New Mars Forums

GW Johnson said:

Well I started this.  It is my opinion that Vesta will have little or no water ice, but I could be wrong for sure.  This would not stop the importation of Ice say from Ceres, and exchange for metals? 

It may be that a better candidate than Vesta can be found, but I went with Vesta because we have the most information about it.

Here would be a scheme for Vesta, and also for Phobos and Demos, and also other asteroids.

I recall a term "Chimney Cave".  Unfortunately google did not return what I wanted.  It may be a European term, as I think the reference I saw long ago was perhaps having to do with Switzerland.

Perhaps we could call it rouble pile caves.

Vesta had an impact, where 1% of it's materials were ejected I beleive, from it's south pole.  I have to speculate that large slabs of rock came back down on Vesta as well.  Perhaps they shatered, but even so, there should be slabs of rock which have voids under them, or where it would be possible to tunnel under them, unless, somehow the whole mass got packed down and vacuum welded.

Anyway, such slabs do not appear as apparent in the pictures, so I have to suppose that fine materials have flowed over 1 billion years time, and conceiled them.

If they exist, and can be tunneled under, then this would be a good option for an initial shelter, provided that the inhabitants were wise enough not to undermine it so much that it would fall and squish them.

Having such a location you could then have your drill rig, and anchor to a slab of rock overhead, and I guess drill down.

As for barometric Ice/water ponds or lakes, I guess if the cave was hollowed out large enough and enough water and ice were available, then you could put one under the slab of rock.  Or hollow out a verticle tunnel and fill it with water and Ice, or half fill a horrizontal tunnel, seal it off and keep a minimal pressure in it, just enough to stabalize ice, and then have electric lights above the ice, and shine light down through the ice into the water below.  (Or use submirged lights).

There woud be options.

For Vesta, it is my opinion that the surface would be the least habitible part, I would choose artificial worlds in geosynch, and also if you could drill down to the core,
then you could have all the metals, and it would also be zero gee there, so you could have spinning artificial habitats in the core of Vesta.

However that is some kind of mining job. 

But I don't think the rock pressures would be that unreasonable.  I believe that it would not be that much far above the deepest mine in South Africa for rock pressure.  Keep in mind that as you tunnel down the gravitation deminishes.

I hate to be a posting pig, but that picture just had to draw me in.

I see the rocks in the pool of water.

Even though that pool of water may be very cold (And I presume any adapted life in it have an extremely low metabolism, I have to wonder what the temperature excursions are for the soil at the bottom of the pond.  It seems to me that the warmth of the noonday sunlight must improve it't temperature.

I also see the rocks poking up out of the brine.  That in fact really draws me.  Brine ponds have not been photographed on Mars, but I am not sure they cannot exist.  At least perhaps they can exist at some point in the procession of the tilting of the poles, if for instance snowfall were to contact a salt flat. (Your postings indicate exposed salt flats, and the ice that is quite low in lattitude under the soil in places suggests snowfall has occurred at some time in the past 100,000 years)?

Anyway a rock soaking in brine, if it is at least a bit porous, in the conditions where day night temperatures are extreem, suggests that that process could make the rocks habitible.  Where your articles suggest an extrordinary tollerance for salt by some organisms, it does leave in question if the temperatures on Mars can be high enough.  I would think that at noon time during the summer of the southern hemmisphere, 1/8-1/4 inches inside of the rock, yes.  And the rocks might be soaking in brine.  Perhaps not an open pool of water, but a pool of brine under the surface of the soil.

So, I suppose that if the rocks were like wicks, they woud draw moisture upwards to the exposed surface of the rock.  Sandstone perhaps? 

It is a feature of the Arctic ocean that ice on the ice pack can become fresh enough to drink even though it started as salt water ice.  Freezing causes brine to leave the ice through brine channels. 

So, I speculate that there might be a hope that rocks wicking up mosisture out of briny mud on Mars (Presumed covered with a dry crust), might also from exposure to the cycling of temperatures on Mars generate a less briny fluid for microbes to use within the rock.  It is even possible that orgainsms in the rocks, just under the surface might use photosynthisis.  I would only expect this if they were a remnant organism from Mars past, or some organism that somehow made it to Mars from Earth or Ancient Venus.

I choose to reserve my opinion, because there are too many unknowns to say.

For instance this about Venus:

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4188/ … ne-planets-

So, the evidence is that there were three fully habitable (For Microbes) in our inner solar system in the first billion years of the life of the solar system.  Possibly there are still two barely habitible and one fully habitible planets now.  (Upper Atmophere of Venus, and Sub surface Mars, Earth).

