New Mars Forums

So, many have dismissed the Moon as useless or a distraction.

However if you look at the Earth/Luna as a binary world if not Planet, at least, we know that resources like what we call intelligent communication can be shared between the two.  So, due to a more favorable latency, the Moon is not a dry barren rock but a rock with useful interconnection to the Earth in regards communications.  Computers and humans can communicate with the same from the Earth and on the Moon as well.

So, the Moon has this resource much more than any other world except Earth itself.

On the question of local volatile resources, it is rather questionable why such Lunar resources should be consumed for a one-time use.  The Notion of post Apollo is you are going to get water so that you can make rocket fuel and go other places. That is fine, should Oxygen be considered, but not so fine as concerns Hydrogen.

Other possible uses are to sustain living things on the Moon.  The ISS recycles water at a 98% efficiency, I believe, but I think SpaceX is going to try to tighten that up even more.

Water as a coolant is a possibility, either expendable or recycled.  But it is subject to expansion on freezing and is too precious to just expend in a one time use in most cases.

The import of Carbon to make steel, has been considered by some.  That is sort of a one-time use, but probably worthwhile to some extent.  Also, though CO2 may be a very useful coolant, so might be worth importing, although their may be some to be had on the Moon.

It has been said that their is some small amount of Nitrogen embedded in Lunar Regolith, and that that might be retrieved to support agriculture.  I suppose maybe.

Estimates for amounts of water on the Moon, are variable.  We have to be careful, the fungus among us, seems to always seek to distort information, envy driven mob behaviors, would rather see us consumed and held down.  They either want our existence to expire, or they want us subordinated under them.

I think though that without too much in imports, the Moon could probably support a vast robot civilization with a few humans on the Moon, provided humans can be heathy there.

In the concept of imports to the Moon, of course Earth comes first, and https://www.youtube.com/@Anthrofuturism has suggested Carbon imports for Steel.

I have described ideas as well about tapping the Asteroid Belt to get imports to the Moon, to make it more fertile.  This is not any more wrong than to think you could irrigate crops with melt water from mountain ice on Earth.  But it does require a much greater reach of technology.

Until the network I have suggested is set up, if ever, can we hope to import stuff from Mars/Phobos/Deimos, to our Moon and also  to Earth/Moon orbits?

I think it might be a reasonable precursor to tapping the Asteroid Belt.  Phobos and Deimos resemble asteroids, and have at least Iron, Aluminum, Silicon, and Oxygen to offer.  Useful transfer substances can be Wood, Plastics, Paraffin, and water, I think.

This is an optimistic view of the two moons: https://science.nasa.gov/mars/moons/facts/
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Less optimistic views are that they are simply Mars rock flung up into orbit by a object colliding with Mars.  There is some tiny suspicion that those who seek to keep us captive may not have provided a totally accurate story on this.

But, I am willing to be disappointed, or we might be delighted.  We need to know.

I have just given the opinion in the prior post: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 92#p231592 that robot housing may be quite inexpensive on Mars.  So, if you can have almost infinite Artificial Labor on Mars, you should be able to make the substances that are wanted on the Moon, from volatiles existing on Mars.

And unlike Earth SSTO from Mars should be practical.

Once in orbit, materials from Phobos and Deimos should be useful to propel robot ships to deliver these substances to Earth/Moon orbits.

The methods to lower those substances to the Moons surface could involve rockets and maybe even Rotavators.

So, with almost infinite Robot Artificial Labor, the Moon can be "Irrigated" with materials from Earth, then Mars/Phobos/Deimos, and finally the Main Asteroid Belt.  And maybe eventually from deeper space such as Callisto.

If we are able to learn how to use a Rotavator to lower materials onto the Moons surface, then it should be possible to learn how to use the device to lift materials off of the Moon.

A Rotavator would be better than a Mass Driver as it will have a materials lowering function possible.

So, the Moon could become extremely valuable to a solar system civilization.

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So, if a civilization dominantly robots and as a minority humans can exist on Mars, will there be a "Robot Room Temperature"? 

Our room temperature a bit below 20 C, or 68 F, working well for humans, is not necessarily the best for robots and for robots on Mars.

