New Mars Forums

A mixture of matter and energy and means of manipulation makes Earth valuable.

Ceres/Asteroid Belt, are the other place that I see as being similar.

But the difference is the gravity wells.

Deimos/Phobos/Mars are interesting as well, but energy is perhaps not as good and the gravity well for Mars is still somewhat significant.
Mars does have Nitrogen but not so much to spare. If Ceres does have Ammonia, then it has a very useful asset.

Energy for Ceres could be though microwaves or lasers, and possibly space elevators.

If Space Elevators could not carry cargo, they might conduct electricity.

But with a low gravity, and a small tilt in axis, ground solar installations might be practical also.

I am sure that Deimos/Phobos/Mars will not be ignored, but if they did not exist, another way to handle things, would be to join our Moon effort to a Ceres/Asteroid Belt effort.

I sort of think that for that it might be that ships will be built at both locations.

Our Moon could use a bulk of what Ceres has, but Ceres could support a lot of artificial habitat.

Ending Pending

The thing that I think could be of importance is that not that long after Starships are working with the Moon and Deimos/Phobos/Mars, it will be very possible to be working with small worlds like Ceres.

With robotic mater manipulation, and robots building robots, if satisfactory build methods can be developed then I think that at a fast rate their will be habitation of vase amounts creatable from worlds like Ceres.

Imagine a robot action tunneling into Ceres, 50 km deep.  Rendering materials, and then they being used to make shelter for intelligent activities.  In the tunnels on Ceres the Robots could be quite functional at temperatures below 0 C, I am speculating.  They will not need nearly as much lighting as we do.  Humans could be there in special spaces, but in orbit of Ceres it may be rather easy to provide g forces suitable to various needs.

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The "Double-Cone-Shell" may be thick enough to protect from the radiation environments.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads … elding.pdf
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So, this may be very large blocks of Urine-Bricks, perhaps in forms that will resemble Lego's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego
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Perhaps with a bit of magnetism in them but perhaps also actually glued together in some way.

You could put a metal shell around the double cone structure if you liked, and then wrap it in high tensile materials such as steel bands, and/or Carbon wrap of some kind.

Perhaps some protective materials over that to deal with impactors.

When you had a lightweight rotator inside of one of these, you could calculate that if there is a breach in the spinner, the air loss, being absorbed by the protective outer shell, would not allow a lethal vacuum exposure.  Your ears might pop, but you could survive without serious injury.

Some people might say "Where are the windows".  Well, if you want to look out at space, perhaps at Ceres, you could have a window somewhere for that, perhaps in attached smaller double cone #2 or #4.

#1 might be arranged so that you had some sunlight ported into it.

It is quite possible that an almost infinite amount of double cone structures could be connected to each other in orbit of Ceres.  You might have rings of them around the little dwarf planet.

So, I argue that the potential for Cere may be very large.

And then it looks like fustian power is going to appear some time not too far from now.

Although you could do double cone structures in the hill sphere of Jupiter, using solar, fusion would be quite a boost as well.

Look at the size of the Hill Sphere of Jupiter and some of the other outer worlds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere
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It is apparently true that for the orbits of Io, Europa, and Ganymede, the radiation is lethal to quite a challenge, but for Callisto it is said to be not too bad.  I am going ot guess that some parts of the magnetic field of Jupiter are better than that of for Callisto.

In any case, Callisto being ~2X as bad as Earth/Moon???? It would be a workable situation.  And probably Ganymede could be mined as well, I expect.

It is thought that Ceres and Callisto may have Nitrogen, perhaps in the form of Ammonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon)
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Nitrogen is of course of interest for artificial atmospheres, and for the Urea that might be used with microbes to make giant blocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea
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https://www.spacereference.org/asteroid … st%20point.
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It would expect lots of Carbon as well.

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I am further looking at large asteroids here, like Ceres or somewhat smaller.  Here are the exceptional asteroids again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e … _asteroids
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Most of these are heavy with volatiles, Ceres being the largest.

I think that the path that leads us to the Moon and Deimos/Phobos/Mars, gets us to a point where these asteroids will be in reach.
The hardware that can open some of the worlds will be able to open all of them.

Reviewing this again.... https://www.sciencealert.com/could-huma … anet-ceres
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The people who thought this up anticipated that Ceres can offer Nitrogen, which is an important feature, hard to come by in a shallow gravity well, in reach of humans.

Two material creation ideas seem like they might fit in this:
1) Pee-Bricks, (Urine-Bricks): https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE
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Again: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ajaxhist=0
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I would imagine you could perhaps add other "Foods" for the microbes.

