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#1 2020-08-25 02:20:56

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:
I think that some people have a particular type of method in mind for living on Mars.  This tends to tribalize the discussions perhaps.   I think that any poteltial asset should be analyzed and utilized.  I think that we should consider a long term "And", and perhaps a short term "Or", where you choose your fist base with an "Or" decision knowing that later other types of things would be added to methods to be on Mars.
Some here fear lava tubes as collapses are considered possible.
Some don't like them because they need electric power to have lighting 24/7.
But it seems likely that they are a potential major asset.
As for Ice Tubes....I think I recall a member pondering pressurizing a cavity in ice, some time ago.   I have tried to reason how a person could inhabit such a thing, without melting it.
I think I have a potential solution.
This could work in the longer term in the locations where there are abundant ice layers on Mars, which is quite a lot.  Normally I am talking about ice covered water.  Not this time.
Ice can provide some tensile force to hold back differential pressure, that is Mars ambient against a habitat imposed pressure.  But it is not necessary to rely entirely on the weight of ice.  Of course you can have structural materials that assist in maintaining a differential pressure, and that also may be thermally insulating and may have roofs that are transparent or translucent.
SpaceX may land in a location where this could be a potential.
Although the existing ice slabs would possibly fufill it's contribution to maintaining a differential pressure, it seems very likely that it is dirty.  So, would not allow light from the surface through.  I have today described in another topic a type of pillow tile that could possibly be sufficient to protect the rest of the ice.  It would be a sort of patio surface where the bricks were pillows of a transparent material, and each would be filled with a substance.
Elther something that could remain fluid at Martian temperatures, or more likely ice formed of degassed distilled water.
But before placing them, it would be necessary to melt a void in the existing ice, while retaining a protective cover of dirt covered ice on the top.   Then the water would be cleaned and a system of tubing would be imposed, that would not yet connect to radiators on the surface.  You could use the underwater piping to then refreeze the water, after you degassed it.  Of course there is going to be an expansion, as the ice freezes, so the piping has to be able to deal with that.  To keep the whole freezing ice mass from bulging and cracking on the surface, there should be an air bladder inside of the water chamber.  In fact if you could anchor it down to not float, it could be occupying the center of the water chamber, and at that, most of it.  So as the freezing ice squeezed in, it could be compressed.
Once the entire content of water was frozen, then on the top the ice above could be removed down to clean ice, piping could be attached to surface radiators.  Then the patio bricks with the envelope of plastic on the bottom and a durable top that could tollerate the Martian conditions could be layed on top.
The vault would be complete, except you would need to make a connecting tunnel, probabbly down at the ground line at the base of the ice slab.
The interior of the bubble could be insulated with opaque insulation in the bottom half, and the upper half would have a plastic film insert, so that you would have a dead air space.  Perhaps even a thin layer of aerogel placed on the walls somehow, but you would need to assure that it never got wet.  So, I might forgoe the aerogel.
So, if you are going to use this room, there will be two things trying to heat up and melt the ice outside the chamber.   Sunlight comming in through the ice, and also if you wanted the room to be pleasantly warm.   So you have to extract the excess heat.  That is what the piping and radiators would be for.  Hopefully it would be possible to use a convection system or a phase change fluid(s), which would not need motorized pumping.
To help make this pay, the radiators would have anti-solar pannels integrated with them, so as excess heat was radiated, you would get electric power for your vault, and so could have lighting and other functions assisted by that electric power.
I do not specify how thick the ice would be over the vault.  It depends on how much load of differential pressure your other structural materials would carry, and how much risk you were willing to take.
This would require calculations, experimentations, and discovery.
But just one ice slab on Mars is as big as Texas and California, so if you found a way to get it right, then you might really have something.
Keep in mind the clear ice method is actually a thermal solar collector device, and of course it then needs the anti-solar cells to generate power.
As I said before I am fond of seas and lakes with ice coverings that might be similar to what I described here, so I would have no problem seeing these luminous vault linked to such lakes and seas.   Probabbly a boring company tunnel would be a good way to link them.
I would also like to link this setup to lava tubes.  However it is unclear if many of them are burried under significant ice or not.  If not, then I guess the next best thing might be Boring Company activity.  If not that, then they would be linked by surface transport methods similar to Tesla products.
It's very late.  This is happening to me a lot.  It's satisfying though.
Here is a Video I watched already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJI32sfCzuw
The rest of this I have not viewed yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKWO9ckrucg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMXNGc_N-I
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/09/m … eland.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Eqy8nxX2XY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTZQ91q2L24
https://www.inverse.com/article/36777-m … lava-tubes
This I have looked at before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube
My current impression is that Lunar lava tubes may be 1000 time larger than are those of the Earth.
For Mars, 100 times as large as those of Earth.

Done.

A little note.  Tonight, my browsing and posting are as quick as I like.   All day today I have been bad.  I have been speaking a special form of "French", although I should not.  It was because I had so much drag and a really slow moving or blocked ability to access New Mars, and to post.  I will consider this not definitive, but it does point to something.

This is another related topic:
Index» Life support systems» Converting Slabs of ice into seas. Brine Resouces.

Until the next post....

Last edited by Void (2020-08-25 02:26:21)


Done.

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#2 2020-08-25 11:03:02

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Man's main issue for anything on the scale of a Lava tube ect. for use is the construction needed to make useable.

We have trouble with structures more than a few 100 meters in diameter and the places which we have seen appear to be larger.

As you noted we have talked about the early use of them for the simple reason of less construction might be needed to protect man.

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#3 2020-08-25 11:48:33

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

I think that for the Moon, Lava Tubes will have an early draw.  For Mars, depending on discovery of "Ground Truth", they may be later.
I think that "Ice Tubes" could be of some interest here.  Without bothering with sequence of construction, I can visualize a ribwork of tubes encompasing a linear bladder embedded in ice.  The coil of tubes around the bladder to act like a corset.   That network of tubes, to draw heat off to prevent ice melt, and to be radiated at the surface to generate electricity.
Within the bladder, insulation methods that do not prohibit light to enter the bladder.
The method may allow a shallower embedment in the clear ice, with reduced risk of decompression.  Perhaps even enough light for some types of agriculture.
Lava Tubes fit in, when they make sense.
Air dams of bricks and/or metal sheets.  Fillings for the cracks, and maliable metal sheets formed to create an envelope butressed by the rock of the cave, to hold an air pressure.
More discovery needed.
Done.


Done.

