Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[PB666]

57 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Maybe, idk. I meant this http://eden-iss.net/

Seemingly/apparently/maybe something controlled and watched over with a potential for a reliable outcome. Or so, who knows :-)

This one (or two) http://biosphere2.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#First_mission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#Second_mission

Of course I could be biased but I think these two studies were a whole lot more evolved and involved relative to what the Mars society is doing.

The problem with doing down-scale experimentation, I don't have a problem with that but they have to be scientific. If you want to rent the Astrodome and turn it into a martian landscape (complete with a reproduction of Martian soil down to the shape and size of Martian dust) then that is an experiment with controls. That's not what the Mars society is doing however, they are creating equivalence between living on summer/arctic landscape as the same as living on Mars.

Anyway, this stuff will be tossed into the group 1000 times as something of value, its pretty much not.

 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

This is where lowering the cost of access to space could present greater opportunities, immediately. Do grapes grow in space?

Authentic Moon shine on authetic lunar water.
(A smart person would start bottling it right now.)

[sevenperforce]

15 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Authentic Moon shine on authetic lunar water.
(A smart person would start bottling it right now.)

"All-natural cosmic water sourced from comets"

"Now selling 100% authentic theropod avian dinosaur wings"

But in all seriousness, there's no reason why you can't grow produce in space cheaper and more reliably than on Earth. Except, you know, launch costs.

[Green Baron]

@PB666 gave the point.

What many people fall for is the notion that any earthly experiment (including LEO) could replicate extraterrestrial conditions. But it doesn't work that way.

I give another example: dormant desert life on earth has nothing, i repeat absolutely nothing to do with eventual preservation on other planets. Studies like this, interpretation here, must be read with great caution.

a) Dormant life is everywhere in earths deserts, it is blown there by wind or brought by the rare moisture that condensates. No desert point is really isolated from the rest of the planet, not even the center of the pacific ocean. Every desert on earth is relatively inviting to (earthly) organisms, micro or macro. It is no news that bacteria, even pollen (e.g. from Miocene) can sleep for millions of years and reactivate when conditions become favourable. Though the Atacama is one of the oldest deserts on earth, it is no older than a few (not many) 10s of millions of years. Pollen easily last that long.

b) Blown in and locally evolved bacteria have a much higher chance to survive and adapt. Modern day bacteria have proven to survive and evolve everywhere where they aren't destroyed mechanically, they even adapt to aseptic hospital conditions (causing a lot of trouble).

 

Mars, if it ever had something like "habitable" conditions, lost those billions of years ago. It is very far fetched to project preservation and evolution in the Atacama to Mars. The Atacama is, comparably, up to date with things life on earth has brought forward and in constant excahnge. Jurassic Park's "Life finds a way" is too simple for a valid explanation. It cannot be excluded that life evolved on Mars, but it is less than probably that, whatever it was, it could have survived Marsian surface conditions for 3.5 billion years and be restarted like it is the case after a rain in an earthly desert.

Don't compare earth's biosphere with a place like Mars. Life may have found the one and other way here, but not necessarily, not even probably on Mars.

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by Green Baron

[DAL59]

15 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

Erm? I thought this was the Mars Colonization thread, not the bad science in fiction hall of shame thread?

Umm... Earth based simulations of Mars missions are very real and useful.

Edited February 27, 2018 by DAL59

[PB666]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Umm... Earth based simulations of Mars missions are very real and useful.

sure.

[PakledHostage]

6 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Umm... Earth based simulations of Mars missions are very real and useful.

I wasn't talking about the Earth based simulations part.

[kerbiloid]

XXI century. Earth based simulations of Mars missions.
XXIII century. Earth-gravity based simulations of the Martian strike force.

[Diche Bach]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:01 AM, tater said:

I think your list of goals is certainly true for the colonization goal technically, but I still see no possible answer to the economics. If making a colony requires an X trillion dollar bootstrap of money never to be seen again, then goal one is someone making that money to give away, since Mars cannot ever pay for itself.

