Real ISRU Development Thread

[Dr. Jet]

On 06.11.2015, 8:28:54, Daishi said:

Any progress on the modelling front, Dr Jet? Hope you've overcome that Sabatier problem.

Nope. Was out of modding business since summer and still have very little spare time. Haven't even properly updated my own mod. Too much work IRL. Hopefully will have some rest and spare time at new year holidays.

Again - the trouble with Sabatier - is that I have no single picture that shows the reactor itself - only the full assemblies with scrubber, electrolyser, pumps and such. And I can't figure out what is where and how all this shit is interconnected. Fantastic interpretations are no good for RISRU too, that's a mod about realism afterall.

All I need for Sabatier is a simple draft - what parts are really important for Sabatier (except the main chamber) and how they should look and interconnect (including the main chamber).

P.S. Also have got a nice photo of RL fischer-tropsch unit. It consists or 3 tanks, 6 chambers and 4 pumps (not counting gauges and valves) - possible to draw and fit, but the pipes... there are too many and I can't comprehend what goes where...

[AngelLestat]

Someone knows if this mod is working in the 1.05 version?

[Dr. Jet]

On 26.12.2015 at 8:16 PM, AngelLestat said:

Someone knows if this mod is working in the 1.05 version?

It should.

Though I cannot push collider updates for 1.0.5 (did them 5 minutes ago)

D:\projects> cd .\RealISRU
D:\projects\RealISRU [master]> git status
On branch master
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

nothing to commit, working directory clean
D:\projects\RealISRU [master]> git push
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/doktorjet/RealISRU.git/': Failed con
nect to github.com:443; No error
D:\projects\RealISRU [master]>

GitHub is driving me mad. Not a single sane error message that can tell me why damn thing is not syncing.

[Dr. Jet]

Synced at last... 

Seems that my antivirus integrated brandmauer hates it. Dunno why.

[Dr. Jet]

Real thing for Fischer-Tropsch process. Now just to comprehend what connects where...

[Dr.LoveJoy]

Hey folks. I haven't had time to re-read everything here, but I am getting the idea :-) I absolutely love the depth people are going into with processes!!!

There are a few points I wanted to make/ask about (and I admit I am leaving out a lot of smaller details and smearing over some things to make it simpler):

Summary point: Electrical power plants give us the very most bang for the buck we can get as far as multi-use technology, so we could look at what we can do with it chemically to reduce the need to ship bulk feedstocks, complicated (and delicate) equipment, and losses during chemical transformation steps. We could also look at how we can make things smaller and/or simpler.