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#4 2020-08-28 10:59:33

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Optical Ice Methods:
I have decided that it is likely that we could have optical ice covered cities and indeed water canals over much of Mars.  I will explain after the reference materials.
------
Reference Marterials:
https://www.space.com/mars-water-ice-map.html
https://www.space.com/30502-mars-giant- … y-mro.html
In craters at the Martian equator:
https://www.space.com/10704-mars-water-ice-equator.html
Pipelines in permafrost:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperi … ermafrost/
Quote:

In particularly sensitive areas where the permafrost hovers just above the freezing temperature, the engineers added a passive refrigeration system. At those sites, each VSM was equipped with a pair of tubes that sit inside the VSM and descend into the ground. The tubes are filled with anhydrous ammonia, which absorbs the heat, releases it in to the air and then circulates back into the ground.

Buried Pipe with Refrigeration
For four miles of the route, neither the conventional buried method nor the elevated one was possible. At these locations, pipe had to be buried in the permafrost to avoid getting in the way of the highway or animal migration as well as a precaution against rockslides and avalanches. These stretches of pipe got their own refrigeration system. The pipe sits on two six-inch coolant pipes. Refrigerated brine is circulated through these lines, powered by electric motors that are housed in a nearby building, which also contains a heat exchanger that removes the heat from the coolant to the outside air. The brine goes into the ground at 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit and comes out at 18-21 degrees Fahrenheit, absorbing a significant amount of heat from the oil in the pipeline.

I definitely prefer the passive refrigeration.  It should work well on Mars, along with methods to generate electricity by radiating heat to the Martian skies.
anhydrous ammonia:
https://www.wikihow.com/Handle-Anhydrou … fertilizer
May actually want something else for the colder Martian environment.  Would like something that will do a phase change Vapor<>Liquid, but not solid.
Took a look at Methane, not sure.  Ideas?
-------
I recently spoke of making habitable voids in ice, using pipe cages to cool the ice, and anti-solar pannels to extract electricity from that cooling process.
The piping also could be assisted by tensile cable nets.
So, you may then have the compressive force of a layer of ice over your structure, and the tensile pipes and cables which will be embedded into the ice, including below the structure.
So, the weight of the ice below the structure will also help assist holding the whole assembly stable against an interior air pressure higher than the surface ambient pressure, with the use of tensile nets of pipes and cables.
The ice surface above will at least need some protectant that inhibits evaporation and sublimation of the ice.  I have suggested pillow-tiles in the previous post I believe.
The air filled voids that will be hosted by this structure would be helped in success by a web of clear plastic film that would cover the clear ice surfaces.
Thermal insulation would be achieved by regolith on the bottom parts, potentially quite thick.  This incedentally would weigh down on the tensile nets as well.
Although a dome shape would be do-able, I more think in terms of tubular structures, very long ones after the art is mastered for these.
I had previously though of a melt freeze method for cleaning dirty ice to make clean optical ice, but now I think use one of the tricks that Mars has reverse sublimation.  That is deposite water vapor in a freezing environment, to create optical ice.  There could be some losses along the way, and some would head for the Martian poles.  But so what?  There is plenty more to be had.
It might be possible to shelter the make process with some kind of tent, to keep the humidity up, and reduce those losses.
I suppose that the maximum comfort zone would be a void below the freezing point of water, and under a layer of ice say >=110 feet thick.  Sorry world I am American, maybe I will make conversions later.  (Actually although I think the Metric system is worthwhile, I think it may make you guys defficient in ability to think in some ways).
You might have all the thickness and cold you want in Korolav crater.
Other slabs will be thinner, but you could pile the ice up as thick as you like, more or less in those locations.
However, I have come to think that I would like more light and water canals.  Venice if you like.
So, actually you could have any sort you like.
From an interior pressure of 1 bar quite deep, to a 70 mbar farm situation quite shallow.
I actually think that the minimum pressure I would go to is 1/3 bar.  That way people could enjoy the farms.  That suggests an ice depth of 36 feet, but that would dim the light a lot.
So, I would go shallower, thinking that the tensile characteristics of the structure would protect you from a "Blow-Out".  However for those situations, I think it might be propper for people to wear some emergency pressure suit.  Unless the safety track record of these structures is demonstrated to be very good.
And so why canals in some cases?   Well, it could be a mode of travel, not requiring the complexity of wheels.  Just canoes for instance.  There would be walking space on each side of the canal, which might more resemble a glorified ditch.
And you could have plants both aquatic and terrestrial in these tubes.  Your temperature inside from Arctic summer to sub-tropical.  (Keep in mind, that in the winter these would all likely get rather cold.  Maybe you skate and sled on your canals then).
I would see these eventualy all over Mars.  And yes you could transfer water for ice, by canal.
I think that most Martians should migrate with the seasons.  A life of spring-summer-fall, but not winter.  Unless you like it or you get extra pay to maintain things or construct more of this optical structure in the winter.
So, lots of agriculture, and transportation.  The tubes actually being Oxygen tanks that actually will generate Oxygen to fill them.  Keep in mind that any electric motor waste heat, will actually be used to generate more electricity. smile smile smile
I do actually think of real canals that go a long distance.
Yes, it seems possible that you could make these to a larger than canoe scale.  Barge scale???
But then less duck weed in those, as the lighting will be much dimmer.
And you might follow old river valley paths.
------
And I remind that all of this optical ice will be part of a giant solar power method.
And I am not against nuclear, if it is done cleanly.
------
How far does light travel in the Ocean?
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/lig … %22%20zone.
Quote:

Light may be detected as far as 1,000 meters down in the ocean, but there is rarely any significant light beyond 200 meters.

Metric sad

Sunlight entering the water may travel about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) into the ocean under the right conditions, but there is rarely any significant light beyond 200 meters (656 feet).

But we would be dealing with Martian light, filtered from the protected surface, through ice, through a plastic envelope, into the voids.  But the ice can be very pure.
So to me this suggests that even in a thickness of ~110 feet, and 1 bar Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere, some types of plants could grow.   Further up the "Ice Column" smile,  chances are more productive types of growth could occur.

Done.


Done.

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#5 2020-08-28 13:31:19

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Why Canoes?
Well think about portaging in .37 g.... smile
Inside the tubes, very little wind if any.  (Unless you have a blow out).
No wheels. Your trackway is a growth spot that makes Oxygen and food.  No polution unless you are an idiot.
Shallow water.   Less potential to drown.
Stored heat for nighttime.
You don't need to create and maintain pavement.  Just pile up regolith in the bottom of the tube, with a glorified ditch running it's length, filled with water.
Electric motors?  Yes.  It is not a national park.  Again portaging easy.  Possibly even assisted with mechanical lifting devices.
I will appropriate some justifications from Peter Ziehan.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Pe … M%3DHDRSC3
I will grant that on Mars you must pay the cost of building a waterway, but you have to pay the cost of roads and railroads as well.  The waterways I am thinking of will also provide power and farm goods.  Shelter for people as well.  And indeed radiation protection of a very high quality.
It should be adaptive to terraforming as well.  Mars is now ~5.5 mbar.  We might hope to get that up to ~333 mbar of almost all Oxygen.
In order to make Mars as warm as Earth you would need a 2 bar atmosphere of Oxygen and buffer gasses such as Nitrogen and Argon.  You could certainly not have 2 bar of Oxygen and not get lit on fire along with anything else that might burn.
So, from some points of view, a ~333 bar atmosphere, would still define Mars as an "Ice Age" planet, probably forever.
But the days in places could be reasonably warm, and it could have a biosphere of some sort.
But ice solar collectors in general would still work.
Done.