That said, I want him (and Bezos) to concentrate on space travel, including human space flight, because it's much cooler than the stuff on your list. I don't expect to be around for space colonies, but I love me some cool rockets .

So would someplace with better insolation. Like a sun-sync orbit.

Seems to me that what I'm talking about (a) safe space living; (b) economic prospecting of space and what you are talking about (c) manned space flight are, parallel, adjacent, very similar, if not identical.

As we all keep saying: we cannot even get the ISS to "flourish." Lets start by getting that sorted out. Baby steps.

Re: the discussion of "crypto-currency" are you guys taking that stuff seriously? I'm not necessarily debunking I'm just not clear on how seriously it should be taken. Seems like a con game to me. Maybe best for another thread though . . .

[PB666]

11 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Seems to me that what I'm talking about (a) safe space living; (b) economic prospecting of space and what you are talking about (c) manned space flight are, parallel, adjacent, very similar, if not identical.

As we all keep saying: we cannot even get the ISS to "flourish." Lets start by getting that sorted out. Baby steps.

Re: the discussion of "crypto-currency" are you guys taking that stuff seriously? I'm not necessarily debunking I'm just not clear on how seriously it should be taken. Seems like a con game to me. Maybe best for another thread though . . .

ISS was not designed to "Flourish", its a medical/scientific test bed.

But just to make a point we need a factory in space so that we can build stuff that someday might flourish. As pointed out in the shuttle thread many times, we have stepped back from some of the stuff we could once do.

SLS is not the answer, not really to anything. And DSG (or LOP-'renamed') is simply too small and too far away from LEO to be anykind of useful.

The idea of Mars profitability in any foreseeable future is a joke, other than high dollar tourist wanting 'the mars experience'. Mars is a future medical scientific test bed. That's its one an only value.

 

[sevenperforce]

26 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Re: the discussion of "crypto-currency" are you guys taking that stuff seriously? I'm not necessarily debunking I'm just not clear on how seriously it should be taken. Seems like a con game to me. Maybe best for another thread though . . .

Cryptocurrency is in the early stages of existence. There's definitely a need for a digitally-transferable independent currency, and to that end altcoins have an intrinsic value, but the way they are being traded right now is pretty rotten.

Altcoin mining is not unlike mining any other rare item; you're simultaneously creating wealth and watering down the market. It's a little like coin scams. My parents got roped in by Royal Bank, a gold-coin-trading MLM scheme back in the early 90s which artificially inflated the value of minted gold coins, and once that scheme collapsed the gold coins lost their inflated value, but gold is still worth something. Cryptocurrency inflation precipitated by extremely enthusiastic trading may collapse spectacularly or may deflate slowly, but in either case the underlying commodity still has some intrinsic value.

Another potential value in offworld habitation is a tax or data haven. But typically that wouldn't require human operators.

[kerbiloid]

Meanwhile, designing my future KSP Martian base, I'm confused with a question: where should they keep the greenhouses?

The extraterrestrial colonization, including the Martian one, means that they want to farm plants, not only cryptomoney.
And the plants need light.
Here in KSP we have that great armored greenhouse part (originally made by Zzz).

Spoiler

It has thick protective doors, makes the light in the night and so on.

But as Mars doesn't have significant atmosphere and magnetosphere, we can expect radiation unhealthy or sometimes deadly for humans, animals, and plants, too.

So humans can live under a half-meter roof, from time to time hiding into an underground vault. Also they can take with them cats and maybe elephants.
But what about the plants? (And fishtanks?) We can't evacuate them.

Of course, we can use the same design like the shown above, but isn't it a little heavy to farm the plants widely?
And aren't these doors too thin to protect from the radiation?

Of course, in KSP the plants won't die during a solar flash (unless somebody makes such mod, lol), but irl. Where should we put such greenhouse on a Martian base? On a spaceship?