I might nominate -10 C, but we don't know yet.  But it has to be compatible with things like battery chemistry.

Another thing about robots is that they could hibernate when conditions made it a merit.

While Humans can reduce consumption of some things in adverse conditions robots could do so much more in the case where energy was restricted.  So, when robots were operational, resources to keep human alive during hibernation, would have to have been stockpiled.

Tunneling in the ice slabs is a way to both gain water, and upgraded space.  It would also be a way to get access to minerals.

Of course there would be various kinds of upgraded spaces.  I think that perhaps most robot spaces will only be marginally pressurized.  Such pressurization might be just enough to allow some amount of liquid water phase.  But this would depend on the industrial processes you were working with.  And the pressurization would probably be with raw Martian atmosphere.

So, if you dug a tunnel on the grounding line, could you plaster it with a freezable mix with fibers mixed in.  Then if that froze would it have some of the strength of Pykrete?

Warmer spaces might most easily be built in two different ways.  You might burry a dome in ice and then build buildings inside of that.  In that case you might have a pressure like 2/3 bar.

But you could also have vaults in the stone under the ice.  Particularly if it was created from Volcanic Ash.

Cappadocia comes to mind: https://sometimes-interesting.com/derin … appadocia/

So, volcanic Ash or sandstone covered in an ice slab of fair thickness (Quote: )

I am sure we could finish those spaces much more nicely than was done in history.

Here we are then:

The cone vault might reject excess heat into the stone under it, for the case of a sand storm, so that heat would keep flowing into the habitat.

The ice tunnel is slightly pressurized, and hosts a tent that protects a gutter that water can flow though as a liquid.

The ice tunnels can reject heat from themselves either to habitat space, or to some of the surface buildings that will double as radiators.  You might use air compression and decompression to do a refrigeration.

This pressure calculator can help to determine what pressures are needed or desired: https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php

According to it, to have water in the gutter at 10 degrees C, you need a pressure of 12.2118 mbar.  But probably your water will be much closer to freezing.

So, gutters would be a way to transport water from new tunnel building.

Inside of the vaults in stone you could use Acetate and Oxygen to grow food, perhaps with just a little lighting.

Some surface buildings could be proper greenhouses/sky observatories where humans could have sunlight on their faces.

But in the Mars of my imagination humans will be wealthy enough that they could live in habitats orbiting Mars part of the time.  So, maybe you would skip a Mars winter to go live in the sky for a number of months.

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This particular ice slab is the size of Texas and California: https://www.space.com/30502-mars-giant- … y-mro.html  Quote:

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So that slab is a little thinner but still plenty thick.

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https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … c9d2368d92  Quote:

So, once again what was said as being expert, ain't so after all.

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I appreciate your input kdb512.

Geothermal + Solar can be a good marriage.  If you so completely dislike Photovoltaic, then think Solar Thermal with your loved CO2 as the working fluid.  When Solar is working, then you can draw less on the Geothermal, and the Geothermal will recover more heat into the rock nearer then fluids of the well.  So, if you like it you can run 24/7.

As the Next Step, you pull water from the air and also CO2 at the same time.  Then you split some of the water and obtain Hydrogen.  Then you feed CO2 and H2 to microbes in a vat to grow biomass.

Now, since you have Solar Thermal, you may process the biomass using Pyrolysis, to yield Hydrocarbons.  Many waste gasses might be routed back to the microbe growth if it is compatible with the microbes.

In the Pyrolysis, process we might obtain Biochar, which could be a useful product.  (I suspect that gaining various products from biochar may be possible).

So, we could get Methane, Oils, and Solids.

As for Robots, I expect some Elon Time in those.  Starter tasks will be rather simple.  But most places on Earth will be experimenting with it.  Trade secrets will flow regardless of rules.  So, skill levels will rise.

As for Robots lasting 10 years, it is more likely that parts of Robots will last various time intervals.  If the Synthetic Labor drops the cost of hardware, then maintenance of robots could also be low cost.  Possibly the robots repairing each other with low cost parts.

The number offered for the cost to make an Optimus is currently $10,000 per unit.

The first robots will be used inside of Tesla.