Done.

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#6 2020-08-28 13:34:20

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

I just posted before this post, so you might read that if you are interested.

Large scale barge canals are not nearly as silly as you might think.  Remember, that if you wish, your water could be briny, and quite cold.

Under such conditions, the pressurization within the passage could be quite low.   And yet the ice structure would still generate electric power.
And indeed your barges could be electric.  They could tap into commutator contacts along their way.   That is they might have batteries, but would recharge along the way.  If one segment was "Out", they could run on batteries.

I think we could do better than that though, per pressure and habitability, and agriculture.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-08-28 13:34:52)


Done.

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#7 2020-08-28 18:50:41

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Seems like we learn a lot about creating floating water colonies eve before we get to building them in a capped lava tube.

f climate change ends up coming for your home, you could move inland. Or you could decamp to tessellated platforms floating on the ocean.

Oceanix City was designed by the renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, along with dozens of experts from institutions like the UN and MIT. According to Ingels, who lives on a houseboat himself, residents of the floating city will use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all, not just the rich. Although most cities struggle to hit even a handful of these goals, Ingels and Collins were confident that they could be accomplished in the challenging oceanic environment.




At the core of Oceanix City is a 4.5-acre hexagonal floating platform that is meant to host up to 300 people. These platforms are modular, meaning they can be linked to form larger communities as they tessellate across the surface of the ocean. Each platform will be anchored to the ocean floor using biorock, a material that is harder than concrete and can be grown using minerals found in the ocean, which could make the anchor more secure over time. These anchors might also serve as the seeds of artificial reefs to rejuvenate aquatic ecosystems around the floating city.

The world's first floating nation designed to 'liberate humanity from politicians' will appear in the Pacific Ocean by 2020

3C3369EB00000578-4127954-image-a-3_1484658113235.jpg

On-going project making concept of ‘seasteading’ a reality, building a semi-autonomous community at sea and providing an environment relatively free of government control

seastead-storm.jpg?width=982&height=726

A pilot project underway in the coastal waters of French Polynesia is set to become the first functioning ‘floating community’ by 2020, offering homes for up to 300 people.

https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/french-polynesia

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#8 2020-08-29 12:30:34

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

OK Spacenut, that is a bit fantastical, but so might be windmills in the Atlantic Ocean.  It could happen.
I liked it some.  I have decided I will draw up plans this weedend, to save the Earth through Geoengineering.
1) Oceanic solar salt ponds and Aquaculture/Mericulture.
2) Hydro Energy storage, Great Basin and solar power emphasized.
3) Created Ice caps with benefits.  Related will be a toy for the Ur-a-peeans.  Maybe the Britts?
------
1)
I've been here before.  If you are going to bother with floating cities, they may use solar salt ponds enclosures with a fertile top layer for growing things.
I really don't know how they are going to avoid politicians. 
------
2) Hydro Energy storage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-st … 0balancing.
This seems a good fit for the American South West.
Start with the Salton Sea.  It is peseudo artificial anyway.  Has come and gone over time.  I was shy about trying to deal with Mexico, until I thought about California.
Anyway, to make it perhaps a bit sensible, then let sea water flow into the Salton Sea at night, and generate electricity, and during the day pump some back up into the Gulf of California, using excess solar power.  If the Salton Sea continues to become more salty, it will not be able to support fish.  But if about 2 times as salty as the oceans, then fish have trouble breeding but can live.  That way you can controll what fish are in it.  I suggest some Great White Sharks, to feed on excess ectopians.
I would leave death valley alone, as it is unique.  However, I think that Boring company tunnels could do the same with desert valleys in the Great Basin, after we lure all of the ectopians to the Salton Sea to be eaten by Great White Sharks.
Tunnel to the Pacific Ocean multiple times, and flow the water using solar energy.
Ectopians would say you are upsetting the balance of nature, probabbly as they probabbly need additional neutering.  Truth is we do not live in a natural world.  Deal with it.  10,000 years ago, ice caps covered much of North America and the Great Basin had many large lakes.
So, what's natural, and why should I care about their lack of ability to understand.  I will just go a head.  This will allow for a very vibrant solar powered economy in the American South West.
Also, perhaps Great White Sharks in the Great Basin little seas, to eat Ectopians in case they move East.
3) What if we could refrigerate our permafrost and ice caps, and get energy from it?
Wind power can be a problem in some locations due to icing on the blades.  Suppose you put anti-solar cells on the blades and heated the blades with a fluid?  Tough business to get it done but we have supposedly been in the "Space Age" for 50 or so years.  So, no whining, figure it out.
The Ur-a-peeans could lead the way, maybe the Canadians or Russians.
Yes, getting a heat source fluid from a tower thingy into a spinny thingy and back again is going to be top engineering.  But forcing heat into the blades may pay off where icing is a problem.  And we have the North Sea, and a spinny thingy.  Spinny thingy motive force, thermal source, (The sea).  So, work on it.  While you are at it think about increasing the fertility of the surface waters as part of the game.  CO2 sink???
So, lets go to Antarctica.  Pump that ocean on top of that ice???  Expensive, power draining, salty water wants to melt things.  Ectopians and Scientists throwing fits, too many to kill!
But we might think to referigerate the ice caps with windmills.  The ice caps are a thermal mass in the wintertime, with excess heat.  The winds can be incredable in Antarctica.  But this is to play games with geopolitical nuclear weapons.  Lets just walk away from that one for now.
The Arctic?  I think so.
In the Arctic we have many major rivers that travel north.  In Alaska and Canada, the Yukon goes west, but is near and in Permafrost.  That might have potential.  Some Arctic islands do have ice caps.  Lets consider referigerating them and expanding them.  Harder to get fresh water though.  For the Major rivers of the Arctic Basin, might there be a way to do wind power and grow glaciers and ice caps?  You would be getting energy from a phase change and the wind.  If you really like you can try to put tundra soil on top of them.  Or maybe even try to do Optical Ice maneuvers.  However Optical Ice may be tough to do on Earth, except, perhaps in the coldest places.

