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If we are discussing meat, lets not limit ourselves to just what we here in the west use. In South America they eat cavies (guinea pigs) and even landless peasents can "ranch" a homegrown herd in a wooden box stored under a bed.
For aquaculture we could try catfish (hardier than tilapia) and crayfish (will eat the waste from cleaning the fish). Duckweed can be grown on the surface of the crayfish tank and harvested as a feed for the rabbits and other animals (it is the equivalent of alfalfa).
Lets not forget non-traditional plant foods as well. The lowly "cattail" has a potato-like root and the young leaves and shoot are edible. The immature seedhead is edible (kind of looks like corn-on-the-cob) and the pollen can be used as a high protien extender for flour. The mature seedhead provides a down that can be used for pillows, comforters, matresses, insulating overalls, etc. and the mature stalk provides fibers that can be added to marscrete to increase strength.
Just a few thoughts.
My company prints a monthly newspaper for the drycleaning industry and I read an article 2-3 months ago on CO2 as the "next miracle drycleaning formula."
From what I read, it seems that the CO2 can be targeted to disolve spesific compounds while leaving simlar ones untouched (organic stains removed whils dyes remain). I am not sure HOW this is done but they seem to have it nailed down prety well. I will see if I can get any info from the next issue of clothesline.
The easiest method for keeping pipes from freezing is to keep them inside the pressurised portion of the base as much as possible. This might not be practical for every pipe so here are some suggestions for outside pipes:
1) pipes can be made double-walled with an insulating layer between walls (think of the Stanley "Alladin" thermos)
2) ordinary electrical "heat tape". consider only if you are running a small base off of a good sized nuclear reactor.
3) Double walled pipes again, but with the outer pipe being used as a radiator for dumping waste heat. Run water on both pipes but the outer pipes water is part of a closed loop heat sink. The waste heat keeps the water in the inside pipe from freezing.
In My Humble Opinion.
it threw me for a while too
Bill, you get the "2-4-1" idea but IMO you are thinking too narrowly. Take your example of the MiracleGro hydroponic solution. Instead of trying to recover the elements in the bags (which are mostly just hydrogen and carbon anyway), specify that the material must be shipped with 5 lbs of powder in a 1'x2' triple layer silvered mylar bag. a shipment of 100lbs of powder will therefore yield 240 sq' of mylar reflector.
Any shiping container and packageing must be as close to 100% reuseable as possible. Consider the following:
1) shiping containers are to be either built to allow easy reuse (furniture, etc) or teardown (recovery of materials)
2) packageing materials should be something that you would be sending the colony anyway (use crumpled t-shirts and sweat pants instead of foam)
3) consider some of the things that would be there anyway as industrial equipment. (a landing engine run with methane/O2 at 0-1% thrust would make a handy melting furnace for recoverig scrap aluminum useing half a steel air tank as a crucible)
Think like the engineers for Apolo 13. We have X list of materials and we need to do Y. Failure is not an option.
As far as gene modification of bacteria for methane production, why bother? We all carry a healthy colony of such bacteria in our guts. Simply confine out solid wastes in a closedtank and the fermentation will take place.
The lunar camp can be placated by the fact that the proposed Ares booster can be used without modification on lunar missions.
The other camps will work against any attempt to realise the Ares because it threatens everything that they have worked for. Contractors and scientists will benifit but political apointees who have built their careers around an obsolete concept will loose everything.
If those of us who want mars to be explored stp up and begin building the hardware (and it will NOT cost anywhere near NASAs estimate) and developing what we need to get the mission off the ground we can have our mars mission. Even a small unmanned mission carried out successfully will cause those in the public to question NASAs stranglehold on access to space and their ever increasing costs and missed completion dates.
If WE get even a small portion of what we talk about here done, we will generate the publicity and credibility thet we need to acomplish more. What we need to prove is that it CAN be done and that we have the will to see it through.
While the growth of microbial food suplies in vats is a good idea, dont forget the water surface (at least on Mars). Duckweed has been found to be a 100% substitute for alfalfa nd can be grown on the otherwise wasted space of the vat surface.