Probably the first robots sold or rented will be for a cost far above $10,000, as the labor one robot could provide might justify $50,000 for a sale, maybe even more.

In the use of robots, over time the number of tasks that such robots could do, will increase.  Tasks that might be done will become more and more complex.

But if robots can build more robots in factories, then eventually an Optimus may cost $20,000, maybe even less.

But many categories of goods will experience severe deflation, so over time for many products people with low incomes will have better ability to own things for a lower cost.

I think this is going to be so disruptive, that it is really hard at this point to predict the rate of the change, and precisely the direction of changes.

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From post #34:

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The idea of synthetic fuels is a good one.  Geothermal comes to mind: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/1 … ture-bill/
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Generally thinking the best is in the West.  But not where the people are.

If a process could suck water and CO2 out of the air, that might work rather well in the Great Basin.

Then to make Hydrocarbon fuels.  Those could be shipped by various methods.

If geothermal tricks begin to work better, and if Synthetic Labor reduces the cost of the hardware for fuel creation, possibly the cost of the fuel may come down enough to be competitive.

It might be that some sort of solar would also fit into this.

So, there is some hope.

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kdb512,

I do not so much recommend what China does per Coal and Citizens = Solar Panels, I simply indicate that the process exists, and to some extent is in competition with OPEC and other energy producers.  An example is Pakistan, which of course is doing other things just now.  But where allowed 3rd world people in the Sun Belt are likely to opt for such solar panels, especially if China can produce useful Synthetic Labor (Robots + AI).  For those people large grids may not even be useful, or maybe only partially useful.  Of course their current wants and needs are not so high maintenance as for 1st world brat children.

The cost of solar and wind has been going down, and the idea of Synthetic Labor to assist in making those hardware products seems reasonable to me, and I expect that if the robots can do human equivalent labor for $1.00/hour, $0.10/hour or less, the cost of such hardware will go down.

I cannot say other than trends.  The idea of practice makes more perfect, also may apply. Probably the Iberian grid problem will be mastered better now, as they should be able to improve it or avoid making it worse.

It is already known that Hydrocarbons will run out so there is some great value in rehearsing solutions for that before "The horse dies".  But we have time, if the oceans don't boil.  I do think that a lot of the "Green" move was to rebalance reality, in a manner that the elites wanted.  The rich were never very fond of industrial people inventors and new money.  I think the elites have found a way to manipulate the more ignorant parts of leftist movement from the have nots, to attempt to usurp power from those who are involved in industrial level productivity.

So, as I understand it, you need the "Flywheel" effects of rotating machines such as turbines, to give the fast response?

Perhaps it could be considered to create a Super-Conducting MG SET.  (Motor-Generator). 

Feed the power from the generator Back to the Motor.  Of course I am not proposing a perpetual motion machine, you would have to get make-up power externally for the waste heat generated.  Ideally the waste heat could be put to some use.  (Maybe this would not be superconductive).

But I believe that with the power you could ramp up the generator or stimulate the generator to pull power spinning down the turbine.  Perhaps the Motor would be DC and run off of batteries.  Then the Generator would be AC, and could be manipulated as required to fill in a few critical seconds of grid wobble.  Of course it is not free, but it might do things that other energy storage devices are poor at or cannot do at all.

Ideally you could pull the waste heat off of this process to heat something.  Perhaps some kind of an industrial process.

No guarantees, I'm not Daddy or Moma, but I did try.

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Further thoughts on a MG SET with a Heat Pump>Industrial Heat.

The MG SET could be allowed to heat up to some limit where it would not be damaged.  Then it is possible it might tolerate having heat drawn from it down to some safe limit by the Heat Pump.  Obviously thermal cycling like that may have some detriment to the lifetime of the equipment, even if kept within reasonable limits.  But it is interesting, the Stator Materials and the Rotors, can serve not only as inertial flywheels, but as thermal storage. 

I am trying to consider if "Off-Peak-Power" methods could also be incorporated into this.  But that gets a bit weird.  Sort of like OK your heat pump heats a drum of water to industrial heat, using off peak power if possible, drawing heat from the MG-SET.

In colder parts of the world, perhaps a MG-SET would be better for converting DC Solar to AC, and heating someone's house much of the year or heating their hot water tank perhaps.