-------
Anyway generate electricty, and store it, and lower the Oceans.  Fertalize certain portions of the Ocean to absorb your hated CO2.  Associate Great White Sharks with Ectopians.
It is a winning plan, I think.  Worth working on.
Done.


Done.

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#9 2020-08-31 17:38:16

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

We could end up with Fusion or Solar orbital as the "Best", energy source.
Still, I am going to go ahead with this partial continuation of my previous post.

Reference Materials:
Air Cycle Machine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_cycle_machine
Ocean Currents:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/medi … d-climate/
More images of ocean currents:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Wa … BasicHover
Offshore wind power:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_ … _resources
Interesting map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_ … -ESMAP.png
End Reference Materials.
I think I understand the current types of windmills in the sea, at the basic level.
In the last post I suggested putting anti-solar cells on the wind blades and conducting a warm fluid through the blades.  This would be intended to generate extra electrical power, and also to help de-ice the blades in marginal environments.
So, you may extract heat from the Ocean water into air, and push the air through the blades.
Cool the ocean currents going to the poles, and genenerate electricity.
SpaceX is thinking about building "At Sea" launch pads.
Speculation on some level of merging.
-----
There are other tricks.   Currently windmills have a ballast weight.  Could the become a heat exchanger to extract heat from the seas, using latent heat also I hope.  The wind blades them selves are a potential heat exchanger.
----- Cool the Ocean currents that warm up the Arctic ice pack?
-----Cool the water table of the Greenland ice cap?
-----Other Northern hemispehere induced cooling projects.
-----
Antarctica ever?
????
Done.


Done.

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#10 2020-09-01 06:07:25

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

I have then read that air is not so good for heat pumps, so perhaps a real heat pump that pumps heat out of the ocean and into the air passed through the windmill blades.
-De-ice the blades where that is a problem.
-Possibly generate electricity by infrared photon loss out of anti-solar cells on the windmill blades.

A somewhat less compatible thing would be to spray water on the windmill blades to produce evaporative cooling when conditions are suitable.

Last edited by Void (2020-09-01 06:08:36)


Done.

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#11 2020-09-01 07:31:13

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

In case you are wondering why I am presenting this stuff, it is because I don't see the benefit to me to go out and try to get some intellectual rights.  Too much stress, and I am not that competent at all in the field.
However readers who do have competency, may see some value, perhaps it will relate to something useful.  To a degree there can be real questions about energy used to produce energy.   I guess certain tricks using a windmill as a radiator or otherwise, might justify windmills where the wind power potential is not as good as is usually necessary for a profit margin.
So, can you use a windmill as a condenser?
Hot humid air on the outer surface of the blades.  Can you drop the temperature of the blades?  Here again a large body of water might be useful, and a humid atmosphere.
If you did this in a warm climate, perhaps drops can come off of the downward blades.
You would perhaps want to have something on the blades that repels water droplets.
Hydrophobic.
This method could be useful in quite a few places where people live.  Of course you need a place to dump heat.  I suppose a well might do.  A sea.
I think that possibly Namibia might be a good place.
And yes, my thinking is that if the human race is prosperous, then it is more possible to do space activities, so indirectly this could be a benefit to me.   A healthy economy can better support me, so this is to a degree in my interests.
------
For SpaceX with offshore launch platforms, an association with wind power processes may make sense.  They might even make their propellants using it in some cases.
The distance from shore will not be as important for Freight and also for people to Mars, as it will be for point to point launches of passengers.
Should there be a warm current such as the Gulf Stream, the energy of that and of the cold ocean below might help for that, in association with wind power, and byproducts could possibly be condensed water vapor in some cases.   Liquid air might be another trick.
A problem with OTEC is that it needs a lot of energy to lift cold water up.  I think that blending OTEC methods, wind, and perhaps Anti-Solar Cells may offer something new, and perhaps useful to the benefit of society(s).
I see that some very massive engineering is going into offshore wind, in the North Sea in particular, and SpaceX is also getting into massive offshore engineering.  So, perhaps there can eventually be an informal merging.   It may be that there could be technology exchanges of use, that may be adaptable to other worlds.  Anti-Solar Cells are one I am thinking of.  The sooner they are made effective the better.  After all Mars and the Moon have cold nights.
So, actually I am not off topic at all.  I think that many of the things I have mentioned in this post and some of the previous ones, can be beneficial to the world, but especially to North America, and Europe.  And others who are participating in space technology.  Therefore it is useful for accessing the solar system, in the long run.
Some places, you might want to pull heat out of the sea to achieve some purposes.  The Arctic perhaps.  Some places you might want to pull cold out of the sea.  This may be compatible with offshore wind power in the future.
Mericulture should be compatible with this as well.  Drawing up cold sea water and dumping waste heat into it from a process, and then adding the correct kind of iron.  The Ectopians won't have it, but who elected them?  This could provide needed food, and to a degree would naturally sequester Carbon to the bottom of the Oceans, reducing CO2.
There are the nations of North America, which are well placed it seems for alternative energy.  Perhaps the Europeans will do well with some of these things as well.
Most nations in the world however cannot or will not choose poverty and stop burning Coal.
With these new methods, perhaps that problem can be offset.   And of course then that allows Coal providing nations to provide coal.  (Which they would do anyway).
Kind of don't like the flash word "Green", because of impractical environmentalists, but if we could go partially "Intellegent Green", and keep some of our Carbon habits, that would be good.
While I think we do want to develop the Moon, as I see it we also want to get things from the Moon to our Oceans.  Created objects for instance, and the side product Oxygen from the Moon to LEO, or propellant depots near the Moon.  Perhaps both and all.
I understand that almost everyone would not think that it will be sensible to get metal objects from the Moon into our Oceans, but I am thinking of a deeper future where robots and telepresence are all over the Moon.
The objective would be to "Process Control" the Earth into a semblance of what it was in the last 100,000 years, which we might refer to as natural.  But that would be done to also grant access to the whole solar system, and a prosperous society here, (The Earth) and elsewhere.
No spell checking, too bad.  I will see if I can get my "Word" running, and then spell check there.  I have never been that happy about people who think spelling is more important than ideas communicated.
I only have time to enter the site, and make a post without notice.  If I linger, then my access to the site gets bogged down.
Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-09-01 07:32:54)