The Asteroid belt it appears was very snowy and wet at that time, and the cores of the asteroids, particularly the large ones contained melt water.  If they were alive, then any disturbance in the solar system would allow some of them to impact Europa, Ganymede, and Titan.

What about IO in it's early life.  It has boiled off it's water at least nearly all of it, but very early in it's life did it have an ice shell and an ocean?

Various moons in the outer solar system, had underground water, and some apparently still do.

Very early in the time of the solar system, the comets are thought to have had melt water in them.

Our solar system most likely ejected many planets, and Asteroids and Comets during its evolution.

Speculating that this is normal, it is very certain in my mind that some objects ejected from previous formation of other solar systems, got incorporated into the gas cloud that eventually became our solar system.  Some larger objects could still have viable biospheres under their surfaces.

This ignors the possiblity of intellegent intention as well.  (God, Angels, Aliens).  (Don't say no, without evidence, that is not science).

So, our solar system seems to be dying.  It has lived about 1/2 of it's life as a solar system with a star with Fusion.

What about 1/4 of it's life span, lets say 2.25 billion years ago?  Possibly Venus still had seas at it's poles.  Mars, was dying, but perhaps there were still some pockets of surface life.  I expect that the Asteroids were all stone cold by then, but there is some speculation that Ceres may have a sea under it's crust, but I don't expect that it does.  Some of the Moons of the outer solar system would still have life in them at that point.

What about 1/8 of its life span, lets say 1. 125 billion years into the process?  Maybe still an ocean under Ceres, and maybe some suface habitats on Mars?  Venus alive.  Earth Alive. 

Rocks flying about in the solar system.

We will have to have a lot of evidence to be sure, and we also cannot be sure that it will be presented to us honestly by those who make the stories of reality for us.

So, I don't know, and likely can't know.

I would speculate that if a object from Earth could impact a location where there was burried ice, then it might lie dormant until the polar tilt of Mars favored a thicker atmosphere, as is supposed by some to happen every 100,000 years or so.  In that climate it is thought by some that a atmosphere of perhaps 11 Millibars average could exist, and snow falls, and ice sheets on the surface.  Also some optimistically think that temporary ponds and small streams are possible then.  If something from Earth dumped into that, and it liked living in mud, then I think yes, Mars can have Earth life.

Right click on the graphic object, and select "Properties".
Copy the address Example:

Paste the address between two consructions [***]Address[/***]

But leave out the "*".  *I had to add the to stop it from embeding the graphic.

Submit

So as not to waste this post:

If a method like this were to work on Mars, then I would also suppose it might work on the Dwarf Planet Ceres, and the Moons of Jupiter, Callisto, and Ganymede, although Ganymede may be too radioactive for people to want to live there unless the radiation belts of Jupiter can be reduced in lethality.

Actually same logic for Europa, and Io, although rigolith is hard to come by with Europa, and Ice is hard to come by with Io.  Perhaps a mass driver exchange program?  But that really pushes the limits.

The poles of our Moon?  Maybe, but you would have to import/Impact a lot of ice, most likely from the Asteroid belt.

Mercury may have vast ice sheets at it's poles in the shadowed craters.  The jury is out on that.  Radar detected something resembling it.

Think of the energy and minerals to be had on Mercury, if you had a decent place to grow food, with abundant volitiles.

Are we going to do graphic's battle now?

I agree, I may need to be more clear.  I am not saying it is the only way, but it is a way to investigate.

1) Pipe pressurized steam into the lake using pipelines (Plastic might not hack it).
2) Condense the steam into the 32 degree, or coldest water in the lake.

Have a submersible light fixture with an on board steam turbine and electric generator.

Have the spectrum of light you want.

The whole light fixture assembly hopefully being easily disconnectable from the steam and condenser lines.

The whole light fixture assembly being small enough that a diver could carry it to a workshop for maintenance and repairs.

Virtually all the heat from the steam warming the lake, either condensate process or the light energy not consumed by the plants.

This then avoids the need for a power line system, the conductors and so on.  Just what is internal to the steam powered light fixture.

An alternative would be a pneumatic light fixture, but then you have to have a vacuum line to vent the air pressure out to the Martian atmosphere.

Later:

I have been thinking about it and there is definitely a large issue with the pipes freezing at night.  (Those above ground).  They would have to be drained correctly and without error every late afternoon, or they might freeze and crack.