Pretty complex, though, costs of hardware may need a lot of synthetic labor to get to a low enough price.

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Here is an example of Synthetic Labor to lower the cost of Solar Installations: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/c … r-AA1EwBfp  Quote:

A heavy lift robot to use in nasty climate situations.

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With a network for Earth/Moon and Mars/Phobos/Deimos, and with electric powered freighters all around there would be some hope of dealing with a human occupied ship which missed its transfer from one cycler to another, or to a home planet/moons.

There might be means of getting to another station and also that a freighter might be able to give assistance.

So, a malfunction on a passenger ship trying to get from one station/world to another would have greater hopes of rescue for passengers.

And so freighters might not have humans on board, but might have included into them methods to help humans with life support and propulsion options.

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Lots of interesting information unknown to me in your post kdb512.  Even so, sometimes we converge.

I think that there is a real chance that with advanced synthetic labor (Robots + AI), the cost of solar and maybe wind will continue down, and that over time the need for hydrocarbons as a portion of energy used will go down.  But the desire for more energy will go up at the same time.

I think that the green movement of the West is doing it wrong.  You do not kill your horse and walk somewhere to go get a car.  You perhaps ride your horse to get a car, and you keep the horse around in case you need it.

China is not the stupid.  Use the coal and make solar.  Eventually if you keep working with solar you might master it to become a thing of value.  If it does, then you can put your coal into retirement if it may be needed later.  If it does not and you kill your coal, then someone is likely to conquer you because, you would not have the means to maintain a modern method of existence.  In that case whoever conquers you is likely to burn the coal anyway then.

I thought it was amusing to suggest Solar + Natural Gas + Coal to make heavy oil, or to suggest Nuclear + Natural Gas + Coal.

Of course there is no strong reason not to use each separately, unless you want to export Oil to people, we like and want to defend.  Internal to the USA it would make sense to use Nuclear, Solar, Natural Gas, and Coal, separately if we would use them.

But since I believe that it is likely that eventually Solar and Wind and Batteries will become more economic in the future because of synthetic labor, it makes sense to me to use our Hydrocarbons to protect the people we like from the "Alien Money" from the people we like less.  (Usually those are a variety of anti-USA types).

In conversations prior you have indicated that Global Warming from greenhouse gasses is real, but not to be an intolerable menace to continuation of civilization.  I tend to agree.

It appears that the vegetation on the planet is expanding and that the vegetation is better able to sequester CO2 than was thought.

Also, it appears that East Antarctica has begun to accumulate more ice due to increased snowfall, perhaps from global warming.

So, the planet has coping mechanisms in action.

Apparently from calculations, we are next scheduled for an ice age, so a bit of global warming might be useful anyway.

And I think that with synthetic labor in large quantities, extracting CO2 from the atmosphere to make things with such as Hydrocarbons, will become within reach, probably using a variety of energies.

The Green plan is becoming obvious as an AXIS of evil.  While its promotion of solar, wind, and batteries was useful, the real intent of it was to be used to destroy industrial societies such as those in the west, as that would suit most other anti-western entities of Authoritarianism.  I need not name each one but the resemble the AXIS between Germany, Italy, and Japan, who had a mutual interest in destroying the established structures.  I need to say though that I do not hate any of those three.  It was just how things worked.  They were in transition from the old world to the new world and they faltered because that is a very hard place to operate.

In our country, it is becoming more obvious over time that the Verbal and Violent Elites (Of social movements) have no good intentions towards our kind.  They are obviously just a hateful people where previously they were promoted as the "In Crowd".

So really, I think that the USA has a lot going for it now that we can see who they really are.  Basically, people who don't belong to the heart of America at all.

I feel sorry for Canada, as it does apparently not emerge yet from the enslavement that the last period of time allowed the enemies to hold America in.

I think we should plan that somehow Eastern Canada will be able to stifle the Tar Sands, so we should be prepared to have things go either way.  We can import Tar Sand Oil or not have the option.

Better to be less reliant on things we cannot have sufficient influence on.

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You might also be interested in this: https://www.sciencealert.com/earths-cor … ial-helium  Quote:

So, if during formation, the Earth had entrained some Helium that that got buried deep, then it could possibly be bound to Iron in the core.