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#12 2020-09-02 11:27:12

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Some of what I previously proposed may not entirely make sense, (I will explain).
The idea of using power to pull heat out of the ocean to blow warm air through windmill blades with anti-solar cells, so that those cells can generate power, seems not quite sensible, or you would really want to calculate if you are getting a gain.
But there are two situaions where in particular it may be desired to have warm air to blow through the blades.
1) Icing.
2) Slow wind speed.
So wind having a tendency to be variable, you might resort to electric batteries, but really a thermal storage capability is of greater interest for the proposed method.
At high wind power you may use a heat pump to draw heat from the sea, and into a containment.
Then when you need it for de-icing, or to provide a pinch of electricity from anti-solar cells, that will be availible to the process.  (A warm/hot containment of water).
Containments could be entirely manufactured and kept in the sea.
But there could be cases where you would generate hot brine and store it in a pool at the bottom of the sea.  Brine pools already exist some places at the bottom of the sea, for whatever reasons, I do not know.
Some fish apparently swim into them and die.  Hagfish are able to swim into the brine pools and feed on the dead and dying fish.   So, that does not seem very fairy tale.  But think about how happy the fish are that are netted and put into ships holds to suffacate.  Also, it is generally the fate of at least smaller fish to be digested alive inside of other creatures.
Nature is not as "Fairy Tale", as some want to believe.  But in order to achieve a "Higher?" level of "Civilization?", we cannot afford to expect to be as good as we might wish.  Starving people of what they might need, does not, at this time, seem enough of a justification.  Stasis will lead to stagnation and a fall.  To forge ahead, may lead to the luxury of a "Higher" morality eventually.
We will eat vegtibles and fruits and be vegtibles and fruits. smile  Well I don't think I will.
------
Other contained substances could be pressurized air, and liquid air.
And we may have thrusters on our windmill blades.
There may be "Cases" for the various.
Potential Example:
You have a wind device near or in the Great Salt lake.  The humidy is at some time period in a day or days high.  You have stored liquid air.  You introduce either cold air or even the liquid into the blades.  You condense water.  Else you might use it as a windmill.
Another case is you want to generate power from anti-solar cells.  You have lots of stored hot steam or hot water.  Use the thrusters with expanding fluids.
And I believe there can be more.  I am just not clicking them up right now.
Well liquid air vaporized and then out of thrusters could be considered a steam engine.
But if you had a steam reservoir, you might run hot steam out through the blades and out of thrusters.  If you had anti-solar cells on the blades, perhaps this may make sense somewhere, some time.
-----
Ships powered by liquid air?  Well the bottom and propeller can be sources of heat.  Strong engineering needed.
-----
Per the video's from Peter Zeihan, there are many very mature and trained talented people in Europe, a number of years from retirement.  Similar for some of East Asia.  With the pandemic, it seems a waste to not utilize this resource.  So, they might help to make some of these things real or plausable.
And they might put coin in their pockets along the way.
And although Americans will also participate, Americans, I am sure will be sold the products that these many participants might produce.
Done.


Done.

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#13 2020-09-02 21:03:59

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

A new thing came to me today, about the Moon.
I think it was triggered by an article(s) about water on the Moon that I read today.
While I agree that a first base should be on the face of a high spot where the most sunshine can be captured in a Lunar month, I began to see that perhaps for both the Moon and Mercury, (Maybe), the best place for settlements could be in those shadowed craters.  If what current thinking about those polar craters is true, then in those craters may be the best case for using Martian methods of habitation, perhaps involving ice and transparancies.  The only lack is energy.  Nuclear but also solar.
Nuclear might be a very good survival fall back.  However, imagine optical equipment on the rim of such a crater that could be manipulated.  I do not want to rule out lenses, but for now I think mirrors.  In some cases those could approximate a 24 hour daylight cycle for a city in such a crater.
Yes on the slopes of an almost eternal daylight spot near the south pole, you might use shades to produce daylight.  But of course your light would always come nearly perpendicular to the vertical.  So, the question is how can you best approximate a 24 hour day on the Moon for living things?  I am afraid that even in the land of almost eternal light, there will be some gaps.  Well perhaps plants and humans can put up with a 4 day night.  Still this is one where we might wish to have greater control of that simulation of a 24 hour day sequence.  It may be that inside of a crater of eternal darkness this could be better accomplished.
We have available the plans of others to construct habitats for Mars, that include ice as a building material.  I of course indulge in ice covered seas, and recently optical ice methods to produce habitable pressurized voids, in part done with ice and tensile cables, piping.
On Mars we will have to include UV filtering to protect the plastic films needed to keep ice from sublimation.  On the Moon, in the shadowed craters, if our optical devices can first filter out the UV, we may relay photons to a greenhouse/city.  This then allows for a greater survival time for the plastic films, I might hope.
Impactors:  More impactors may travel the plane of the eliptic than otherwise.  (I hope).
Inside of a deep polar crater, the Moon in it's entire mass will protect from many of them.  But crater walls may also offer more protection. (I hope).  A danger will be secondary impactors if a big  one hits the Moon.  But seismographs should give warning to get to greater safety.
Radiation:
1) Solar emissions? Well, I am hoping that the crater walls will offer what is needed for a city deep into the crater.
2) GCR? Um....I am hoping for a ~60% protection from directions of the Lunar sky.
But, if you can, you may build including ice, for greater protection.  Also, there is no reason to not sleep in deep bunkers under protection of more mass.  Perhaps also to be so protected as you may be involved in office and factory work.
And since we may have eliminated the UV problem with the optical relay system, lower grade plastic films may serve well.  However, it is going to happen that small impactors will degrade the epidermis of such a structure.  So a method to patch and replace will be desired.
In the event of punctures, the lights can be turned off or down.  (Per the optical relays).  Patching then done.   What ice may sublimate from the structure could be replaced.  What water leaks should mostly condense back into the crater.
Granted, some concern required as if you make a warm spot in the dark crater, I would expect the ice to migrate away from it.  So, we need to know what is the consequence of that?  Probably tolerable.
I think hopefully this is  a game for both the Moon and Mercury.
While we want Earth day/night simulations for any exposed greenhouses in shadowed craters.  Of coure we also should want underground habitats.
Done.

I put this here because I did not find a good "Moon/Mercury" topic, and I am always in a hurry now to not get bogged down by lingering on this site.  Moderators can moderate if they wish, of course.

Done Done.


Done.

