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The right to privacy on a Martian colony will be highly dependent on public safety. Such engineering consideration are not unique to mars as building can be designed to resist damage to small explosions or in the case of the world trade center designed to withstand an impact from an air plane. Large amounts of people of people can be slain on earth either by hitting populated structures in key positions contaminating environmental controls or the use of cluster bombs. Yet few on earth have the desire, means or know how to commit such horrific acts.
On mars the ability to cause terror is an even more serious threat as escaping man made habitats requires quickly getting into a man made suit or a pressurized rover. Like on earth the ability to thwart manmade acts of destructions, accidents and natural disasters must be weighed against the cost to in terms of public freedom and resource utilization. Here I present a concept to counter act the puncturing of large domes. This could be effective against small meteorites and stray bullets but if the domes is damaged on a large enough scale relative to the size of the dome counter measures are clearly impossible.
Consider a dome that is reinforced by some kind of cable that when an electric field is applied across it contracts. Cleary the cable must have enough tensile strength to support the necessary pressure loads. If such a cable existed and was spread though the dome like a web in the even of a puncture the cable could contract around the hole and reduce the size of the hole thus slowing decompression.
As a further counter measure the dome could have sections of material that wrap up really tight and after the cables contract around the hole sealing it off a CO2 cartridge could be punctured to rapidly inflate these sections to finishing sealing off the hole.
As a final counter measure emergency air could be shorted in canisters when the dome is punctured and the pressure starts to fall near a critical level these canisters start to release the compressed air to make up for the losses in the dome.
These three measures combined will make it easy to repair or evacuate a dome in the event it is damaged. They are not fool broth but should add a high degree of safety to the dome.
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The cables to keep dome from being destroyed. hm..
How about making the matrix of cables sort of like a touch screen in that if an area is breach it is sensed by a computer that monitors these nets and sends out a robot to seal the dome in that area.
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That's not worth the trouble for leak control. Reaching up with a big pole and placing a reinforced patch over the hole will offer just as tight a seal.
"We go big, or we don't go." - GCNRevenger
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That's not worth the trouble for leak control. Reaching up with a big pole and placing a reinforced patch over the hole will offer just as tight a seal.
If leak does not allow an outward presure to keep patch in place to over come the weight of the patch material and if said person has a spacesuit on inside this dome. Then thers no problem with searching for a pole sufficient to push the patch in place.
But if the person is not in a suit, a I would be heading for safety on the slightest of alerts and would expect a robotic function that was automatic would be initiated.
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