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*This just rattled through my mind:
It's cold on Mars. A tiny settlement is built and inhabited. How are the water pipes in the settlement going to be situated in order to keep them from freezing and busting?
In Iowa, where it can get very cold, water pipes were buried at least 4 feet below ground, maybe 6 feet (can't recall what my father said specifically about this, years ago). However, with a severe "cold snap" the lines could still freeze and break.
Okay, I'm presuming that water lines on Mars will have to be buried, unless they're insulated entirely with some miracle insulation material (could happen...I don't know). And if they have to be buried, how far down would that be? And what are other alternatives?
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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I believe a good solution to the insulation problem, for long distances, would be to contain pipes within ?warm? conduits. Suspend them in burried concrete pipes. The air would just need to be above freezing temperature (actually, as long as the water is flowing, it could be below freezing).
Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.
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The easiest method for keeping pipes from freezing is to keep them inside the pressurised portion of the base as much as possible. This might not be practical for every pipe so here are some suggestions for outside pipes:
1) pipes can be made double-walled with an insulating layer between walls (think of the Stanley "Alladin" thermos)
2) ordinary electrical "heat tape". consider only if you are running a small base off of a good sized nuclear reactor.
3) Double walled pipes again, but with the outer pipe being used as a radiator for dumping waste heat. Run water on both pipes but the outer pipes water is part of a closed loop heat sink. The waste heat keeps the water in the inside pipe from freezing.
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