I still am interested in steam and pneumatics, but what the heck, I guess I could try to make electric wiring work with you.

Do you think that there could be a way to make "Plexiglass" enclosures, a network of them, Jerble tubes sort of, with an internal pressurization above that of the
water they were in?  Then the lights and wires could be in them, and those tubes could perhaps connect up to the above ice habitat some way.

Just a question.  Do you have an alternative?

RobertDyck Said:

Well then if the major sheild volcanos of Mars were a Mascon, and a massive object were placed in geosynch, then a gravitational coupling which would resist some degree of force beyond the Martian velocity of rotation?

With the hopes for Asteroid Mining, and presumed advancements in human abilities, then an object placed there, and it having arrays to harvest energy from the momentum of the solar wind?  Then a drag to slow down the crust of Mars?

That is the average force of the solar wind would be null more or less as the object orbited Mars, but the orbital speed of the object itself would drag against plasma magnetic lines of force, and if the degree of drag did not exceed the gravitational coupling of the shield volcano mascon and the orbital object, then this would slow down the crust, and also generate a lot of electrical power.

The object would be much closer to the crust of Mars than is our Moon, but it is presumed that it would be very much smaller.

So, how much of a magnetic field is enough?  1% of Earth?, 5%?, 10%?

I am not saying that it would be enough, but based on what you have said, a people who could set this up would achieve a magnetic field of some sort.

Salt tollerant water plants might be able to operate in below zero water.

I am tapering off, going to take a long break.  Thanks Lewis & GW Johnson.  If I have offended anyone else on this site, I give appogies.

I will look into visiting again in a few months.

Well then pulse, is a mutual interest, and plasma, so plasma pulse.

I actually want to initially burn the Hydrogen & Oxygen, to provide a protection for the rocket nozzle.  I believe, that magnetic fields are typcally imployed for that purpose as well, but if the pulsed burn is then further heated by other_means(), then the idea you expressed is quite similar.

However what I am really after is a Plasma Mass Driver.

Mass drivers to eject solid matter have been tried.  But they would leave behind increasing navigation hazzards. 

For some special missions, such as rare trips to places not in shipping lanes, this might be OK.

I have considered an Oxygen Mass Driver, using Paramagnetism, but frankly I am not capable of really knowing how to handle that.  I just know that you can move liquid Oxygen with magnetism.  An Oxygen Mass driver might make sense, if you have some rock which can simply be heated with solar heat to release Oxygen, and you liquified it.  Or if you had a small amount of Hydrogen which you leveraged into a large amount of Oxygen, by Heating it with Oyxgenated rock to make water, and then split the water and reused the Hydrogen, until you had "Lost" it all.  (Eventually you would loose the Hydrogen to the waste rock.

However, back to the Plasma Mass Driver.
In theory, a mass driver can approach the speed of light for ejection velocity.  Of course, in fact your Mass Driver Machine will melt and/or explode, since it will always have practacticle mechanical limits, and a magnetic field pulse also will resist expanding and contracting over a certain speed and force.

However, with a Plasma Mass driver I would like to see a propulsion which would be even more powerful than just the notion of the expansion of a plasma out of a magnetic nozzle.

The complexity which I described is a natural result of trying to do something a first time (At least for myself). 
First you try to accomplish something at all, then you try to make it elegant.

I guess I cannot think of any machine which would apply more linear energy to an atom/molecule than a plasma mass driver.  So, I want one to drive my imaginary spaceship.

Entertainment.

Further notes:

-I also prefer a machine where if the magnetic/plasma propulsion fails, (Coils short out, or burn out, become unsafe to use), the machinery may in that situation still retain the ability to split water and do a chemical burn, perhaps a pulsed burn.  To limp to a repair/rescue situation.

-A particle Accelerator might make matter move faster than a mass driver, or a super nova might, but they are too big to use in a spaceship, just yet.

-I was thinking of a repulsive magnetism, to push the plasma away, but of course the force of the field drops off quickly.
-Or a magnetic squeeze with a opening to squirt to plama out.  Those devices that attempt to do fusion with a squeeze love to leak anyway.

This would be much more tough or impossible to accomplish:
-Now I am also thinking of a more typical mass driver.  Perhaps plasma generated could be pulled along the sides of a ship.  In that case, the rocket nozzles would be near the front, and would exhaust backwards, but then before the final exit the exhaust would be heated with a microwave pulse?  Making the plasma magnetic, and therefore allowing it to be pulled by sequential electromagnets along the side of the ship.  But then, that would be very hard to control, to keep the plasma from quenching on the materials of the ship.  Perhaps if a stream of non plasma steam were traveling between the ships sides and the plasma, it would protect it?
Or in the outer solar system, could the ships sides be coated with a sacrifice material.  Perhaps a combination of pulling and pushing coils, so that at one location the plasma is being pulled at an angle towards the ship, and at another being pushed away from the ship at an angle.