2) Mycillium are another option: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne … ia%20cells.
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OK, so I regard both processes as compatible with permanent magnets.  I would like to embed such magnets into such materials to influence separated portions of a structure to linger with the whole structure and not become a collision hazard.

Other worlds in the asteroid belt may do, but imagine shaft type mining on Ceres and using virtually all of the extracted materials to build structures in orbit.  You get the tunneled-out spaces and a very large amount of orbital structure. A robot work force could exist in the tunneled spaces, and of course in the orbital structures as well.

"Blocks" made of these materials could be linked together to make structures.

Thermally stable inside and also radiation protected inside.

Electric power will not be a large issue as Ceres has a large hill sphere relative to its size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere
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Various kinds of synthetic gravity may be possible.

Previously disks and cylinders have been considered, I like a double cone jar:

The above drawing is a "Cut-Away"  I show one major "Double Cone" in the center, with a rotator, and four smaller attached "Double-Cones".

#1 might be used as a greenhouse.  #3 might be used as a radiator.

the rotator inside of the major double-cone jar, can be throttled up or down as per spin rate.  During high spin rate, the air will be pumped out of the gap between the spinner and the spinner and the Jar.  But periodically air from inside of the spinner can be let out into the gap, after the spin rate has been reduced.  So, spin gravity would be periodic.

During a low rate of spin access to other double cones can be facilitated.

A double-cone jar perhaps made of Urine-Bricks, may have bands of a tensile material wrapped around it to allow it to hold the force of internal air pressure.  The cracks between bricks, can be sealed, but indeed an air retaining balloon could also be used to retain air pressure.

So, vast collections of "Double-Cone" structures could be connected together.

If it is not desired to cycle spin rate and air pressure, then you might put a "Spin Airlock" between connections of "Double Cones".  It would spin to match the rate of the double cone structure it was mated to and then Uconnect and connect to the partner double cone.

So, then a vast amount of habitat could be created in orbit of Ceres or some other asteroid.

Obviously eventually the materials of Callisto and Ganymede may be of similar interest.

Some of these structures could be converted into "Cycling Spaceships".  They would be so massive, that I would not want them to fly by another world.  They would simply be in association with a "Host World" like Ceres, but would be on a elliptical orbit where the low end goes inward to the sun and the high end comes back like a boomerang, reputedly to the "Host World".

Such a Boomerang platform might cross the asteroid belt in part, or might reach to Mars orbit, or to Earth/Moon orbit or even father in.

Spaceships launching from the inner solar system would need to match their orbit to offload passengers.  A Boomerang Platform would perhaps do two orbits for each Ceres orbit, and so then be in the asteroid belt location of Ceres one time and be on the opposite side of the sun the next time.

Ending Pending

Per the just previous post:

So, the idea is that the tubular legs will double as solid rocket boosters.

The solids will burn to empty while pushing the assembly towards the Moon.

After they burn out, they deploy to be angled, and the hinges are of compressible metal mesh???  Shock absorbing.
as shown in the right-side picture.

The Drop-Bags were dropped prior to landing ejected sideways by some means.

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From post #3 again....

A whole labyrinth of rooms could fill much of an ice slab.  And finished materials may make the walls, floors and ceilings suitable.  I am thinking mostly for various types of robots.

Power and cooling could come though conduits from the surface, using Carbon Conductors, heat pumps/radiators, the environment could be very suitable for robots.

If Mars then had a sun-synchronous web of satellites for power and AI, much of the time these facilities could be power up most of the time.

Various methods of cooling would be available for the robots.  Productivity should be huge.  Humans might also might also live in special habitats both on and under Mars and in Mars orbits.

So, Mars has some bulk resources which could be developed for a very good profit.

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It appears that Relativity Space is having a second life, for the purpose of supporting data centers in space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gxrFD-Hx3U
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33.5 tons to orbit, and it seems only the 1st stage to be reusable.  That is about 50% more than a Falcon  9 launch.

Aluminum instead of Stainless Steel.

Large Scale 3D printing abandoned.

I can see some hidden merits in this one.  If I do so, it is not to discredit the SpaceX Stainless Steel concept.  It is that a variety of methods may actually serve best, in my opinion.

Space Startup News maintains that old 2nd stages could be crashed onto the Moon for a low price and the metals be salvaged particularly Aluminum.  So, in that case a 2nd Stage that cannot be returned to space may have more value than is typical.  Typically the device has to be disposed of as garbage.  This way it could be a recycled resource.

You actually could put it to two other uses.
1) As a Lunar Lander.
2) As materials for radiators for data center satellites.

The ship might be refilled by Starship or Blue Origins ships, to then serve for the Moon.  To then become scrap eventually when it fails.