If true, then Helium percolating up from the core may collect in fractures in rocks.  It would not be dependent on the rocks being sedimentary.

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Scott Manley delivered here, lots of interesting ideas: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE  Quote:

I will probably comment on this more later, but....

-Silane mixed with Aluminum powder, could be a slurry, he did not mention that.  I don't know if that is to be chemically stable.

-He mentions a Lunar Space Elevator.  But I would go for a Rotavator.

-Lets say it drops down to near the surface of the Moon.  Building large structures on the Moon, all you would need is a onetime engine, which good control, that could fly up just a short distance and hook onto the space elevator.

If the payload lifted included Iron and Aluminum, then the Space Elevator could have the ability to maintain its orbit using Magdrive or Neumann Drive.

We also have the possibility that Electrons shot from the Moons surface could be used to push the Rotavator.

I don't know if this could be adapted to push a Rotavator or not: https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/relati … lar-travel   Quote:

If these things could be done, then large structure could be partially filled with propellants from the Moon and lifted to Moon orbit.

I think that would be rather good.

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So, from the last post, I am encouraged with the idea that Falcon 9 2nd stages could have value, in use with Starship.

He for a game suggests taping two Falcon 9 2nd stages together as part of a Moon mission.

I would note that if you had an alligator jaw Starship in LEO, and had a collection of Falcon 9 2nd Stages, to put in there, presuming a 300-Ton Cargo in expendable mode for Starship, you might refill several Falcon 9 2nd Stages???

Immediate use would be easier to send something off.  But prolonged use may have problems with the LOX freezing the Kerosene so modifications might be required.

But I will note that Kerosene will have less boil-off trouble than other fuels.

https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … 2C400%20kg.

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But Starship not expendable might lift 100-200 tons to orbit. 

So, you might use a Falcon 9 2nd stage as a 3rd stage in a stack perhaps, with a bit of payload being propelled by the Falcon 9 2nd Stage from LEO, if you have a 200 ton payload ability.

However, if you had a Falcon 9 2nd stage fetched from orbit to a reuse, then one Starship launch might have better chances of refilling it and attaching a payload to it.

I know SpaceX is not interested.

But I do have the NEUTRON, Terran-R, and NOVA(Stoke Space) in mind to use with Starship refilling.

Who knows.

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I agree fairly well with what you say.  I was just surprised with how competitive economically Tar Sands are.

I think that unlike other administrations, this one would protect the shale industry from a "Kill-Shot" from OPEC, if they tried to drop prices to knock competition from shale out.

If the USA is going to bring industry back into the USA, as they say they will and I believe they will, then I think that America can run on a higher priced oil than its non-continental competitors.  That would be because we have a convergence of market, production, and energy sources.

So, for East Asia or Europe to sell into the American market, there are additional shipping costs perhaps?  Hard to be sure as much of American population is on the coasts.  But yes, I suspect that having production here on the continent reduces shipping cost, so you might not need quite as cheap of an oil source to make a profit as offshore will need.  And of course we have natural gas as a substitute for oil which is practical here for reasons that Peter Zeihan has indicated.

So, with any sensible administration, Shale and Canadas Tar Sands would be worth us making an effort to protect from OPEC.

Even without economic protections, Shale benefits from being local, if the production to satisfy our market is here on the continent.

I am not sure what plans are for tariffs for bad actors who produce oil overseas.

My impression is that our Shale Gas will greatly outlast Shale Oil.  And then we have Oil Shale in very large quantity, but I am guessing it will never be brought to market if Green and or Nuclear(Fission/Fusion) eventually become viable.

In a video, "The Electric Viking", has indicated the people in Pakistan are tilting strongly towards solar.  This may be in part because China offers Coal made solar at a low price, and also because people in such a situation as Pakistan, have lower expectations for what constitute an upgrade in living situations.  As 90% of the people in the world live in such sunny places, I would expect that (Coal + China) = cheap solar, which in those parts of the world are likely to become competitive with oil producers.  But perhaps not so competitive with North American internal oil.

So, that is another slap in the face for OPEC, it seems.

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