New Mars Forums

PhotonBytes,

It is my opinion that your idea(s) fall within a description of "Multi-staging from Microgravity".  I am very happy to see you looking into this.

Of course, in the end the math is life and death in importance.  But along with that, an evaluation of purpose, options, and philosophy, matter.

In this case, it is assumed that the start is in microgravity in LEO, for the most part.

Some of what I say is what I think I have absorbed from other people to some extent, I hope, Dr. Zubrin as one.

In pushing the envelope, the idea of reuse, is not always the only reasonable option.  Reuse is important for $$$ for the most part.  But could be a wrong obsession, at times as it may not be the best $$$.  And only caring about $$$ may interfere with an ultimate success goal at times.

Speed to Mars would be valuable if we supposed that what we sent there, would benefit by less exposure to deep space.  The Martian environment may be better than deep space, so it might have merit to get there fast.

But then can the thing sent to Mars, be given life support there.  Can a method of return to Earth exist as an option?

I do like the multi-staging options.  For fast, as you have suggested you could turn two Starships into Drop Tanks.  Remove the nose assembly in LEO and maybe reduce the number of engines.  So, then drop the drop tanks when it is sensible to do so.

A different option would be to work with the 2-year free return option that I think Dr. Zubrin has suggested.  In that case the 2 booster Starships could be outfitted additionally with electric rocket propulsion of some kind.  So, as you approached Mars, they would drop off and fly back to an Earth encounter of some kind.

But the ship they supported would then attempt an encounter with Mars, either to go to orbit or to land directly on Mars.

So, then then two booster Starships would then take 2 years more or less to get back to either an orbit of Earth or a landing.

Many factors may contribute to an evaluation of relative value in these ideas.  For one thing, has robotics reduced the price of a new Starship so much that it is not deemed worthwhile to retrieve a Starship from deep space after 2 years?  Or is it better to discard them as drop tanks?

Reuse is in many cases the best path to $$$ but not always.  And the future suggests almost infinite labor resources on Earth and perhaps other worlds.

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Oh! I think that a 2 year "Free Return" for two boosters then requires a 6 month trip to Mars from Earth.

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Recalling materials from Peter Zeihan, the USA has something that many in this world now lack, a market.

But we have had a shortage of labor recently which contributes to inflation  Reducing the number of prince and princess government jobs is logical, if they are not really producing things of value for our society.  Such waste which seems apparent takes wealth away from Void, Spacenut, and others.

The Nixon/Kissinger>Regan>Service Jobs ploy was rather clever in its time.  Beat down the American Union labor by exporting industry to East Asia.  Then with cheaper "Stuff", you could afford to buy votes, by offering White Collar Princess and Prince jobs that give not only excess earnings for the value added from that labor, but also permit royal thinking that these pawns were of royalty themselves.

It may sound like I am very bitter about it, but I am just a little bit bitter.  It will be their turn now, it seems.  And at the time the ploy described above may have saved us, as they bought influence with China, by selling part of our market to them.  This then helped pull them away from the Soviet Block.  That could be why am not a mutated thing post nuclear war.

But many now say we have to reindustrialize.  So, perhaps we can employ some princesses and princes, to be helpful somehow with robot labor?  That might work for a while until the robots are fully developed.

So, we seem to have a need for more labor inside the USA, but most of the rest of the world is going to be competing to get into our market.  I think the Orange Man knows this, and he likely understands what Optimus and its kind will represent.

The thing about humanoid robots, is that even if China invents a better robot, if they sell them to us, then they undercut their access to the American market.  If they refuse to sell their better robots to us and to then lower their labor costs with them, we can block their access to our market. 

And it is not mandated that they will make the best Humanoid Robots, but they might.  But even then evidence that something can be done, gives guidance as to where to invest money.  We would eventually get their trade secrets through time, or we would know that some special trick they did, could be worth investing in developing ourselves, as it is demonstrated to be possible.

So, Humanoid Robot labor seems likely to me to do the best for a country that has a labor shortage itself.  And we seem to be in that situation.