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#14 2020-09-03 06:36:05

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

I have had further thoughts about the shadowed craters:
-Super Conductivity, relatively easy?  If so, then many things possible in the shadows.
-Interferometers:
If you had two or more, maybe a good location.  I know only a little about these.  But you have a potential for two or more mirrors and although there is levatated dust as a problem, very, very little atmosphere.
And I am wondering about the circle that the Moons orbit describes.  Of course that is overlapped by the Earth's orbit around the sun.  The Moons poles have some tilt, just a little, so that has to be compensated for by aiming I suppose.  Computers are involved in the Interferometers.
But, could the orbit of the Moon somehow describe a "Optical Device" with multiple elements that are not in the same orbital location at the same time, but somehow could time seperated glimpses of far away objects be made useful somehow?  I did mention that the Earth's own orbit would interfer with a notion of a circular Lunar orbit.  As I said, I do not know enough about these things to understand if any useful data can come from some kind of instrumentation involving this.
-Mercury mirrors.  Not the planet, the metal.
Spinning Mirrors.  Less gravity, maybe can be larger?
Mercury freezes at -38.83 degC apparently.
Can you freeze a spinning mirror, and have a useful instrument?  I am guessing that the freezing will warp it.  However observatories on Earth compensate for atmospheric flucuations by shining a laser into the sky to get data about the atmosphere, that would allow computers to adjust the mirror rapidly to improve sky gazing.  A frozen mirror would not need to be spinning anymore, so that noise would be eliminated from the use of it as an optical device.
Could a laser scanned across a frozen Mercury mirror characterize the warping that was imposed by phase change from liquid to solid, and then even further cooling?  A useful optical instrument created that way?  If so, it would be a "New Breed" of instrument.
If something like this could be useful, then SpaceX and others can partially compensate for the problems for astronomy, that Starlink like arrays may cause.
Impactors:
Further thoughts on "Greenhouses" with plastic skins, and how to manage impactors.
I think an old idea for dealing with that could be adopted.  In that idea, for spaceships, you would have an outer skin of metal and of course inside of that a pressure hull.  The gap between not pressurized.  An impactor hitting the outer skin would vaporize, and reduce the damage to the pressurized hull within.
So, an extra skin of transparent plastic over the one that holds the ice, with the hope that small impactors would similarly vaporize on impact with the outer skin, and so reduce damage to the ice holding skin.

The telescope things might draw some money from science, to help justify a Lunar base.

And a Lunar base may help in continuing missions to Mars, if not the initial ones.  Continuing is necessary, if 1,000,000 people are to be sent to Mars.

Done.


Done.

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#15 2020-09-03 13:22:39

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Here is what triggered me, I think:
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/more … ce-on-moon
Quote:

Moon has more water ice than previously thought
UCLA study suggests that there may be enough water to sustain a future lunar settlement

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ … aters-UCLA
I also have read that much more metals are availible, which will matter later.
So, it may seem that with some prudence per consumption of water, the Moon may be rather useful, to expanding beyond Earth.
I will return to mirrors.  I previously mentioned frozen mirrors of spin Mercury the metal.
I am wondering about etching the mirrors with a laser to make the curvature better.  At the same time will it be possible to make such mirrors wavelength selective?  And could that be useful to astronomy?  Also could it be useful to optical relays?
https://www.permanentmarking.com/how-to … r-marking/
Quote:

How to Utilize Color Laser Marking in Your Manufacturing Processes

And of course I am a generalist more than a specialist.  It may be worth a look, might do something useful with mirrors, concentrating mirrors.
Done.


Done.

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#16 2020-12-29 16:07:06

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

------
So, I am waking this up, as it has two contrasting ideas.  Lava Tubes, where the addiion of makerials might convert it from a raw material to a resource, and Ice Tubes where the removal of materials may convert a raw material into a resource.
This is of interest for this topic:
https://www.livescience.com/agu-mars-robot-dogs.html
Of course before you would even plan to do things with Lava Tubes, you would wish to study the existing nature of them.  The above seems like a good notion of how to do that.
I have stated elsewhere recently that I am not satisfied any more with just the notion of Hardware Starships, and then Crew/Settler Starships.  I want to push towards greater robotics on Mars.  It is fairly obvious that AU-Spot could repell on a line out of the starship, with the inclusion of a recharge station, either nuclear fusion or solar.   Solar should do very well in this case, as once spot and it's power station is in the lava tube, thermal conditions and also radiation conditions will be much better.   That would especially hold true if the part of the power station in the lava tube would have energy storage ability which could tollerate the low temperature situations in the lava tubes, even during winters, and dust storms.
Low to high grade modified envionments.
Here on Earth, traditionally we have such:   Barns, Sheds, Basements, Attics, and perhaps we can include yards, and fields which are modified from their found environmental conditions to conditions good enough to suit a useful purpose.
I have noticed that the thinkers and inventors generally think in terms of an inside and an outside, where the inside has to be human rated to a high degree, but the "Outside" is practically unmodified.
I think that this may be that many of these people are high paid, and probably experience conditions of relative wealth, and instead of having an old fashion basement they would have a finished basement, and so on.  Most likely many of them are rather divorced from rural situations, where "Marginal" spaces are used to serve a useful purpose.   In most places they would not have chickens in the yard around the house.  Chicken comes form a store or a restaurant.
I do see that they are becoming more sensible.   There have been efforts to build surface houces for Mars, including a bulk of ice.   These are perhaps going in a very good direction.  Even providing for some agriculture, but probably not at an effective or efficient cost, but still, moving in the right direction.
This shows that in particular Americans and perhaps Europeans are becomming more sensible where they recognize that although much of Mars resembles the desert areas of Earth, in realality Mars is much more like dry polar deserts.  And yet it is different from even those.   Lack of adaptive thinking has dragged the process of recognizing opportunity in some cases.  Simply because Mars is only partialy famiar to our human experiences.  So, I belive that opportunities have gone only partially recognized, in many cases, and in some cases hardly recognized.
A member who's id begins with "L", has an apparent phobia for Lava Tubes.   And I will grant that for the most part we may not want to situate humans too deeply into them.  However they might be very good places to establish process lines/robotic factories.  Granted maintenance people would need to go in, but it would be a tollerable risk, if you observed industrial safety standards.  There habitats would either be in quality locations in the lava tubes, and suitably fortified against dangers anticipated, or even might be on the surface in some cases.
It is also not beyond consideration that some form of agriculture could occur in lava tubes.
You can choose your flavor for electric power.  Nuclear Fission is an option, but actually for agriculture I think it is not necessarily the preference.   Mars has repeatable episodes of solar energy.   The lapses are very predictable per seasons, and partially predictable per global and minor dust storms.   After all it is to be remembered that the sun is a Nuclear Fusion Reactor.
I think that fission nuclear should be tilted towards basic human life support needs.  In the event of low power where you might rely on it, you could have stored foods, stored ice cubes to melt for water, melting it with nuclear.  I don't think you would want to recycle all that much during a stress event where you have low power.  So, food, water, and of course you need something life giving for your lungs.  Perchlorates stored might help, but of course LOX in tanks might help as well.  As I have said, I think that when you have a low power situation, you need to live as much off of stored assets as possible.   And you need to know just how bad it could be.  So study of the subject, Mars, is waranted.  Perhaps archeaology to discover how much of a bad player Mars can be, how bad are the stress periods, how long might they last?
I am dithering a bit, but so what?  I have time to kill, or think I do. 
Agriculture:  Apple Trees and such.   Cold temperate limits, tree agriculture.   Can it be managed anywhere on Mars?  I think that what proponents of Nuclear Fission only for Mars have overlooked, is that many concepts of agriculture are solar in primary nature.  While you may plan for seasonal changes, you have more uncertainty about dust storm interuptions.
I choose fruit trees of the north temperate and their like, as the measure, as they may present the greatest challenge.  And I do not know how well that challenge could be overcome.  They expect regular seasons, although you might get an early spring or winter that may present inconvenience to their adaptations.
Some of them may enjoy a summer as brief as 3 months, but can they tollerate a winter of 20 months?  It is either true or not true.  Probably we would rather afford them 12 months of summer, but still could they endure 13 months of winter?  It is mostly yes or no.  But breeding and genetic engineering may offer a chance to modify that yes or no.  We certainly don't know now.
We can drop down all the way to Algae, or Cyanobacteria.   They have a much shorter needs window in time to do something useful.  And crops as we might consider them are generally somewhere between temperate fruit trees and Cyanobacteria in needed time to produce product.
I have elsewhere suggested Chemosynthesis, of the H2/CO2 kind, but that is another mater, other solutions.
Alright, Lava Tubes modified.  There are excellent references to thinking from others on this matter.  Some from the planetary society.  You may seek them on the web.
My notions are that you establish, regolith permafrost plugs to section off a portion of a lava tube.  You do not raise the lava tube temperatures too high.  You have hopes of the plugging of cracks with ice.  You also seek out dental technicians.  They have developed technology to keep the living parts of a tooth and its associated other tissures alive, by preventing the breaching of solid objects by chemical processes.  Granted those chemical processes are instigated in a large part by biological conditions, but I think you really need to talk to the dental world, if dealing with lava tubes.  We will want dentists on Mars anyway.  Might as well get going with it.
And if for some reason you wanted to try to grow plants in them, then you would install thermal protections, while allowing the rock to stay stably cold.
You would bring in needed power by some means.  While electrical conductors are of interest, I also want to explore pneumatic or hydraulic transmissions of solar energy.
And I think that we need real and estensive ground truth, as someone might say to assess the value of lava tubes.
------
I have a special interest in Ice Voids at this time.  Most are excited about 3D printing at this time.  However, I want to explore what can be done about ice removal, to hopefully also allow the remove ice to be of use elsewise for other purposes.
I have been working on this for days.  I would rather suggest a product, rather than its origins in my mind.  I have the notion of a peroidic solar hovercraft thing that melts voids in the existing ice struture.  Granted, sculpture is removal of materials to expose a supposedly existing structure that the artist reveals.
So, lacking any other provider, I suggest SpaceX with their proposed Starship.  I presume that they can deliver the makings of these types of objects to Mars, and then it requires a method to deliver the components from the cargo hold for assembly on the surface of Mars.
This will not be easy.   Easy is for monkeys.
Elon Musk put this on his twitter.  Yes I love it.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk
See: "This is not CGI", which is down a bit. Will probably not be available later.  Too bad.

