New Mars Forums

Continuing with the materials of the previous post. I also recall recent reading materials.

It appears the what is inside of the orbit of Jupiter has a different history than what is outside the orbit of Jupiter.

But over time some icy objects from the outer solar system have entered the Asteroid Belt.  Ceres is the biggest example it seems.

So, now the terrestrials are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Maybe the Moon, Mars, and Vesta.  There is a lot we don't know that we might like to know.

We have two ocean worlds of different types.  Earth of course has surface oceans, and Mars did, apparently but now has an underground ocean.

Venus may or may not have ever had oceans.  Its volcanism seems relatively dry, so it does not seem likely that it has much internal water.

This leaves us Mercury, Vesta, and the Moon where we could look for one.  None of these currently have surface oceans.

The Moon may be the least likely but the Moon is the most reachable to test for it.  I know that we had seismometer data, but was it capable of detecting such an ocean?  Perhaps not good enough.

The Moon has been supposed to have had an atmosphere at least once, and there is some reason to think that deeper rocks have more water.  So, I don't entirely dismiss the possibility.  Vesta would be hard to test, as it probably does not rumble very much anymore.  Mercury is very hard to even orbit let alone land on.

But looking at Mars now, I am beginning to think that that underground ocean may be a major resource.  I will wonder about the formation of Natural Hydrogen in it.  To get that it would not necessarily be needed to drill all the way down.

So, could there have been Hydrogen Eruptions on occasion where the icy permafrost might be breached and allow Hydrogen out of the underground sea?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … ngNewsSerp
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The size of the water reservoir of cracks, maybe has increased over time as the planet cooled.  More and more of the water going underground, and I suppose some drifting off into space.

Where it is not considered very practical to access that deep water, the Hydrogen might pool under permafrost and rock formations.  And that may be accessible.  There might even be leaks of Hydrogen now.  So, that would be very valuable to a Mars Settlement.

I have been interested in Uranium in sea water.  The stuff way down there is probably not practical to get.

But if the seas of Mars were revived in some way, then it may be possible to get Uranium that way.

But there may be a problem.  If you melted Mars, would the surface water go underground?

So, it may be that any water basins created need to have a permafrost bottom to prevent that.

To maintain the existing permafrost, then an "Ocean" would need to be an interconnected patchwork of lakes and land that is subject to freezing temperatures.  Freezing is not hard to get on Mars.

The two areas where this could be possible might be the North Hemisphere and Hallas Basins.
https://www.universetoday.com/tag/oceans-on-mars/
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Hellas might be filled by melting the southern ice cap and by the way generating a lot of hydroelectricity.
The North of course might be developed by melting the North Ice Cap.

Mars being cold, it would be possible, I think to make dikes from permafrost: https://trid.trb.org/view/281370
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So, if the planet were modified in this manner, a lot of earth moving would be required.  But Robots.....could likely be used for that.

So, you might have lakes with dams to impound them, and you might have polders made inside of these bodies of water, to make sure that the permafrost under the lakes would remain frozen.

If we presume that the atmosphere can be inflated to 2.5 times what it is now, then that might put about 2.5 * 8 mbar on the surface of much of the low places.  So, 20 mbar.

This would warm Mars a little, perhaps enough that there could be proper snow storms, and temporary melt water streams in places.

https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php

So, maybe a vapor pressure of 17.5 C or 64 F degrees?

I would expect all lakes and canals to be roofed over.  Either transparently or with Opaque Structure.  This in part would inhibit evaporation.

To make the liquid water needed, I would see the two ice caps hollowed out like Swiss Cheese.

Tunnels could be carved with lasers as one option, with water running downhill to a collection point.

Robots could inhabit these places, but it would likely be quite possible to have some warm buildings inside of these tunnels and vaults.

So, here is a notion:

The tunnel system under the rock, connecting the vaults could be heated to a reasonable degree, without damaging the ice cap, I think.

The vaults themselves could be lined with structural materials of Stone and Metals for instance.  And you could put skyscrapers in them that would be heated.  You could use heat pumps to pull heat out of the vaults and push the heat into the skyscraper buildings.