The EU Europeans, and perhaps Canada, seem desperate to pull us into a repeat of WWI and WWII.  I am not fond of that.

The Russia of today is not the USSR as per threat level.  They are not likely to nuke us unless we provoke them sufficiently.  China would seem to need access to our market.  So, even with Tariffs, they likely have to deal with that reality.

I have thought at times that certain parties have been hoping that the USA and Russia would nuke each other.  I guess their elites might think that they would have sufficient bunker space to take over after that.  So, I do not think very kindly about these imagined demons.

If we make some sort of deal with Russia, then their oil will go on the markets again, but if we need to, we can put tariffs on that to protect our Hydrocarbon industry.

I do not know what the real game is with Canada and Mexico.  But if nothing else we found out that Canada can be rather unfriendly.   That will be considered. 

My entire life I have lived in a world where the Europeans and Canadians have considered themselves above Americans.  Well people do prefer their own kind often.

An example of this is the Viet Nam war.  I am very suspicious that some of the Europeans lured us into that, hoping to damage us.  You have to consider that even then considerable amounts of Europeans would have been leftists.

And then these various people watched while we tried to deal with it and the gloated about how much better they were than us.

But of course, some of the blame for that situation does fall on us for being so stupid.

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From the previous post:

The prior post can explain the above better.

I did not say everything in that post though so I will here.

And this from the prior post:

So, a spinner in a bamboo stalk "Cell" might have an explosive decompression but the walls of the "Cell" should limit the decompression making it more survivable.  In that case spin would need to be reduced.  A bomb exploding the walls of a "Grey Spinner" might not lead to large loss of life from decompression.

Because the largely ceramic "Baboo Stalk" should offer enough protection space suits would not be required to repair the "Grey Spinner".

On the other hand, if an impactor were to puncture though both walls of the "Bamboo Stalk" and depressurize the "Cell", the Grey Spinner may be able to maintain its pressurization sufficiently to protect the people inside of it.

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I expect that the "Grey Spinners" may ride on rails with magnetic levitation, it will not require much of that.  This could be done so that the center or rotations can have doors rather than bearings.  And again, the idea is even if a door were to pop open, the limited volume of the "Cell" that the "Grey Spinner" was in would limit the depressurization.  Ideally after depressurization, the available Oxygen would be like being on a high mountain.  Not good for sustained exposure, but acceptable to survive and recover.  Of course I hope that the bends could be avoided as well.  This would be like a high altitude passenger jet losing pressurization.  Not necessarily a mass death event.

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I have made alterations in the drawing:

1, 2, 3, 4, (Blue) suggest windows of bulkheads of glass like materials or metals perhaps.

A, and B suggest passageways between C, D, E, and F.

The end spaces C, D, E, and F, are to have variable pressure.  To spin the two grey synthetic gravity devices the pressure needs to be pulled down to allow for maximum synthetic gravity spin.

But periodically I expect that the spin would be dropped and the areas C, D, E, and F can then tolerate higher pressure that humans could maintain good health in, allowing movement between the Clockwise and the Counter Clockwise spinner.

Perhaps spin down would happen like clockwork, maybe 2 times or 3 times in a 24-hour period?  Perhaps spinning down from 1 g to 5% of 1 g.

Obviously, you then need very good redundant safeguards to make this setup have a minimum danger to humans.

I do not consider this plan to be perfection, not at all.  I would prefer to be replaced with better plans, but for now this is unorthodox suggestion of possibility.

The Counterclockwise half is more sunward than the Clockwise one.  This may give better shelter from solar flares to the Clockwise one.

Now it should be possible to imagine ganging an almost unlimited raft(s) of these things to each other, perhaps in orbit of Vesta.

But also the green tubes, that are to be substantially built of Ceramics, could be extended to enormous lengths, and you could have more spinners in those, a bit like a Bamboo Stalk, with many chambers.  https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Dif … _357922395
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This may make it harder to get light into many of the chambers, through mirrors and windows.  But with new flat screen TV, how much time do we look at pictures on a screen relative to how much time we might look though a picture window?  Agriculture is mostly likely to be chemical in nature.