There are many notions of how to mine ice on Mars.  I am interested in making Voids in the ice in the process.
So, how I see a candidate is that it would be solar powered, be a hover craft, that occasionally might hover on compressed gasses, perhaps from rocket engines.  It does not have to move very often as it will have prolonged dedicated purposes in one location for a while, while it melts a void in the ice below it.  Probably by microwaves.
Well, maybe something like this:
dChxUaq.png
Well, what i have in mind is that you assemble a machine on the surface of Mars, that has solar pannels, and is also like a hover craft.  You could instead choose wheels and motors, but what the heck, I choose a hover craft.
This then can collect solar power to electric currents, and in it's center might have a microwave projector.
It hangs around a location and cooks up a liquid void benieth it.  But there would be complications.   For one thing the bulk of what is benieth it is water, so you loose 10% or less of volume.   This might not be good, but maybe it is tollerable???  If not tollerable then you must inject gasses into the top of the void to stablize it.
If this is primarily fresh water, then we can expect that the warmer water will sink to the bottom, provided it is no warmer than 39 degF / 3.89 degC, so the greatest melting may be towards the bottom.  Ice slabs near where Starship is intended to land is about 143 feet / 43.59 meters.  Aproximately of course.
So, thinking easy, then you have the potential of a void filled with liquid water.  Going much deeper, could you cook up Methane and Oxygen, and somehow get it to storage, perhaps a Starship?
And what about the VOIDs after you drain out the water?  Well if you make a honeycomb of them below the regolith, what might be done with it?
I have some notions and hope for more, but this is plenty for now.
Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-12-29 16:10:19)


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#17 2021-01-06 14:12:26

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

------
I want to make sure that the membership here will not think that I enjoy creating disruption.  I try very hard not to put myself in the way of the works of other minds, other types of minds.
Here, I am trying to encourage notions that might compliment, the works of others to provide shelter.  A member previously said that any pressurized volume on Mars will be a premium of value.   I would alter that to say that any favorably modified volume on Mars may be of significant value.
I am more or less trying to work with bulk items as raw materials to turn into resources.  My favorites are Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes/Voids.
If you search for "Ice Caves on Mars", you will encounter notions of ice that may have collected inside of lava tubes on Mars.  It is not calculated to be true everywhere on Mars, but actually in very many locations.  Obviously if you have a lava tube and ice, you have to start wondering if that is a good place to set up shop.
As for proper Ice Tubes/Voids, they should be even more "Bulk" available on Mars than Lava Tubes.   At first glance, of course they do not seem like great places to live.  However if done well, the only factor for improved living conditions that does not "Tick a Box" is temperature.
It may be possible to raise the temperature to a degree and not compromise the structure of an ice Tube/Void.    Beyond that you have radiation protection, possibly the ability to pressurize, obviously you are somewhere where large amounts of water are available, and you may make a honeycomb network as large as Texas and California combined, in one location.  Certainly other opportunities exist, even the Korolev ice slab, and the polar ice caps proper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korolev_(Martian_crater)
In this sloppy drawing, I have indicated the deposition of excess regolith over a supposed void, (Brown), and a supposed use area at the bottom in (Green).
bHPs8WU.png
I feel that you might warm up a bit of the bottom of the void, presuming you had materials suitable to create a sub-volume that could hold the warmth.  I believe that the ice regolith that the void would be built into might naturally be at about -60 degC, and I think that it might be tolerable to allow it to get to about -20 degC.   So, having a warm portion on the bottom might be tollerated.  It would not hurt to use quite a lot of insulation between the warm area and the bulk of the void.  If necessary the bulk void could be cooled by rejecting heat to the surface/sky.
I actually am more thinking of factory floors, and just maybe some kinds of agriculture, of course under artificial lighting.
Getting energy to the green areas would be a challenge.  I guess if you wanted nuclear, that might be fine.  But it would be great to use solar, when it was available.   However it then wants methods to transfer the power.   I have some ideas beyond wiring, but won't get into that just now.
Of interest would be crops like Cyanobacteria and algae.   
https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/ … or%20brown.
Of great interest is duck weed.  It is vascular, but has a very short life span, but grows rather fast if given the conditions needed.
http://www.creationwiki.org/Duckweed
If I recall, it has a life span of a few weeks, and can replicate 14 times.  Then I suppose it needs to reproduce by it's other means.
The reason I am interested in this is that if you have a seasonal break in energy availability and perhaps a break from a dust storm, you can harvest most of it, and then just keep a method to restart it again when solar energy returns.  Other crops such as field crops tend to grow in soil, although we know that their are other ways.  But they might represent a loss, if their is a sudden interruption from a dust storm. 
Things like Apple Trees would only work if you could have "Winters" of a length they could tolerate, and "Summers" that were sufficient.
It may be that many will scoff on these notions, and they may require more work, but I think it is true that there is a "Bulk" of raw materials on Mars to make these things, if they do turn out to have merit.
Done.

