Hab at the bottom of a Martian lake

Void · 2014-02-14 09:04:50

VAPOR PIPELINES

Evolving from the above post.
Made of ice covered with soil perhaps.

1) Dig a trench.
2) Fill it with snow or ice cubes and pack it.
3) Cover that with soil.

This should create a linear ice mass.

The for each segment of the ice pipe put a laser to drill and maintain a tube
connecting to the consecutive segments.

Maintain a pressure inside equal to the ambient +/- some value.

Evaporate ice at the feeder end of the pipeline say a glacier in the Hellas depression.
Convey the vapor to the other end.
compress it into a liquid at the termination end, say in the southern Hellas depression, where
there may be a mineral deposite to mine, or a productive settlement of people.

Overheating and overpressurizing the pipeline could lead to rupture, so that must be avoided.
Keeping it too cold could lead to ice buildup in the conduction tube, but the laser would impinge
and that buildup and vaporize/melt it.

It would not be wrong to include turbines to help regulate pressurization at points, so that
you do not have to pressurize the feeder end too much in order to cause flow.

Hellas seems a good place to try this, but eventually, if it is workable, I would think that polar ice could be conveyed to the Equator by this method.

It is true that the throughput is impaired by the low density of the vapors, but dealing with ice the pipeline width could be significant in size,
bigger than a tall man, and perhaps bigger than that.

This would be a seasonal process. Lots of sunlight for power in the summer, but not the winter. Northern Hellas and the poles are very cold and lacking of solar energy in the winter anyway, currently with CO2 precipitation. A place to avoid in the winter I think.

Last edited by Void (2014-02-14 09:07:57)

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#26 2014-02-14 09:04:50

Re: Hab at the bottom of a Martian lake

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