But if you wanted a "Sunroom" to go visit, I think that could be arranged.

Also greenhouses with or without synthetic gravity could be built as auxiliary to the  main habitation structures.

I will be delighted if people can make improvements on what has been presented here.

So, I am imagining a tangle of these structures all around the geostationary orbit of a world like Vesta, 10 Hygea, Ceres, and others.

The problem of solar energy is not really an issue.  Isaac Arthur has suggested that massive thin mirrors at Pluto could serve to power habitats at the orbit of Pluto.  I think that the Asteroid belt will be served just fine by massive thin mirrors in microgravity orbits.

This is not to forbid types of nuclear energy or propulsion, they also can be developed.

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A very good question (th).

Some thinking has existed for Ceres: https://geo.com.ng/space-elevators-and- … -asteroid/

I would expect that if it were possible on Vesta, it would be done on other major asteroids such as Ceres.  The day for Ceres is 9 hours, but of course Ceres is larger, but then also less dense.

Here are some hill spheres: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/que … -solar-sys
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I have read that Venus cannot have geosynchronous.  I suppose it is close to the sun and rotates very slowly.

Ceres being further from the sun and having a fast rotation has a bigger hill sphere than Mercury does.  That makes me suspect that Mercury cannot have geostationary, but I am not certain.

So, I think you are correct, the geostationary for Vesta might be lower than that for Ceres.

I suppose that if you could spin Vesta fast enough, then it would be on the surface of Vesta and Vesta might fly apart. 

Thanks for the useful question.

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It has occurred to me that I am moving in the direction of a "Habitable Radiator".

I have added the labels "A, B, C" to indicate floors in this diagram:

Floor C in the green volume, which is largely built of molded, sintered, cast regolith, would have low synthetic gravity most likely.

Floor B which is on top of the green volume, would have even a bit less synthetic gravity.  The white volume between the green volume and the grey volume would necessarily have a low pressure.  Somewhere between a high vacuum and a low partial pressurization.

Floor A in the grey volume would have the largest synthetic gravity as it would spin much faster than the green volume would.

I have not completed concept for the ends of these cylinders as this initial structure comes before the solutions possible for that set of possible variations of notions.  The cylinder ends might allow the conveyance of light from the exterior into the interiors, particularly for the grey volume, or not.

The Grey volume may have the structure of an airplane which can be pressurized, or it could be made stronger than that for a penalty of materials needed.

The Green volume is going to do the heavy lifting as per protection from the hostile space environment.

The grey and green volumes may spin counter to each other or may spin in the same direction as long as this structure is nested into a larger superstructure.  This is for the notion of not wanting spinning cylinders to do a gyroscopic flip-flop.  I may or may not understand the gyroscopic dangers at this point.  In some cases, the Green Volume may not be spinning at all, but be fixed to a super-structure.

The outside of the outside wall of the Green Volume may have radiator fins on it to increase heat loss.  If these radiator fins are in the chevron form, and setup as increments, then you not only can radiate from them but they may provide some protection from impactors.

If you are using robots in floor "B", and the white volume, and the grey cylinder is spinning at a high rate, you will need to take care to not allow stuff to start bouncing off the walls that define the white volume.

If you have a large super structure, you might "Bundle" many of these together, to create even better protection from radiation and impactors, but of course this would reduce the effectiveness of the outer wall of the green volume radiating heat.

A trick that might be used to cool the Grey Volume would be to vent a gas out of it, perhaps water vapor, vented into the greater partial vacuum of the White Volume of floor "B".  If the temperature and pressure are correct then condensation would not happen, and you might use a vacuum pump to pump the water vapor into the interior of the Green Volume.  If you did want condensation in the white volume, then you need a rather low temperature in it.  That would be hostile to robotic machinery also.  You might also need a higher pressure, which would be less compatible with a fast spin for the Grey Volume.

I think that experiments with this sort of thing might occur in the Mars/Phobos/Deimos situation, but I really like thinking about Vesta for this.