NASA tried ths in the early engines and discovered that the vibrations caused the ozone to decompose and release enough heat to cause the tank to rupture. Evven a few percent of ozone was found to pose an unacceptable risk.
lol!
But seriously, the problems encountered by early colonists will in many ways paralell those expected by survivalists after a major TEOTWAWKI event. The first colonists will be on their own in the same way that hardcore survivalists expect to be. When your nearest resuply is at least 6-9 months away the loss of food production capacity is a death scentance.
If you go to some of the boards frequented by real survivalists (as oposed to "patriots" or "tribulationists") you will find their advice posts to hold several key philosophies. Key among them are:
1) Live off the land (Zubrin already has brought this one out in his book)
2) Single effort, multiple results (on mars, this could be useing RTGs to melt permafrost deposits)
3) if you need it to survive, be able to build it from scratch, improvise repairs or make a substitute (Anything that we need to survive MUST be able to be made or repaired ON MARS. waiting for a part from the main office is fine for a xerox machine but not for life suport equipment)
4) develop minimalist alternatives (these people make backpack stoves out of soda cans, fishing gear out of found trash and other "MacGuyver" items. We must develop the same mindset if we are to colonise another planet.)
For any of our plans for long term colonisation to be possible we need to develop some of the same mindsets as these people. Here are some links that have some information that we can use.
These sites contain mostly food production and power (electricity) information for survivalists and the poor in the 3rd world, but the info is good and we can use it I think.
Interesting suggestion. In determining the usefullness of this system it must be taken into account that we will HAVE to deal with sewage. The needed equipment to set up this system (tanks, pipes, shredders for sewage, etc) will be brought along as working components of the landers or can be easily improvised. The digester itself could be set up outside of the pressurized area to avoid crowding (would have to be insulated) but most of the problems of biologicaly active mathane production have been solved for some time.
As for the volume of waste to be passed through the system, lets consider one possible "mars-stead" scenario: 3 trench greenhouses hold several farming beds and the steadings small herd of 8 doe and 2 buck rabbits. Under the rabbit cages are small "worm beds" for the rabbit droppings and next to them are low aquaculture tanks. In the tanks (just stone sided pits, realy) are catfish and crayfish. Every morning a portion of the water in the tank is drawn off from the lowest part (like a sump) and used to break up one shovelfull of material from the worm bed. The worms are thrown into the tank and the resulting slurry is added to the digester (along with all sewage and a potion of the agricultual waste). When the daily "charge" is added an equal ammount of "spent" slurry is forced out the other end. This is collected and can be used in the garden as a high nitrogen liquid fertilizer or used as suggested in the article at www.kurtsaxon.com/thefantasticfly (slightly modified for these conditions). The methane could be compressed and stored in other tanks and used for cooking or powering vehicles. The crops would be a good mix similar to plants found in small family gardens, with the addition of some "industrial" plants (lufa, industrial hemp,) and some unusual crops (cattails).
What do you think?
To say that the end of fossil fuels is the end of civilisation and/or oportunity is to take the narrow world view that those who proffit from the fuels want us to take.
The alternatives are numerous and include many renewable sources (such as alcahol, geothermal, and solar) and unrenewable sources (burn-wave reactors, conventional reactors, etc).
Tho say that those in congress are doing nothing is only wishfull thinking. They are in fact HINDERING the development of renewable energy sources by their tax and regulation policies. In order for a rural farmer to produce fuel-grade ethanol, he must submit to random searches of his property by the BATF, an agency despised more than most others by rural americans. Since no farmer wishes to endure this invasion of privacy, this potentialy valuble resource will forever remain untapped.
If rural americans were allowed to produce fuel ethanol without having to endure such indignities, we could reduce or even eliminate our dependance on foreign oil and eliminate the ecenomic downfall of our small farms. Imagine being able to fill your tank from a pump located on a local family farm and pay the producer directly, rather than pay for a chain of production steps that may have started halfway around the planet.