Of course then we need power sources.  I imagine some sort of solar and some sort of nuclear.

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Isaac Arthur provided this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJveFUreHOk

It is nice to have a history of space habitat ideas.

The major thing I note that Isaac Arthur said is with mirrors and optics, it would be possible to have solar power for these all the way out to Pluto, and inside of the orbit of Mercury.

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You can do what you want.  I have move the post to: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 56#p229656

Have a good day.

Thankyou for giving evaluations.

While the method may be suitable for Mars surface, I am most interested in using it to move water and other materials from a optimal source to the inner solar system.  It could be adapted for large scale human habitation but I more think of it as having a small crew, with families that might put say a lifetime of work, maintaining the system as it would be moved inward in the solar system.

The best wish would be for large scale water ice inside Phobos or Deimos.
After that then the next move would be Hydrogen from Mars and Oxygen from Phobos or Deimos.
After than then you have to go into the asteroid belt for the water. 
After that you might go to Callisto for water.

So, the thing would experience metamorphosis over it's travels perhaps.

It would be water-worlds at first.

Then at its next stop it would stop off at a terrestrial crossing asteroid which likely will be stony.

Let's consider Eros: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros
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At that location although there is a bit of water from the solar wind available, the water bearing spacecraft would upgrade the value of Eros quite a bit I think.  So, an expanding base would exist on Eros but also the water bearing spacecraft would be "Bulked Up".  Collecting metals as propellants for an electric drive, and also some more standard land could be built, and some of the water put into those habitats.

Then it is to travel to Venus, where it can pick up a lot of Nitrogen and Carbon.  Carbon will work in the Neumann Drive, and perhaps the Magdrive???  Anyway if then then want to move the device to another location over long stretches of time they could.

So this could be an action that is continual, making more and more habitat in the solar system.

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Nuke the Ocean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxGLOzIB6wg
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I suppose if things get really bad.

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In the use of "Bucket" habitat sections, it seems you need balance, typically two at a time.  But you could do multiple x2 to make a torus.  Mirrors could direct light to the tops of the buckets, the mirrors being more towards the rotational center of the main structure.

Water is more viscous than air, so I reason that a leak would move slower.  The ability to balance the situation and plug any leaks would be wanted of course.  Obviously, you would not have simply a tin bucket but would have additional structure around it to handle issues like impactors and thermal exchanges.

I have shown a top of buckets that is a transparent roof that can be ballasted down.  The temperature of the water in the bucket is important.  Warmer temperatures are preferred, but in an emergency the water temperature, at least at the surface could be lowered, to reduce the pressure on the roof.

So, in an emergency it might be possible to cool the water to 1 degree C at least on the top, so a pressure of 6.5138 mbar.

The calculator: https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php

For 20 degrees C the vapor pressure would be 23.2977 mbar.  You could swim in this but not swim up to the surface of the water or you would likely die.

Frankly I would keep the air pressure above the column of water and under the transparent roof under 30 millibars.  Just don't swim up there without a pressure suit.

If you want to swim in water where air is available, then just make a diving bell deep enough to allow for that.

Of course, corrosion is a concern, of course any wet surface on a metal is a concern in that case.

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I you wanted to you could insert Oxygen to the area above the water and under the roof, perhaps a pressure of 1/3 bar.  Then you may survive a swim to the surface, if you did not get the bends.

The habitats near the bottom of the water column could have a pressure in them of 2/3rds of a mix of N2 and O2.

The habitats should be capable of a pressurization of 2/3 bar, even if the water leaks out, if you seal the hatches.

But if you pressurize the surface of the water with 1/3rds bar of O2 and then use water column to give another 1/3rd bar pressure, on Mars you would need about 33 feet of fresh water.  Less if it is salt water.

In a centrifuge in orbit, the water depth needs to be more, depending on the nature of the centrifuge, as all parts of the water column may not have the same force applied to it by the spin.

If the water is heated, then to stop the centrifuge the transparent roof would have to hold the full pressure at the bottom of the water column.  So if you need to stop the spin, then you might need to cool the water off first.