Edited February 28, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

Seems to me that what I'm talking about (a) safe space living; (b) economic prospecting of space and what you are talking about (c) manned space flight are, parallel, adjacent, very similar, if not identical.

Well, the thread is Mars colonization, so I might be aimed a little more specifically at Mars, and people (colonization). Exploitation of space (asteroid mining, etc) is another issue, and doesn't require people...

 

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Exploitation of space (asteroid mining, etc) is another issue, and doesn't require people...

Spoiler

Something went wrong...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Astronomical_origin_of_asteroid

 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Meanwhile, designing my future KSP Martian base, I'm confused with a question: where should they keep the greenhouses?

The extraterrestrial colonization, including the Martian one, means that they want to farm plants, not only cryptomoney.
And the plants need light.
Here in KSP we have that great armored greenhouse part (originally made by Zzz).

  Reveal hidden contents

It has thick protective doors, makes the light in the night and so on.

But as Mars doesn't have significant atmosphere and magnetosphere, we can expect radiation unhealthy or sometimes deadly for humans, animals, and plants, too.

So humans can live under a half-meter roof, from time to time hiding into an underground vault. Also they can take with them cats and maybe elephants.
But what about the plants? (And fishtanks?) We can't evacuate them.

Of course, we can use the same design like the shown above, but isn't it a little heavy to farm the plants widely?
And aren't these doors too thin to protect from the radiation?

Of course, in KSP the plants won't die during a solar flash (unless somebody makes such mod, lol), but irl. Where should we put such greenhouse on a Martian base? On a spaceship?

IOW you will be importing all your seed stock from Earth, because on mars they would in  a couple of generations entirely drifted from the original plant. Also count on the germination rate of Mars seeds to be hideously low.

LEDs are the way to go. If you are building surface green house.
Step 1. Drop a bulldozer. (Assumption is that its hydrolyic actuated Li+ battery driven with a pluggin either to fission power or solar power system.
Step 2. Make a deep trench.
Step 3. Get  a carbon-fiber truss and plate system and cover the trench
Step 4. Use bulldozer to cover the CF assembledge with the fine substate followed by the  stuff that was excavated from the trench.

 

[kerbiloid]

23 minutes ago, PB666 said:

IOW you will be importing all your seed stock from Earth, because on mars they would in  a couple of generations entirely drifted from the original plant. Also count on the germination rate of Mars seeds to be hideously low.

LEDs are the way to go. If you are building surface green house.
Step 1. Drop a bulldozer. (Assumption is that its hydrolyic actuated Li+ battery driven with a pluggin either to fission power or solar power system.
Step 2. Make a deep trench.
Step 3. Get  a carbon-fiber truss and plate system and cover the trench
Step 4. Use bulldozer to cover the CF assembledge with the fine substate followed by the  stuff that was excavated from the trench.

An underground greenhouse indeed at the moment looks the only way for me irl.

And that's appropriate for a station with a greenhouse as a toy or laboratory. No problem to have a 50 tonnes of vault for 100 kg of tomatoes, if these tomatoes are just to pleasure ten brave people and make some science.
Though even this looks like a luxury.

But if Mars was going to be colonized, where should they grow crops, vegetables, fruits?
Those glass domes from books are nice for photosynthesis, but no protection from the radiation.
And miles-wide underground plantations look not very realistic. Unless they are full with vats of algae instead of agricultural plants.

[wumpus]

24 minutes ago, PB666 said:

IOW you will be importing all your seed stock from Earth, because on mars they would in  a couple of generations entirely drifted from the original plant. Also count on the germination rate of Mars seeds to be hideously low.