Ending Pending

This morning, I am thinking about additive and extractive activities on the Moon.

I think that the boring company may do well on most worlds, but perhaps not so much on the Moon as for the relative lack of things like water for it.  I will be happy to be wrong about that if eventually method is proven available.

I can think of a number of extractives methods that have recently come into my view;
-Salt Mining with Chlorine and the distillation of the product.
-Laser Sublimation methods.
-I also think that the https://www.quaise.com/ geothermal methods.

I think that some of these could be improved, (Possibly) using chemicals such as Chlorine, in cycles of Oxidation/Chlorination and reduction, (Using Carbon and Hydrogen perhaps).

We will want chemicals on the Moon and at first some of them will be hard to find and process in bulk on the Moon.

While it is a good idea to try to use local resources, I think that also it would be good to figure out how to efficiently and at reasonable cost import ingredients that are easier to provide to the Moon by some effective/efficient methos with utility.

I have previously thought of things like Iron Oxide.  But that is not needed for the Moon but is more likely to be taken from the Moon.
In an additive method(s), we may want Urea and Hydrocarbons, to get microbes to make large solids by including regolith and water.

Now I looked at Urea.  I would like to crash it into the Moon.  The idea of Moon creasing substances of value can be supported by "Space Startup News", as per crashing old space junk on the Moon.

https://www.spacestartupnews.com/

There is a claim from this source, that space junk could be crashed on the Moon using a lower expenditure of delta-v, and the scrap could be of value.

So, I will use that.  I will try to produce a practical import method that saves propulsion energy and may provide for needs.

We are familiar with "Airbags".   Some people have had trouble grasping the concept of a "Self-Purposed" Airbag in the past.

A "Self-Purposed" "Airbag" would be one that uses its cushioning properties to cushion it's own impact not to protect the impact of another device.

If we have made an Airbag to impact on the Moon at a reasonable speed, we might put Urea grains inside of it.  I guess they would be a cargo, and also as likely to bounce around, could "Time Delay" an impact event.

A solid piece of rock can create only a limited, dissipation of impact energy over a limited time interval.  Some of it's energy dissipation can dissapated by it's compressive and fracturing nature.  If it makes regolith splash, then it provides to energy dissipation time delay by that method.

An Airbag might dissipate energy over an extended time interval, by various methods.  But to describe that too much now is to lead attention away from the device I want to propagate in your mind.

I will establish the concept by saying, fill the air bag with Urea foam, and salt that foam with metal Chlorides.  Chlorides of metals that are wanted on the Moon but hard to come by.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea-formaldehyde

https://activerain.com/blogsview/140744 … on--part-1
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I believe that this material has much of what is wanted on the Moon, especially if you salted it with metal chlorides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde
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Most of the atoms in the structure are of significant value on the Moon.  The Oxygen is not, but it is needed for the structure of the foam, which is useful to the hoped for impact survival of the devices.

The impact results may be affected by the temperature of the impacting device and the temperature of the surface of the Moon where it impacts.

Also, the nature of the surface that it impacts onto.

For instance, it might hit a trampoline of some kind, or a net.  Or a hill of fine dust, that has been provided.  You might make a surface softened by feeding gas Oxygen into the pile of dust.  A method of fluidization.  Or you might fire an explosive device embedded in the pile of dust to fluidize it for a short period of time.

The device might be sent from LEO, with limited navigation and braking abilities.  Or it might be dropped from the sides of a ship while the ship lands.

You might be able to shoot some kind of a particle beam at the device from the surface of the Moon to slow it down.  Perhaps the output of a Mass Driver, or Magdrive(s), or Neumann Drive(s}.

And then finally you might use it as a landing legs substitute for hardware you wanted to land on the Moon.

What about the Chlorine Salts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloride
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The substances received, might be used to 3D print regolith, or break it down, and get various products.

Microbes can use Urea and Water and some other organics to cement regolith.

Hydrocarbons might be used to grow Mycelium products.

Chlorine extracted can be used in salt mining.

Metals from the Chlorides can be used to makes alloys of Lunar metals.

Substances included might facilitate drilling into the Moon using Lasers and/or other power beams.  Maybe "Our gyrotron-powered drilling".

If you add Chlorine, you might get a gas to flow out with Iron in it???  As in Salt mining.

If you add Hydrogen or Carbon/CO, you may get an extraction of Oxygen from the dril location a reduction of the rock.

If you then add these in alternation you may better drill the rock.

But of course, your process has to not eat your drilling equipment.

I think that is quite a lot for one morning.

Ending Pending

Continuing with this, I think adaptation to mid latitude ice slabs, relics on the equator, and even polar ice caps may be a possibility.