Anyway, there is some complexity.  Obviously, the water jacket, helps a great deal with radiation and temperature fluctuations that may occur in space.

I have been busy here in the last few days: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 05#p229605
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So, I think that water buckets habitats could be very suitable to the process of expanding the human footprint in the solar system.

So, this may seem a little more visually understandable:

If we could find an easy source of water then we could put it literally into buckets that people could live in.  Then the water could be transported to where it was wanted, such as a dry asteroid that you want to mine.

The roof of the device might be a window glaze of some kind and you may put as many weights on it as is needed to balance the internal pressure.  For course it could have a dome shape rather than a roof peak.

A good hope would be to find large amounts of ice in the moons of Mars.  However, I am not counting on that.
Instead, an early version would be to use Starship to lift Hydrogen and/or Methane and then extract Oxygen and Metals from the two moons to create water and structure.

An alternative would be to lift water itself from the surface of Mars to orbit to fill the buckets.

A next resort would be to process Carbonaceous Asteroids in the inner asteroid belt to get things like water.  About 40% of the inner belt asteroids may be Carbonaceous Asteroids.

The next resort after that would be to reach large worlds in the asteroid belt like 10 Hygea or Ceres at about 3.0 AU out from the sun.

And then the next resort out might be the moons of Jupiter, Callisto in particular.

And then we get to Saturn and so on.

While conventional thinking says it would be too expensive to move these things to places like dry asteroids, Earth/Moon, and Venus, with robots and solar energy and an allowance of much time, that may not be true.

These could be houses people could live in, and if it takes 10 years or 100 years to move them that may not be a problem with robot labor and solar energy, and time.

So, a "Buckets" habitat may move to a dry asteroid which is terrestrial crossing and bulk up with materials from a dry asteroid, and then eventually take an orbit of Venus perhaps.  At Venus then it could bulk up on Carbon and Nitrogen for instance and perhaps expand its space and habitat type.

Just another notion of possibility.  If humanoid and other robots work out as expected, and solar energy can be tapped in space, then the economics we currently live under no longer apply.  Hardware and energy become much less expensive.

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Auxiliary resources for Callisto could come from Ganymede, such as salts that may have erupted to the surface.  During the freezing process, it is possible that certain salts may have come out of solution before others.  This just might indicate that if Uranium Salts were in the mix, they may have been concentrated and may be somewhere in the crust.  Ganymede would be a dangerous place for humans, at least on the surface but under the surface and with the use of robots perhaps such a resource could be accessed.

I am focused on Uranium as it might be a better way to run spaceships than fusion or certainly solar at the orbits of Jupiter.

While early on it might be best to tap solar on the surface of Callisto, I anticipate that it may be convenient to build very large concentrating mirrors that could be in orbits convenient to dump power to Callisto.  And the materials of Callisto may be convenient to make orbital habitats.

I have a tendency to like water filled habitats, sea worlds perhaps, with human habitations within them.  Methods to direct sunlight into them are possible but also artificial lighting and chemicals could drive a biosphere(s).

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Methods like these might be suitable for larger icy asteroids as well.

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I think that that is true Calliban.  At first having no atmosphere may be a blessing as I would like to export materials from these moons.

But later perhaps a magnetic field for such a moon might allow an atmosphere.

I would like to suggest a two buckets synthetic gravity machine for orbit of Jupiter.

Easy to imagine.  Two buckets connected by cables, spinning around a common pivot point.

Fill the buckets with water from a moon of Jupiter.  This then allows for light to enter from the tops.  The tops may be covered in a transparency which also will be pressed "Down" by centrifugal force.

A choice can be made water that supports living things, or water kept clear.

In the clear water situation, then you can put transparent diving bells into the bottoms of the water.  And the centrifuging of the water will pressurize the situation.

And of course if you made a ring of buckets, you would have a toroidal habitat(s).