This assumes that the radiation that Mars gets is worse than losing the sunlight that mars gets.  I'd note that the partial pressure of CO₂ on Earth is quite low (but I don't know the optimal amount for plant growth) and an inflatable greenhouse would probably make sense (depends on the pressure exerted by a Martain storm, making sure the surface can handle the sand abrasion and remain transparent might be key).  If you don't care about oxygen levels, inflatable buildings on Mars could easily make sense (especially for storage vs. sandstorms).

Also good luck trying to convince NASA to let you try germinating seeds on a rover.  The Planetary Protection Officer would likely perma-ban you from all NASA proposals.  It may take awhile before any research on Mars farming starts.

[T-10a]

Mars farming research may only happen with surface sample returns happen, and even then, only when we can get a worthwhile sample amount easily- only really possible with Mars Orbit infrastructure (Mars Base Camp, or the even more vaporware Deep Space Transport (whatever it'll be called now with the DSG renamed))

Worthwhile sample amount could mean either: (A) enough Martian soil to create a simulacrum for research elsewhere or (B) enough Martian soil to actually perform those experiments (and making all the other scientists annoyed at the fact you're hogging all the precious samples to contaminate for research)

[PB666]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

This assumes that the radiation that Mars gets is worse than losing the sunlight that mars gets.  I'd note that the partial pressure of CO₂ on Earth is quite low (but I don't know the optimal amount for plant growth) and an inflatable greenhouse would probably make sense (depends on the pressure exerted by a Martain storm, making sure the surface can handle the sand abrasion and remain transparent might be key).  If you don't care about oxygen levels, inflatable buildings on Mars could easily make sense (especially for storage vs. sandstorms).

Also good luck trying to convince NASA to let you try germinating seeds on a rover.  The Planetary Protection Officer would likely perma-ban you from all NASA proposals.  It may take awhile before any research on Mars farming starts.

Experiments have shown that plants grow better with LED than sunlight. Green light is inhibitory to the growth of many plants. The only thing that the PPO might be concerned with is your soil, not your seeds, there is an assumption that seeds will not germinate on Mars without assistence, the bacteria in the soil, provided a source of water might.

Greenhouses can start without any knowledge of Martian soil, plants can grow in pure compost, there is no need for substrate, substrate just makes horticulture easier, because the compost you need from the previous generation of plants in generally greater than the compost you will get from the current generation of plants. And since you don't want to be hauling compost from earth, remediating the martian soil will take work.

Edited February 28, 2018 by PB666

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Experiments have shown that plants grow better with LED than sunlight. Green light is inhibitory to the growth of many plants. The only thing that the PPO might be concerned with is your soil, not your seeds, there is an assumption that seeds will not germinate on Mars without assistence, the bacteria in the soil, provided a source of water might.

Greenhouses can start without any knowledge of Martian soil, plants can grow in pure compost, there is no need for substrate, substrate just makes horticulture easier, because the compost you need from the previous generation of plants in generally greater than the compost you will get from the current generation of plants. And since you don't want to be hauling compost from earth, remediating the martian soil will take work.

You would need to add more light anyway, and could presumably put a tint on the inflatable greenhouses (thus making really "green" houses).  It just seems easier to 'build' inflatables in a near-vacuum than dig the ditch and then build all the excess support for heavy, poisonous ground (even if it adds radiation shielding).  Note that Mars might just have "too much CO₂" for plants (something like 10 times Earth's partial pressure) and that increasing the pressure wouldn't work at all (thus don't try inflatables).  Do plants need oxygen at all?  I'm sure they don't bother with the Kreb's cycle, but I suspect that they could easily have various chemicals that contain oxygen.

I'd also expect to start with hydroponics, allowing them to increase carbon mass before working on compost (or perhaps both: supplementing with hydroponics until you have "enough" compost to feed the colonists (doesn't sound likely to ever get there)).

[kerbiloid]

Air composition/pressure, soil/substrate/hydroponics - all this is solvable. But what about the radiation shielding?