So, I think what is under them in general will be 1) lava flows, 2) uncemented regolith, and 3) cemented regolith, perhaps resembling sandstone.

1) So, in the case of Lava Flows, there might be Lava Tubes partially or totally collapsed.  Any of such situations may have special value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube
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Such Lave tubes of collapse trenches or skylights, covered by a thick layer of it could be of some unusual value.   It might be possible to pressurize them due to the weight of ice above them.  In the case of a skylight or collapsed tube you perhaps could fill it with building made of advanced building materials.

2) In the case of uncemented soil under the ice you could do standard underground methods with the ice being protective above.

3) in the case of cemented soil, then you might be dealing with sandstone or mudstone.  It is unknown if their are cemented rock types under the ice slabs of Mars.  It does seem reasonable that volcanic ash might also be cemented together as well.  But the sandstone identified is where the winds have eroded down to it, such as in Gale Crater, Mount Sharp, I believe.  But sandstone under ice slabs might be very useful to carve habitats and workshops into, if such exists.

It may be possible to increase the atmospheric pressure of Mars, and warm the planet up a bit, but I suggest that it might not be wise to try to melt these giant ice slabs, if it can be avoided.  I see them as a useful resource.

I think it would be very hard to warm Mars to resemble Earth completely.  It is said that it would take 1 bar of CO2, or 2 bars of Earth Atmosphere to warm Mars that much.

That is unreachable by our current standards of ability.  Even if you gave Mars a 1/3 bar atmosphere of almost pure Oxygen, it would be a very cold planet.

At least until humans and their robots can achieve magic like powers, it would be unwise to ignore the blessing that ice slabs and bodies could be on Mars.

But eventually I do believe that transparent pressurized domes will be possible.  Those could be placed where there is no ice slab or body.
But I think that it will be a long time before they are made really prevalent. on Mars.  But it could come eventually.

Ending Pending

I have added a poly film tunnel to help control sublimation and to help make distinction between the temperature control of the ice above and the dirt/rock floor below. 

Even on Mars, by natural convection, some night cooling will occur as like an ice cave on Earth.  But we intend the poly tent to limit the sublimation of the tunnel ice.  But we might like the regolith floor to dry out some.  Where desired we could put a vapor barrier down and then put the sifted sort of regolith we desire on top of that, and it could be dry.

If the ice in places does sublimate away, we can squirt some low temperature water steam at it to refill the developing cavities.

I suspect that we could make supports out of Carbon or Steel, or from arches of created stone.  Created by the Urea method.

I suggest that a form of precision fermentation or biological cellular process could make the materials such as Urine and/or cells.
Perhaps a culture of cancer cells growing forever fed with nutrients.  Precision fermentation making urea?
https://www.cnet.com/science/mars-explo … and-urine/
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If you had a form, you could put regolith mixed with these biological materials and let the microbes convert it into "Stone Arches".

I have added a artificial urea stone arch as support for the ice, and a heated pressurized habitat.

To heat your habitat you might use a heat pump, perhaps pulling heat out of the Martian air.  As for the air in the poly enclosure in the tunnel you might regulate it.  A tent is added over the entrance to better regulate the air exchange.  Methods to regulate the temperature to be suitable to pull heat from the air in the tunnel to heat the habitat seem a possible option.  Finding a sweet spot that is assistive to that, and makes the structure stable as per ice sag.

Energy is likely to be from various sources including nuclear fission, local solar, orbital solar beaming, and perhaps nuclear fusion.

It turns out that Carbon can make excellent power conductors.

Suggested references:

"Index» Life support systems» Carbon is the New Metal--- Also biological materials source."
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11299
We may not even need green plants at all, with precision fermentation, cellular farming, and Mushrooms.

"Index» Life support systems» New Food Sources. Precision Fermentation, Cellular, Synthetic"
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11196
Food, again.

"Index» Life support systems» Bogs and Bog, Floating Island Technology, and Roller Solar."
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11288
Unusual solar methods, and also food type methods.

"Index» Life support systems» Tunnel Arch Build Method"
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11188
A way to make multi-block arches.

And we need to pay attention to the fact tha this ice slab is said to be as big as Texas and California.

That means that you have ages of time to expand this system.  Making more tunnels gives you more water and more shelter.

And there are other ice bodies similar methods might be applied to.

I said that you don't need greenhouses, not that you could not have greenhouses as well.

Ending Pending

Can you tolerate some dialog on this Terraformer?

I presume that in one case, an atmosphere like that can hang around if it behaves like the atmosphere of Venus per the forces that will take it away.  And it will not do it as well as Venus.