Last edited by Void (2021-01-07 09:09:32)


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#18 2021-01-07 09:10:09

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Well I spell checked the previous post.  The web site is behaving well.


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#19 2021-01-07 19:04:17

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

It would be wonderful to find a useful lava tube below a substantial slab of ice.  This seems sort of unlikely though, as the lava tubes mostly go down mountain sides, and ice slabs mostly exist at lower altitudes and flat surfaces, more so in the temperate and polar zones.


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#20 2021-01-07 19:17:49

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

For Void .... your discussion of lava tubes intrigued me enough so I asked Google what is "new" in the field ...

The article at the link below is quite recent .... it seems to be an overview, with encouraging suggestions for possible usability...

https://www.livescience.com/lava-tubes- … table.html

The article includes cautions about possible dangers of the interiors of lava tubes, and cautions against trying to pressurize them.

(th)

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#21 2021-01-07 20:00:43

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

------
Thanks for the reference (th).   It may be correct not to pressurize most or all lava tube sections.   I see a greater potential to pressurize them on Mars.  Permafrost plug-dams might work for the ends, and the cracks might be filled as in dentestry.   If the rock is kept cold and the cracks reduced in size it may be that moisture would tend to plug them.   Another alternative would be to pump some kind of adhesive into the cracks.  Maybe even something like tar.
But discovery of reality might as you have noted, it would be better to build pressurized structures inside of the lava tubes.   In that case if they included ice, they would also add to the radiation protection.  In that case one thing a lava tube might offer that the surface may not offer, is solid rock to build on.   Bedrock.  The surface in many cases may be hydrated permafrost.
These will be problems for Martians to solve. smile
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My more favored pet just now it ice tubes.  You can "Mine" ice and create vaults and tunnels.  One ice slab on Mars is the size of California and Texas combined.  You could make propellants, Oxygen, and also use the water for a building material on the surface.   Also if you wanted an ice covered lake or two, or more you could do that and have a method to connect to them.
Depending on the types of rock below the ice slab, it might be possible to tunnel and mine in the rock itself, perhaps extracting a needed material, and creating more pressurizable volume.
As for pressurzing the ice structures, I would hope to just have the ice surface in some cases, but for safety it might be important to have liners for the interior ice surfaces.
One interesting use for such valults might be to put Oxygen tanks or Methane tanks in them.  If done on a large scale this could be one way to deal with loss of power during a global dust storm.  But of course I have also thought that a little bit of nuclear would not hurt for such occasions.
Good Enough for now.
Done.


Done.

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#22 2021-05-29 19:24:41

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Lava Tube 'Astronauts' Are Preparing for Mars on a Hawaiian Volcano
https://gizmodo.com/lava-tube-astronaut … 1846780105

Elon Musk’s Mars Plans Would Need To Overcome These Major Hurdles
https://www.2oceansvibe.com/2021/05/26/ … r-hurdles/

Volcanism on Europa?
'Jupiter’s Moon Europa May Have an Interior Hot Enough to Fuel Seafloor Volcanoes'
https://scitechdaily.com/jupiters-moon- … volcanoes/

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#23 2021-11-28 07:46:39

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

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#24 2021-11-28 09:37:27

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

If we do not have the boring equipment to make our underground then we need the items which once we find a select cave to be able to make it safe and protective for man to use it.

So can anyone itemize what we would need after a cave double door interface air lock to seal man into a protective environment?

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#25 2021-11-28 11:33:23

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Lava Tubes and Ice Tubes:

Lava Tubes:
Lava Tube Skylights, pictures:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=la … RE&first=1
Lava Tube Wiki:
Diagrams included:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube

Starship has airlocks, but not at it's tail.  A starship landed in a Skylight collapse area, would then have part of what is
desired.  Retrofitting an airlock(s) to the tail would be helpful.

This might be useful for both the Moon and Mars.

Some work is certainly required.  The debris from the skylight collapse has to be modified to allow the landing of a Starship.
Then land a Starship on the surface, and unload it of it's cargo.  Give it sufficient propellants, and land it in the
Skylight.  Prior to this of course the lava tube has to be evaluated for potential for a collapse.

Once landed in the hole, fix, it to the ground and likely to a side of the hole, mechanically, most prefered, in such a way
that people and materials can be moved to an airlock in the starship and also the elevator on the exterior.

And, of course for this, a solution for electrical/power, and water is needed.

Having these things, much radiation protection would exist, especially if the propellant tanks below are convered to habitation.

An assistive method would be to have sleeping chambers surrounded by radiation protection.  Perhaps water containment.

And this may be a good start where radiation is greatly reduced.

Supposing you have power and water, then factory methods and perhaps agricultural methods would be expanded into the lava tube.

While it may not be easy to pressurize the lava tube(s), They might be plugged well enough to be filled with low pressure air or Oxygen.
Of course at that point you have to put a sort of tent over the Skylight.  This would also help to reduce the thermal variations that
would be experienced in the Skylight.

Ideally your pressurized assets in the Lava Tube(s) could be connected so that spacesuits would not be mandated alll the time.

I think that sort of works.

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Ice Tubes:

Dig/vaporize a hole to land the starship in, in a slab of ice.

There will be complications of maintaining the stability of the icy regolith walls of the hole.  That can likely be handled.

Before making the hole, discover a digable rock layer under the ice.  Sandstone prefered.

So, then dig down to and into the sandstone.

It is presumed that since you are working in an area of an ice slab of significance, water will not be a problem.
Solar and Fission then used to solve energy needs.

Done.

So, that sort of works out in both cases for the first instance of expansion, after the initial landing(s), and is
expandable.  Particularly in the case of ice holes where you can make many of them, and land many starships.

Done.


Done.

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