I think so. I was thinking abot it last night and thought of the following design:
The craft would have a sigle "fuel tank" but 2 pellet guns peeking around the edges of the pusher plate. The "weapons" can be mounted around the edge and have a fixed aimpoint where all beams come together. The pellets can be fired into this area at a measured pace to provide continuous thrust. The fuel bunker would have to be designed to prevent the pellets feom setig eachother off but that could be achieved by encaseing each pellet in a thin steel can filled with water. The whole unit would probably not be any larger than a soup can and can be fed into the injector useing a modification of the militaries chain feed systems. The water would not only serve to damd the reaction, it would be vaporised by the thermal pulse of the nuke and convert some otherwise wasted energy into thrust. Another possible wasted resource of the bomb is the EMP. Possibly a tuned coil could tap that and feed the energy into a bank of capacitors as a "buffer that are gradualy drained into either storage bateries or the ships systems.
The "engine" module just described could be a self contained unit with the cargo and crew areas mounted in the front of the fuel bunker. A "tractor" of this design could move a cluster of cargo and crew modules to mars and return for refueling and another consignment of freight.
The current SADARM (the semi-mythical "suitcase nuke") has a variable yield from 1-10 Kilotons. The weapons that they are seeking to develop are suposed to be in the .25-1 KT range. They seek to use these as "point of contact" weapons and therefore retain the "nuclear deterant" even when engaged in close combat.
One outgrowth of the technology that they are developing to achieve the sub-critical deonation is a possible defensive weapon capable of detonating nukes at a distance.
The founding fathers DID know that fully automatic firearms were in the future. During the revolution there were several attempts to make fully automatic personal arms including the "picket" gun (a 7-barreled weapon designed to chain fire) and a few attempts to produce rifles that fired like roman candles.
You must also remember that artilery was covered by the provisions of the 2nd ammendment. You could also ask "who needs a 7 pounder mountain howitzer?" It is hard to think of a more military item of equipment than a cannon.
To find out what the founding fathers meant, you need to ignore those idiots who put forward the claim of a "living" constitution (basicaly they are saying that the constitution means whatever they want it to say) and interpret the part in question using the dictionary in common use at the time. The result looks someting like this:
"A well trained citizen militia, being needed to protect the freedoms of individuals from an encroaching government, the right to own and carry military weaponry shal not be denied to anyone."
In the U.S, code, the citizen militia is defined as "every able bodied male betwen the ages of 17 and 47".
The mobile ISPP might not be a bad idea.
I see most nuke powered vehicles being of the "truck" variety, designed to follow set paths and transport bulky materials from site to site (water to base from the polar caps). the vehicles would only aproach manned bases at predetermined times so base personel can limit exposure to the limited radiation that would be produced by such a machine.
For rad shielding, a sheet metal box can be incorperated into the vehicles, either between the reactor and crew area or completely surrounding the reactor. The boxes would be filled with sifted regolith on arrival and provide the same shielding that a solid shield imported from earth would while saveing on transport mass.
My biggest problem with such laws is that the people who will obey them are not the people who are dangerous. Criminals who will dissobey a law prohibiting murder will not obey one prohibiting posession or manufacture of a certain type of weapon.
As for the practicality of such a ban, remember that during the colonisation Mars will resemble a giant construction site. Much of the equipment needed to suport human colonies can provide the raw materials needed for manufacture of firearms (even military type firearms that you seem to be primarily concerned about). Also, there will be extensive machine shops that will provide the capability to turn that raw material into useable firearms. Living in the UK as you do I am sure that you have heard about the "sten" gun, turned out by the thousands in European basements by partisans useing nothing but hand tools. Then there are the hand produced firearms from Vietnam, Afganistan and many other areas that are functionaly identical to the mass produced weapons they are coppied from.
The only PRACTICAL regulations on firearm should pertain to conditions of use. Fireing in self defence should be allowed, amuntion restrictions inside habitats (like light plastic bullets), you get the idea.