And I won't be surprised if someone says that this entity already did this, thing or that thing, as part of another thing and so on.  That's fine.  I want to know what the state of the art is.

We have a lot of black box people these days.  When somewhat younger, I had to understand various descrete electronic components.  Now, that is an outdated skill for the most part.  I really don't expect that they put the same energy into training young people that any more than they train them for vacuum tube theory.

However, this tends to lead to a world of black box people.  "Allakazam!"  "Magic Carpet Rise!"  So when people become too verbal, simply passing out buzz words, often the details are not obvious.  How does the Magic Carpet fly?  Alli Baba does not care.  He only knows that it obeys him, and he might just get some of his archaic human compulsions satisified because he possesses a magic carpet.  He thinks he can drop a rock on my head perhaps from his magic carpet.  (If I was competition).

I want to know how to open the hood on the magic carpet, and exceed the verbalizers who's technology is to manipulate people for power.  I want to understand the magic carpet beyond the level of verbal magical thinking.

GW Johnson said:

Mark Friedenbach said:

I have been trying and trying to figure out what they plan to do, and finally I found some web information I like, and I will add some speculations, which are likely to be wrong, but perhaps they will cause someone else to come up with the right ideas.
The sites:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/scien … -belt.html

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/148648375.html

I am going to try to find one more item which says that out of 1,500 asteroids, 150 would be worth bothering with at first.

So, lots of Ice & hydrated and Carbonized materials?  I was previously lead to believe that these were all dry bodies.  Oh well.

So, here is my speculation.
1) Capture.
2) Grind inside of sack.
3) Separate materials.
4) Sinter segragates.
5) Capture and bottle volitile materials.
6) Deliver sintered items to various bidders/speculators/customers for further processing by them.
7) Keep platnum bearing sinter for special delivery to Earth.

Method of delivery of 7 to Earth could be.
A) Delivery vehicle, with heavy load, I presume you guys know what the limits are on practicality.
B) Deorbit and burn.
C) Parafoil to give some flight path? (Change that to weak guidance system of some kind).
D) Heat Shield remnant expelled in a safe location.
E) Explosive charge lowered on a tether.
F) At impact site guidance system drops load and saves iteself for reuse.
G) Special location is a bed of sand over a bed of solid rock.
H) Explosive charge hits first, and penetrates, expolodes and fluidizes the sand.
I) Heavy sinter chunk, "Splashes down".
J) Heavy sinter chunk impacts rock.
K) Heavy sinter chunk rebounds, shatters, etc.

Later Earth removers sift through the sand, guided by metal detectors.

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Building on those resources:

As per Mark Friedenbach

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Themis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65_Cybele

And of course Ceres and Vesta and so on.

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Building on those resources:

As per GW Johnson

That very elegant and brilliant plan for refiling from the rings of Saturn.

I guess it could take a long time to exploit the outer solar system, because there may be so much to get in the inner solar system, but perhaps that notion of  refueling in the rings suggests a scout expidition or two or more.  I am sure samples are desired from the Saturn system.

I am not a kiss up I just really like your innovation on this one.  It never occurred to me ever, and likely never would.

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I finally remembered the title of a book I read when I was very young.  "Islands in Space".

Sort of a precursor to "The High Frontier".

In that book, it was suggested to inductively heat an Asteroid and inject liquid water into it to blow it up like making a blown glass item.
A hollow Asteroid.

Someone had rudely wrote "Planitoid Quackery" on that book.

But dreams have to start somewhere.  The first, second, third offspring.............Eventually leads to a winner.

I am going to make myself scarce now.

OK you are really in luck.  More free philosophy from yours truely!

I will go to the gym tonight as I often do.  It has done me incredable good to have that practice.
One deficiency I have is in my legs.  So, my trainer often has me doing squat type exercises, which I do.  I do them because I know that my legs will get stronger.

It is my opinion that with a real Mars settlement mission 15-30+++ years off, then if you have a hard time with Polymers, then work on that.  Don't go run and hide and do the easy.  The people who settle Mars will need every single trick that can be thought of, and even then there is a possiblity of there extinction.

When a mission finally gets launched, then those who are there can choose what to keep and what to set aside.