As for our Moon, I guess it is a game of gravity wells and water, Carbon, and Nitrogen for the most part.  What is the relative cost for Earth/Moon vs. Mars/Phobos/Deimos vs. Vesta/Asteroid Belt?

I am guessing that if the needs of water, Carbon, Nitrogen can be met for Vesta, then it could have a buildup of a massive ring of structures in it's geostationary orbit, connected to Vesta with a very large number of space elevators.

The need for "Habitable Radiators", is uncertain.  If you use solar panels, those seem to be self cooling.

If you use heat engines, then habitable radiators may be of value.  If they are pressurized inside then you could grow crops inside of them, and they might also serve as temporary and emergency shelters for humans.

They may be "Dark Farms" where chemicals like Acetate and Oxygen are used to grow thing like Mushrooms, modified plants, Algae, or fungi.

They might have partial or full internal lighting from electricity, to grow plants.

It may be possible to pipe light into the habitable radiators.

But there then is a need to radiate heat.

The radiators may radiate their own heat, or might radiate heat from a heat engine of some kind.

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So, lately I have been sort of focused on Mars/Phobos/Deimos as an objective that might be able to project desired materials to the more inner solar system.  I still hold that idea, but it is also possible that it would make sense to settle and develop Mars/Phobos/Deimos and then go to the main asteroid belt as another settlement pathway.  The idea of building from Ceramics and other materials, suggest that nothing is to be waste in the asteroid belt.  We have also considered building with water and ice, and of course metals.

We only have some of the information about the asteroid belt that we might want to have.  But for the moment, I have my eyes on Vesta.  Earth is a Terrestrial Planet we inhabit, and Mars may become a Terrestrial Planet that humans inhabit.  Vesta is thought to be the only Terrestrial Dwarf Planet surviving from the early solar system.  Because it is battered so badly its status as a Dwarf Planet is questionable, but that is just nomenclature.  The battering may have exposed the mantle of the little world.

Like Earth and Mars, it seems likely that Vesta will have the full palate of materials available, and perhaps ores like copper included.

Although it looks like there will be water ice and hydrated minerals, more water might be gotten from other asteroids to bring to Vesta if needed.

There appear to be many tiny asteroids: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne … 180985659/

Some of those might be like Bennu with Carbon, Water, and other things.  But if needed water might come from larger objects like 10 Hygea, or Ceres.

If space elevators were to be tried, I would think that Vesta could be a good place to discover their value.

It is possible that it would make sense to dig habitats into Vesta, especially for mining purposes, but as we could make protective structures in orbit connected to space elevators, I think that might be a very good thing to try.

From the previous post and posts before that, can we have another look at this:

The diagram is mostly symbolic, it shows a grey cylinder cross section being in protection from a double walled stony cylinder with tensile wrapping around it.  Also, it suggests solar power utilization.  It does not show all the possible variations of that.

Anyway, materials lifted from Vesta would not really have waste materials, as all atoms are likely to have some use.

Reviewing this from post #1, here is the beginnings of how to work with stony-ceramic type materials:

So, Vesta, and some other asteroids might end up with a ring of created structure in the geosynchronous orbit, and those connected to Vesta by many space elevators.

That would not be a bad place for people to live, I think.

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True things.

I think NASA has speculated on 1/3 of a diet being mushrooms. 

In the drawing, the green volume which doubles as a radiation shield, could be a "Dark Farm" where mushrooms and other things could grow.

The drawing is more explained in this post: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 62#p229762

I might suggest that over time we may end up not killing and eating animals.  Synthetic Meat, might be an option.

Even mushrooms which now might become bland monotony, could be modified for flavor and textures of variations more pleasing.

Probably with good new cooking methods, children would imprint on typical foods of their time, and think in adulthood that that is how food should be.

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Building on the previous post, it seems obvious that electric drives are going to be important, if there is to be hope to export products from Mars/Phobos/Deimos to Earth/Moon.

For an electric drive, while nuclear can be very popular as it sort of associates with danger and masculinity and force, at least to some people, solar in Martian orbit should not be confused with solar on the surface of Mars.  Solar in orbit of Mars is clockwork in nature as there is no weather concern, or prolonged seasonal absence of energy.