First, let me say thin very simply: THERE WILL BE PROJECTILE WEAPONS ON MARS. We will be developing a technological society and in doing so we will need iems that can be easily converted into weapons.
For the simplest, take a container of pressurised gas, mount a ball valve on it and fix a length of pipe to the valve. stuff a bit of wadding material and a berring or stone into the pipe and you have a gun. And dont forget that modern construction REQUIRES the use of explosives that, for Mars, must be synthasized on planet. The chamcal gear to produce blasting agants can produce propelants too (or a particularly adventrous individual could build a firearm that uses blasting caps {!!!}). To those who will say that we can prevent this, remember that we have firearms being made in maxium security prisons today.
We need to deal with the FACT that firearms will accompany humans wherever we go in the universe. To claim that we can put up soe sort of gate and keep them out of any area is to lie to oneself.
That said, While I personaly believe in the RKBA and would suport it on mars as well, I will personaly pitch out the nearest airlock anyone who discharges a firearm in a pressurised habitat. Firearms are TOOLS and should be viewed as such in this instance.
Fuel cells need O2 just like any other combustion based system. One option that I have not see discussed here is a STEAM-based Hybred Electric system. A small MONOTUBE boiler is fed with methane and O2 to produce steam. This steam is fed to a DUAL_CYCLE STEAM ENGINE. The waste heat from the steam is extracted in a heat exhanger and used to heat the rover. The condensed water is fed back into the boiler for reuse. The boiler will have CATALYTIC COMPOUNDS plated directly onto the water tubes for more efficient combustion and the exaust outlet will be fitted with a SPRING LOADED COVER that will maintain an elevated pressure in the combustion chamber to facilitate heat transfer. The electric power from the generator would be stored in batteries to allow the boiler to be run intermitantly and, as a backup, the roof of the rover would have a solar cell array.
What do you guys think?
Actualy laissez-faire can provide for golconda v-2.0 if those organizing the colony are interested in bootstraping an independant population on Mars. Search for L. Neil Smiths speach on Mars colonisation to get an idea of the goals of these individuals.
As far as markets for martian products, information would be the most widely traded for the purposes of individual income. Precious metals and gems would be expensive, but so are works of art by people like Picasso, Renuar and DaVinci and all of these have a market. Even a limited market wil assist in building the infrastructure needed to bring down the cost of transportation. With this system, control of the colony is moot as it would never be a goal of the administrators.
The infrastructure need not be solely used for mars missions. A "rotovator" could be used to pull satalites cheaply into orbit from a moderate altitude (a modified jet liner could launch payload capsules at a low cost compared to todays space shuttle) and a geosynchronus "bolo" satalite could fling payloads anywhere in the solar system. Further savings could be realised by using a Mars orbit bolo to catch incoming ships thus saveing the need for areobrakes and heat shields (heat shields can be produced on mars in 1' to a side hexagonal sections and clipped onto an integral framework in the colonists vessel upon arrival).
As far as imports go, most of what comes to Mars will be "seed" materials. Examples of this are a metal lathe (the lathe is the only machine tool that can build the rest of the shop), food and industrial crop seeds and inteligent choices for packing materials. The landers themselves will be designed to provide the maximum resources for the colony wih the least weight (if a 5HP electric motor and an 8HP motor weigh the same, send the 8HP motor). Much of the material needed to expand the bases and steadings will come from the planet itself with only the initial machinery sent from Earth.
With regards to keeping the colony dependant on earth, that might work with some things, but the vast majority of material needed on a day-to-day basis MUST, in the interest of profit, be produced on mars. It is prohibitively expensive to ship such things as bricks and basic foodstuffs from earth so local supies will have to be developed. I offer this alternative "Golconda version 2.0" for consideration.