Say, in most of designs of extraplanetary ground bases (KSP or not) having some kind of greenhouse, we can see a glass dome, a glass vat, a trsnsparent inflatable dome with green plants happily growing under the sun light.
The same with heavy interplanetary spaceships. A greenhouse is just one more module in random place.

But if we just put any kind of greenhouse in such way: on the territory of a ground base, or sticking out from a spaceship, the plants would get lethal dose of radiation.
Maybe not right immediately, but very probably on the first radiation storm.
This makes doubtful the idea of growing something under the sunlight anywhere except the Earth surface.

So, say, if we are designing a small outpost with crew of 8, we can make a closed cylinder with plants and LEDs and bury it in the dungeon. I.e. we can just use KSP greenhouse in real life.
Or we can make a greenhouse made of meter-thick glass.
They would weight many times more than the plants growing inside, but we don't need to farm the plants for food, this is just for pleasure and science pleasure of science.

But if speak about a town-sized base requiring crops, fruits and so on, then growing crops in atomic shelter with 1..2 meters of concrete above every bush of tomatoes, this makes such agriculture look very doubtful.

P.S.
Originally I was/am just going to put several greenhouses on a wall of my future KSP ground base with crew of 8, to let them enjoy the sun.
But then this confused me: how realistic this would be? Wouldn't the first radiation storm kill'em all?
Even through these 20 cm thick retractable shields of KSP greenhouse, which is anyway much thinner than the top cover of the habitat.
So, okay, for the moment I can put them into a down space of my base, but what should the colonists do? They need much larger green area for food.

P.P.S.
Another problem never mentioned in Martian designs: dust.
How should they clean the base yard? Would they have a big rover with vacuum cleaner? A janitor? And what about the roofs?

Edited March 1, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tomf]

I think that radiation won't be too much of a problem for growing crops on the surface of mars. If you are growing crops that only take a fraction of an earth year to grow to maturity only a small fraction of those are going to sustain severe radiological damage and that isn't going to affect the nutritional content too much anyway ¹. The USSR  seems to have done experiments in exposing crops to radiation in the hope that it would boost yields ². You probably want to keep your seed crops underground grown under entirely artificial lights though.

At night plants do use oxygen and sugars to release energy and carbon diode, but at a much slower rate than they create oxygen during the day.

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Another problem never mentioned in Martian designs: dust.
How should they clean the base yard? Would they have a big rover with vacuum cleaner? A janitor? And what about the roofs?

A vacuum cleaner is going to be pretty ineffective in a near vacuum. I expect a janitor with a broom would work pretty well though.

¹http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/05/how-plants-survived-chernobyl

²https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033756063800149

 

[T-10a]

From what I remember, Apollo astronauts noted lunar soil smelt like gunpowder and got everywhere due to its tendency to cling. Aside from Martian wind being a PITA for rovers & probes, which would you guys prefer to clean up after on an extraterrestrial base? Lunar or Martian soil?

[sevenperforce]

54 minutes ago, T-10a said:

From what I remember, Apollo astronauts noted lunar soil smelt like gunpowder and got everywhere due to its tendency to cling. Aside from Martian wind being a PITA for rovers & probes, which would you guys prefer to clean up after on an extraterrestrial base? Lunar or Martian soil?

Lunar is definitely worse. 

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Lunar is definitely worse. 

RIght, at least if you start digging in Martian sandstone, eventually you will reach fragmentary stuff that was more like Earth dust (note after treating with water and antioxidant to remove the perchlorates). Again, once you get established underground, all you need to do is send some dope out from time to time to dust off the heat exchangers and solar panels when the dust devils do not do the same.

In my vision of Mars, though you find an area and you basically remove the dust by flow assisted vacuuming process and put some sort of CR/solar tolerant barrier say 10 meters up that basically keeps the heaviest dust away from the panels. Even a nice hill someplace will suffice. A second feature are tiltable panels that point vertical when a dust storm is on the way. You could even charge the dust and then place the same charge on the panels.