When I say something like I don't know much about plastics, that is only a half truth.  I have calibrated temperature controllers for injection moulds, I have changed the probes.  I have figured out solutions for such. 

So in my equasion I cited a film to cover the ice/ice water.  A transparancy.  If it were true that polymers are forbidden on Mars, or can't work on Mars, even then I could turn to glass, or who knows "Transparent Aluminum", or terraform the planet and get the pressure up so the ice will be stable without an auxiliary covering.

The point is if I cite a variable "X", so that I can work on the issue "Y".  I would prefer that I do not get the bums rush out the door, if simply because you have concerns about "X".  Talk directly to me about that issue.  Don't go get a buddy and do a double team on me.

It is extrordinarly wrong that there is a compulsion to impose orthodoxy in a question that requires that a new book be written, and does not demand that a recipe be followed.  Following recipies, is a survival skill of our species, and I would never dispense with it, but it is not experimentation. 

The tried and true never got anyone to Mars, let alone caused them to thrive there.

Glandu and Louis,

I simply was unable to understand your dialog.  Therefore in the details, I will not dwell, unless, there is something I missed which you want to explain in explicit language.  A good part of it or all of it was about the reference that Spacenut gave us.

One thing around here is the compulsion to put a wet blanket on creative thinking.  That is citing that something is not the best to try to do at least not in the beginning.  However, it will be at least 15 years before humans even to go Mars to visit, let alone settle.  More like 30 +++++++++++!

Those children who are having their imaginations stimulated by symbolic illustration, may in many cases go on to create major changes in the equasion of what is best to try to do first for the first settlement.  A whole new science could be invented by then.  Now is not the time to limit possiblities.  Expressing a concern is just fine, telling people just to give up is wrong.  It is not how the west was won.

Well, I thought I was done, but I decided to do a bit more research to fill in some things I left blank.

Before I get into the topic I am more interested in now (Tundra Ponds),
Here is another description of a Antarctic Dry Valley Lake:
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-carbon-con … ctica.html

It says the ice is 3-6 meters thick.  one on Mars could be that thick, or if input from solar concentrators was used to further heat the lake, the ice could be much thinner to allow more light in.

It says that the fresher colder layer on top is nutrient poor.  However humans could easily put more nutrients into that layer.

It says that the bottom layer lacks Oxygen.  If this matters, then humans could arange to add oxygen.  For instance if they wanted to make an artificial Ocean vent community, or a cold seep.

Antarctic Lakes such as Lake Bonnie have microbial matts.  I believe that they would have more sophisticated plants, but they are isolated, and also, from time to time the lakes are destroyed I believe.  So evolution does not have a method for continuity, and also transplantation is unlikely.

Here is a PDF, if you can get it to load.  It is rather sciency, but I like the pictures.   Anyway I can grasp some of it.
http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_51/issue_4/1801.pdf

Tundra Ponds:

Well yes the tundra tends to be half aquatic in the summer in many cases, due to the retention of surface water by permafrost, which inhibits drainage.
Here are some links I liked:
www.blueplanetbiomes.org/tundra_plant_heading.htm

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/arctic_moss.htm

http://www.arctic.uoguelph.ca/cpl/arcti … owmoss.htm

The artic moss is of interest, I think it could put up with being in a pond on Mars, maybe.  But in it's natural situation it is very slow growing.  However a domesticated variety which is fertilized and given a longer growing season might do better.  Genetic engineering is a thought.

http://www.tropica.com/en/advising/site … capes.aspx
Nice pictures. Some of these plants might be adapted, or it suggests that there might be others more suitable.

Here I am most likely getting over optimistic, but still it is worth thinking about. Obviously my optimism neglects the fact that this picture lacks an ice layer, but still.....:

I guess in it's simplest form I think of a series of long ponds connected by pipes, and covered with an ice layer, and on the sides a raised berm and over that a tarp like covering, one draped over the berms, and anchored by tent pegs, and with soil shoveled over the edges to seal it.  Perhaps enough head room for a human in a counterpressure suit to pass under the "Tarp". (Transparent film with UV protective properties, and humidity retention properties).

This could produce both Oxygen for the people, and also green organic matter which should be possible to use for something.

Sort of a protected, irrigated, tundra-pond scheme.

This would start with ground ice in Hellas (Or other places), size up to glaciers, and finally tap the south polar ice cap.  Imagine the whole of Hellas irrigated in this manner.   In times, also the plants grown would be domesticated to be more edible, and more useful.