The basic colony is layed out in a series of "tin can" habitats, tunnels and vaults, with the central fetre being a sealed and pressurised natural cavern. This cavern is a marketplace for the surrounding steadholders to rent space for trade with other steaders and with company reps. New arrivals caneither sign up with existing mining and prospecting concerns or (usualy by pre-arrival arangement) indenture with one of the existing steadholders to both learn the ropes and earn the localy produced equipment that will be needed to start one of his own.
While the Ares corp. buys anything that can be shipped home at a proffit, its stock in trade is LIFT CAPACITY. Excess space on the colonisation landers is filled with materials ordered by the colonists in exchange for their products. The landers themselves, being one shot, are taken apart and sold in the same manner.
what do you guys think?
I would bet thay the lifespan of a golcondan executive will be measured in weeks at best after he tells inteligent, freedom minded miners that tey are now a company resource to be exploited for the proffit of others. The miners will have access to earth moving equipment, explosives, colony life suport equipment, all the machinery that was required to set up the colony (and can be used to expand it) and all of the truely productive members of the colony. The execs OTOH have a surface dome, easily vented.
After the rebellon, the miners can negotiate from a position of strength with the shareholders back on earth. Would a cargo flight sufficient to tip the scales towards self-sufficiency be worth a return flight of 500 lbs of assorted, high grade gemstones? With the sizes of olympus mons et-al, there might be some MONSTER diamond pipes out there. add in satalite footage of the entire planet and you might be able to find some exquisit VIRGIN gemstone areas. Further cargo flights could reward the shareholders with greater wealth in gems, fossils (possibly), exclusive rights to data, anything that could be returned at a profit.
Thoughts?
There woud be a lot of way to proffit from a Mars mission. If the ISPP system is used it could be recharged periodicaly and expanded to provide a lot of chemcals for the base. Insturments could be tended by base personel for outside concerns that "rent" base resources for various experiments. Such experiments need not be strictly scientific (how much would certain groups pay for clode-up photos of the cydonia region?) to be undertaken at a proffit.
Some data aquired on a day to day basis can be sold to interested parties over the net. Weather, soil composition, chemical production efficiency and prety much ANYTHING that can be reduced to data and sent back. Another possibility is to send daily "personal logs" to be sold to interested parties (there could be a graduate thesis on long term semi-isolation effects made from such logs).
For the REAL big bucks, excess life suport could be leased by organisations wishing to send personell to Mars. They send the people with basic suplies to our colony and we keep them alive for the agreed upon time in addition to suplying the fuel for the return trip. In return, a portion of the cargo capacity of the lander is used to bring suplies to the colony and any hardware not needed for the return trip (unloading gantry, refueling hoses, landing legs, descent chutes, etc.) are made to be easily recovered by the base crew. In this manner the bases expansion could be financed by our own resources.
just a few thoughts.
"shrink wrap" type suits would esentialy be disposeable and we are not certain that we can manufacture them on mars yet. By shrink wrap I am assuming that you mean the type of wrap that they put around phone books and mailed magazines. I have worked with this stuff and have seen that the seals are very weak, there is currently no way to finely control the shrinkage and in order to "fit" each suit we would have to stand in an oven for 30 to 45 seconds and have our partner go over the loose spots with a hair dryer. A loose fiting design with heavier fiber reinforced plastic for emergency use might not be a bad idea though.
An uninsulated "skin-suit" type garment would require the use of a snow-suit type insulated garment (possibly with heating elements for use with a "jeep" type rover)
Here are a few thoughts that I have had on suit design for mars.
1) a hard cermet clamshell for the torso (to maintain an oval cross-section).
2) All life suport, internal power and other functions placed in a hard pack mounted o the back of the clamshell.
3) Power and O2 recharge conections placed in the chest to allow for mid-eva recharging.
4) boot and glove connnections designed to operate on a lift + 1/4 turn basis to release.
5) A seperate pressure envelope (constructed of ruberised cloth) is worn inside a balistic nylon shell. The shell is fited with cinching bands at major joints to facilitate movement.
6) build all electronic components of the suit and helmet to interface with a "Palm III" or similar older model palm-top computer. Computer should be worn on the forearm connected to the inteface cable.
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