Typically, it is not considered desirable to use solar to drive missions to Mars, as the further you go from the sun the less well a solar powered device is likely to perform.  A solar engine needs to have it's inertia changed along the way, but the further out it goes the less well if performs.

But, for two other uses that problem is not so important.  If you construct mirrors from materials of Phobos and Deimos, and use the mirrors in orbit, you can have the same heat as you would at the Planet Mercury or even more heat.  You would not be changing inertia as much as for a trip from Mars/Phobos/Deimos >>>Earth/Moon.

As for Mars/Phobos/Deimos >>>Earth/Moon, we have the problem of more energy available as you go on your way.  It is a good problem to have as some might say.

If that is considered to be a problem, we can munch our mirrors on the way to Earth/Moon: https://gardeniaorganic.com/plants-with-holes-leaves/
Image Quote:
So, starting out at Mars/Phobos/Deimos, the mirrors could be "Unholy".  But with cut-outs built into them little pieces could be removed to maintain a more constant power to a heat engine as moving closer to the sun.

As you moved close to the sun, the mirrors would become more "Holy".
A pig would just eject the mirror cut-outs, making collision hazards, but being more responsible, perhaps they could become propellant in some type of electric propulsion, or could be fashioned into something of value.

There may be several electric drives that could expel mirror mass along the way.  Magdrive, Neumann Drive, and Mass Drivers could be among them.

We also have the emergence of water>plasma drives which expel valuable Hydrogen but also for the greater part waste Oxygen.  (th) has recently been working with that idea: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11007

So, while Mars/Phobos/Deimos might build and ship these devices inward to Earth/Moon or even Earth crossing asteroids, on Earth the mass production of specially tuned, Starship derivatives could be sent to Mars.  These would be specifically made to lift things like Methane and Ammonia from the Martian surface to support the building of the devices previously mentioned.  These "Starship" would be completely robotic.   It may be possible to service them either in orbit or on the surface of Mars, but you would run them until they crashed or were unable to make a landing.  After that they would become scrap materials to be recycled/repurposed.

So, I am hoping that that can be a economically viable "Loop" of commerce between Earth/Moon<>Mars/Phobos/Deimos.

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I have looked at this before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DjJ-FGHRY
Quote:

If it is partially true at least then I expect that Mercury and Mars may have hydrocarbons.

Very much likely for Vesta and our Moon, I expect, but who knows really.  We are not 100% sure about the nature of the Moon, and it's formation.

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We know that Mercury has a lot of Carbon on it's surface.

The Moon only has a little Carbon, but more than is expected is coming into it's surface environment.

Mars would mask it with a CO2 atmosphere and lots of dust.

Vesta may be too small to have cooked up stuff in it's mantle, but maybe.

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I am encouraged by your more precise evaluation of the ideas.

It has occurred to me that a heated swimming pool could also be a case.  Where it not only radiates heat but is likely to be evaporatively cooled.

And it further occurred to me that a series of process might have a potential:  Data Center>Heat Pump>Low Temperature up to 180 degrees C industrial heat process.

https://www.sintef.no/en/latest-news/20 … pump-ever/
Quote:

And then perhaps a chance could exist to distill sea water, or to use it as an evaporator.    Or just sea water as evaporative cooling.

Data Center>Heat Pump>Low Temperature up to 180 degrees C industrial heat process.  The perhaps a greenhouse & swimming pool.  the evaporation from the swimming pool perhaps shunted to a greenhouse which could perhaps act as a condenser and radiator.  So you could use the swimming pool & greenhouse heat dissipater as adaptable to seasons.  Even if the summer is warm, the greenhouse might not grow plants in the warm season but simply overheated to radiate heat and to condense water.  Then in the winter cold, plants could be grown in the greenhouse.  For a swimming pool, the circulation of dry air might also evaporatively cool.

The complexity might become a bit troublesome, but for certain cases it might be worth it.

I believe that I recall that Calliban, suggested using city heating as a radiator for this sort of thing.

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