This may be well suited to the protected magnetic shell of Jupiter, as some locations in that shell are more merciful per radiation.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon)
I am glad that some members may have a mutual interest in this topic.  I see questions about Axial Tilt::: Quote:

I agree that this number is confusing.  However, for our Moon????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

So, yes it is annoying, as the number I want is what does the sun do in the sky, per horizon.  But of course they are being proper to reference to the tilt relative to the orbit around a planet.

Ceres is not a moon, and so it is somewhat straightforward: https://astrobiology.com/2024/04/histor … traps.html  If I understand then Ceres has a current Axis of 4 degrees.

I guess what I want is "How much work does a solar robot have to do on a world to capture the best solar energy available?".

The Earth having a shorter year, and a greater axis tilt than most moons and Ceres, makes the effort expended greater.
Ceres also has a lesser gravity, of course which also helps, as a robot must by some means hold a mirror or solar panel up against gravity, and into the best lighting direction relative to the sun.

Alright, I guess I will go with the

Here are numbers for the planets: https://www.answers.com/astronomy/What_ … ystem_have
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So, I am going to make the guess that for Callisto it is 3.1 +/- <1 degree, so probably not more than 4 degrees or so.  Close to 4 degrees at the maximum. I would be very happy to become better educated.

https://www.skymania.com/how-long-is-a-year-on-jupiter/
Jupiter's year is quote:

So, for Jupiter the winter summer tilt is 11.86 times as long in time, and so a robot on Callisto would not have to react nearly as fast per season.

We might try this for Ceres and Callisto:

As a visual, imagine a trough that is dug entirely around the circumference of such a world.  Not likely in practical reality, but a way to visualize it.  Other ways would be available but in this case the carved trench being of frozen materials, but with an overlay of reflective metal foil, may concentrate light on the black plate, which is hinged on the bottom.  The seasonal axial tilt being small and distributed over a long period of time, the tilting of the plate can be very slow.  The trough is imagined to pass East<>West, and in this case at the equator.

Obviously the rotation of Ceres and the orbit of Callisto will matter as well.  There are many ways to compensate for that, and it matters if you are collecting heat for a heat engine or electricity from solar panels.  You could have hinged flaps on the plate, or solar panels could move a bit on the plate.

You could have a convection cavity inside the plate where maybe CO2 is heated in a spot and the hot gas flows up to the top to be collected.  In that case you might want hinged thermal insulating tiles that only open where the sunlight touches.  Ha Ha, a thermal convection wall.  Maybe that should be given a try on Earth.

Anyway the slow seasons the low gravity and the small axis tilt may make solar power on Ceres and Callisto more practical than many people might think.

My best guess is that you could have a network of tunnels and vaults underground on Callisto that you might travel though.  They might be pressurized, if they were far enough down.  You might even have spin gravity devices on the surface or underground.

Some parts of the vast magnetic field of Jupiter could be considered a protective resource, especially if you could have water to shield, orbital habitats.  And those again could have concentrating mirrors to collect solar energy.  The water more likely coming from Callisto, but perhaps also Ganymede.  The entire solar flux that must travel though the Jupiter Hill Sphere must be vast.  Though it must be concentrated with mirrors, in orbit that is a relatively small task.

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This Peter Zeihan episode is about wind and a compairison of wind to solar power: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … a8bce89d49

Why I am putting it here is partly because the Zeihan topic is being used and I will be quickly overwritten and ignored there.  But Peter Zeihan mentions an important factor in solar power, and says it's manufacture is eyes and hands, which is an expense.

Optimus Robot might be able to do the work, but I suspect that a "Next" robot with smaller hands might also be useful.
If your labor goes from $25.00 per hour down to $1.00 per hour or less, then hardware's price drops.

Granted, China may be using slave labor, or not.  But at some point the costs of shipping might render the cost of manufacture less important.

As for Batteries, it is my impression that new chemistries are leaning less and less on costly/scarce materials.

The prices do seem to keep dropping.

But it was great to see Mr. Zeihan point out the strengths of wind power.

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Wow! Just like that! https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/do … 1843&ei=12
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It looks like the Mexicans have some good heads on their shoulders.  It is a thing to appreciate.

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