The alternative is to impose a protective magnetic field which I presume would help, but would be expensive.

I am wondering if the O2 compressed into tanks could be lofted to orbit by some means and serve as reaction mass by some method.

If to burn with Hydrogen, then what of the exhaust?  If flung out of a spaceship, perhaps by a mass driver, then what of the exhaust?

I wonder what happens to gasses released from spacecraft in Earth orbit.

More often it is flung out in a retrograde direction, as the main grunting is to push mass to a prograde direction.  And I am punting here....

If the exhaust exits at the same speed as the ship is traveling, then it should drop strait down to the Earth's atmosphere.  I don't expect that it travels that fast though.

All sorts of patterns are likely I presume.  But if it ends in an elliptical orbit, it may brush the Earths' atmosphere at the low end and rejoin the atmosphere.  This may be true for Hydro Lox.  The Earth's magnetic field may slow down the materials if they are ionized, I presume.  Another pathway to rejoin the Earth's atmosphere.

Of course I have my fantasy about throwing Oxygen Ice cubes out of a ship to propel it.  If they somehow, could exit a ships mass driver at the same speed in a retrograde direction as the prograde direction of the ship, will they drop strait down to the Moons presumed atmosphere.

It don't know if this would ever lead to practicality, but in such a use case, you might be able to reuse much of the Oxygen many times.

This might help to justify a Lunar magnetic field.  But of course, I expect an Oxygen ice cube to vaporize quite quickly if it is in the sunlight in a vacuum around the Lunar orbits.

Any ideas?????????

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Thanks Calliban.  I added "Salt Mining" to the topic title as this material seems to possibly be related.

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 64#p238064
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Mars will have salts so perhaps good for Mars also.

The Mare materials might have some Chlorine: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ge … 20chlorine
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So, yes it looks like you have to do some work to have substantial amounts of Chlorine on the Moon, but some rocks have more of it.

Kreep it seems does.

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I am wondering about Shad Balls as a tool in space, such as for Mars but other places as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_ball
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I think it may be that rather than spherical; these might be polygon.  Perhaps they could seat against each other face to face.

At least for Mars, I have felt that ice covered reservoirs may be the easiest place to establish a functioning biome on places like Mars.

But Perhaps Ice with Shade Balls embedded may be even better.

These could be mass created by some industrial process primarily using water and CO2, I think.

The materials for these devices are likely available in abundance on Mars.
https://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/how-i … -made.aspx
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So, a reservoir on Mars might include an icy raft of plastic Shade Balls.

I think this may have greater flotation than ice and be more thermally insulating.  It may be that is the Shade Ball layer is thick enough the iicy Shade Ball layer may transition into liquid water.

But a layer will be required above this, probably flat, and including sublimation of ice by the dry thin air of Mars.

It may be that above this, a layer of soil may be useful.

Then to put above this would be solar equipment of various sorts, and perhaps rectennas, to receive orbital power.

The water will probably have at least some salt in it.  I am interested in various sources for the water.  It is possible that Uranium Salts could be harvested by some future technology.
https://discoveryalert.com.au/uranium-s … tion-2025/
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Other substances such as Chlorine, Sodium and Lithium??? might be available by similar methods.

Fossil icy permafrost might serve as an asset.  This can line a body of water and prevent its water from sinking into the deeps of Mars.  So, this might allow for long lived larger bodies of water particularly near the poles of Mars.

It has been said that lots of water on Mars has settled down into cracks far below the surface.  We should not want more of the water to do that.  So permafrost is helpful.  Even under large bodies of water, it may persist for some time.

For smaller bodies of water, we might look to Buffalo ponds of North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wallow
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To seal ponds and canals, we might simulate the hair and oils and organic matter mentioned in the quote above.

So, if power satellites sun synchronous, could send power to Mars, the polar areas could be included.  And as I have suggested before laser systems might make the polar ice caps of Mars like Swiss Cheeze.  Structures that could hold Oxygen and also perhaps robots.

The water extracted could be used to fill bodies of water covered in the manner I have suggested.

The basic water body can then hold substructures such as diving bells, filled with air or partitions filled with water of altered properties, friendly to living things.

I think the use of Chemosynthetic and artificial light are obtainable.  It might also be possible to pipe light into the water below the shade balls, using fiber optics.  Perhaps at an average amount around that of 5% of that of Earth.

These bodies of water and ice tunnels would offer pressurized and warmed spaces for humans and also robots to function to over time further improve Mars to be suitable to a solar civilization.

Ending Pending

Greenhouse gasses released from these bodies of water then may assist in terraforming Mars.  Perhaps increasing the air pressure by as much as 2.5X.

Ending Pending