap helped by some solidifying foam burst -- like skin.

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MarsDog

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From: vancouver canada

Registered: 2004-03-24

Posts: 852

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

basic block is a cubic cell

Better is supporting cables forming equilateral triangles.
If a vertex gets knocked out, then tension is transferred
to the perimiter of a hexagon.

I saw an apartment building with 3 hallways radiating from the center.
A 10 storey building could be placed at each corner of the honeycomb.
http://insectzoo.msstate.edu/Curriculum … ycomb.html

Looks possible to build a relatively safe and large city.
 

neilzero

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Registered: 2006-06-24

Posts: 17

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Personally, I would be nervous living in a dome with a thin hostle atmosphere outside, but some Mars colonists will want to visit, work or even sleep under a dome. 100 kilometer domes may be possible with CNT = carbon nano tubes, but we can't make 1/10 th kilometer domes of CNT on Earth at present. Building big domes on Mars will be more difficult than Earth inspite of 1/3 gravity. Stress free glass is an exacting process which is why it is expensive. If you also want high transparency the cost is even higher. We may be thinking a meter thick glass for resaonable safety. Thinking a 4 psi mostly oxygen atmosphere instead of 15 psi on the dome will help considerably.   Neil

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Personally, I would be nervous living in a dome with a thin hostle atmosphere outside, but some Mars colonists will want to visit, work or even sleep under a dome. 100 kilometer domes may be possible with CNT = carbon nano tubes, but we can't make 1/10 th kilometer domes of CNT on Earth at present. Building big domes on Mars will be more difficult than Earth inspite of 1/3 gravity. Stress free glass is an exacting process which is why it is expensive. If you also want high transparency the cost is even higher. We may be thinking a meter thick glass for resaonable safety. Thinking a 4 psi mostly oxygen atmosphere instead of 15 psi on the dome will help considerably.   Neil

You have to realise first how hostile is the Earths environment... lethal heat just several kilometers bellow, lethal airlssness just several kilometers above... A dome "legoed" from fractal inflatable cubical cells from polyethilene provides the same leevel of proteection and almost full control over the environment with classical / brute forsce / man-scale technologies ... which we now on Earth don`t have...

Note to MarsDog: cubical cells cause every cube is a "seed of infinity" / a model of the 3D space itself!!!, maximum versatility for space ocupation and arrangement and so on... The cubes could provide us with full coverage of scales two ... say begin with micrometer cubes to cell-form milimeter ones, they meter ones, than kilometer, smaller step of the fractality / size increase is better , but you catch the idea... One could build everything from such cubes...

To preserve the industrial-age compatibility and the scale of matter control ( I mean reapeei and maintenanc to be excutable without micro- and /or nanotech, neither heavy cranes , etc ) --
imagine 1 meter wide polyethilene hollow cubes / capable to house anything -- air, original martial or titanian atmosphere, greenhouse gasses mixtures and coctails, water, dirt or even thee samee polyeethileene to be solid cubes...
Stick / glue them together into 10 meter structures ( with gaps here and there for cables, passages, pipes, doors, windows, light paths...
Than 100 meter... 1 km ... 10 km ... 100 km... 1000 km...

One can start with "igloo" of several dosens such 1m cubes and "seamlessly" to expand the igloo into town, county, country, continent, globe... with or without roofing ( depends on SG - surface gravity ).

I`d call this way of environmental conditioning -- "crawling" paraforming.

Once we realise that to wear sunglases, scuba, t-shirt, to inhabit house, boat, ship, to travel with pressurized plain is indeed TERRAFORMING - i.e. conditioning the environment to suit US, instead of adapting us to the environment, the grasping of any tech is easy.

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Don't be so hasty with this entire domes-thing. We first need to find a good enough material to build them with. Is there any ?!
See:
Human missions » Mars radiation a serious risk to astronauts.

What if the dome was a plant with a transparent membrane? The dome plant has its photosynthesizing surface on the floor beneath the dome material. The best sort of live support systems are the low maintenance ones, if you need an army of life support maintenance workers to keep it running, it isn't worth it.

I think any terraforming effort is going to rely heavily on robotics and self-maintaining systems in any case.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,970

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

"Space-mirrors" could let astronauts live on the Red Planet.

A NASA-funded study proposes mirrors in orbit around Mars to create Earth-like conditions on a small area of the Red planet's surface

Researchers are planning to create the mirrors using 300 reflective balloons, each 150 meters wide, positioned side-by-side.

The mirror will take sunlight and focus the rays onto a one-kilometre-wide strip on the surface, raising the temperature to 20 degrees Celsius.

Depending on the mass of the mirror it may tend to be pulled to mars and if it is to light it will be blown out of orbit as if it were a solar sail.
Positioning of the mirrors would also mean there is a need of propulsion to keep then in place.

Tom Kalbfus

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Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

Maybe it can be both a reflector and a solar sail, using light pressure to maintain its position against Martian gravity and also reflecting that light to Mars. Another sort of reflector can also block light from reaching Venus. Uranius is a possible terraforming target, it receives 3.8 watts per net6er squared, the Earth receives 1380. square_root(1380/3.8 ) = 19. 19 x the diameter of Uranus 51,118 km =  means that you need a solar sail about 971,242 km in diameter to provide the same illumination on Uranus as their is on Earth.