• Sabatier and Fischer-Tropsch (and generally, almost any) processes are large if they are designed for continuous process. They can be smaller for batch process.. much smaller in fact. But, the apparatus wouldnt produce as much over time, and would have to be reset by a person (kerbal) somehow.. perhaps an engineer or scientist. Industrial processes can be adapted to batch form and made very portable. So, this may be a way to make smaller units for a small bootstrap base/colony as a sort of Tier 1. Adding robots to do this work for you would get back to the large size problem, but might be a good example of multi-use technology, if we assume we can make robots with multi use capabilities in the not so far future.
• There are many other ways to produce these various chemicals that are needed for sustenance and fuel that are not used on Earth industrially because they are not cost effective.. on Earth. On another planet is an entirely different question. (De)Methylation, for example, of an organic material can be accomplished literally hundreds of ways, with varying yields and results.
• Catalytic organic chem processes are much simpler to run than their industrial counterparts, but take a long time. Very little energy input usually, though.
• Microwave chemistry along with ultrasonic chemistry is currently being used to accomplish a lot of interesting things in various baseline and green chemical processes, and usually only require some sort of substrate (like zeolite) to replace the heavy duty oxidizers or catalysts and etc that are normally used.
• I would think preference would be given to any electrolytic form of a process that exists, even if it is not in current use industrially, as this allows a simple way to oxidize and/or reduce things in huge numbers of ways using only one basic thing.. electricity (and some sort of electrolyte, which is often renewable)
• What we would probably use on another planet at first for all of this is simple hydrocarbons, since they can be made from water and carbon. Nitrogenous compounds would not be easy to make if the remote environment were not rich in nitrogenous things, or didn't have a nitrogen atmosphere. If, on the other hand, there were a Nitrogen atmosphere, you could make Nitric (and Nitrous, though is is usually oxidized to make more Nitric) acid from electricity, Nitrogen and water, and then use that reacted with any local carbonate material to make Nitrates. Which could then be used to make high energy nitrogen compounds... or  you could use it directly, but I would think you would want to store it as Nitrates. Mind you.. if there are no nitrogenous compounds on planet.. we'd be in serious food trouble. We would have to import a lot of nitrate anyway.
• Given the above, I would think we would be developing Alkane (Methane, Ethane) and Alcohol rockets, power sources, heating/cooling plants and for general use, and the exotic stuff would be reserved for special cases. So I don't honestly think that anyone would put in the energy to develop a method to produce UDMH, for example, on Mars.. at least, not for awhile. Oxygen can be stored in various intermediates as well, without the need to store it as liquid. Methane obviously can easily be stored as liquid, as can almost any alcohol. I mean, for high test use, wouldn't we be looking at things like Pentanol or Hexanol? Hexanol would pack a damn good punch, and all you need to produce it other than O2, H2 and C is some ethylated Aluminum, which is regenerated as an oxide of aluminum when you're done with it. I haven't looked it up, but I am guessing you could build Hexanol another way that didn't use that process, given that it looks just like a series of hydroformylations/hydrogenations away from Methanol... that is to say, you can use a process that needs no Aluminim to do it from 1-pentanol, and I don't see any reason this process couldn't be adapted to smaller chain alcohols. In practice, you would end up with a mixture at the end, which you would purify by distillation, so the yield would be poor.. however the remaining fractions could undergo the process again and you could get more.

What I am suggesting is this: We know that there is a lot of Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon out there in space (that are relatively easy to get to). We can't say the same with surety for NItrogenous or metallic compounds. Also, we might be on a planet that is abundant in, for example, sulfur, so we might look at using that as an agent to help us along. But in 100% of cases, we KNOW we will find O2, H2 and C. In some form. If we don't, it's unlikely we would want to do anything on that particular rock anyway, regardless. So.. 

I would start with simple hydrocarbons and stay away from nitrogenous compounds to start. Then all you need to do is ship a hell of a lot of solar panels (we have solar cells now that are very light per watt) and batteries, and you would be able to bootstrap a base with only food, luxury goods and machine parts as inputs.

This restricts the rocket engines you can use, sure. But we know a Methane powered rocket is not only possible, but likely to be developed to a high level of perfection in the next couple of years. We also know that Methanol can be used as a fuel cell input directly, and that alcohol is a viable propellant.

Then, there are potentially hydrogen blimps that could be used as transport and drone stock, if a planet had a decent atmosphere and not a lot of wind. You could have rovers with in situ solar recharging, and a small alcohol fuel cell for emergency power.  Electric "gliders' for long range flight, perhaps heavier than air ones (partially hydrogen buoyed).. And so on.

At some point you would find nitrogen containing minerals, salts, or etc. Then..

Now you can produce NItric Acid by the cart load and make whatever you like from it. Ammonium Nitrate is the first thing that comes to mind, which is a great way to store nitrogen, and also is a good fertilizer. Then we would only need to solve the P and K part of the plant biology spectrum to make things realistic enough.

At this point, If you want a hypergolic propellant, then NTO+Hydrazine (straight up) will do, and anhydrous Hydrazine can be produced from liquid Ammonia, electrolytically (1958). NTO can produced catalytically from Ammonia (1950's), so you have a handy single source feedstock for this stuff. All you need to make either one is O2, N2 and H2. And producing ammonia is also possible electrolytically, at a lower temperature than Haber-Bosch (2005). So you could now have a high power hypergolic propellant with pretty much only the things you have found lying about on the ground, or in the atmosphere, and some solar.

The people would be bringing along the bacterial cultures you need for food production (aka, you would use feces and urine as an addendum to your soil system to make it properly balanced) so you don't need to worry about that. You could also ship soil samples in suspended form to preserve the unique qualities of each biome you wanted to replicate. Etc etc. All of that could be contained in a 'soil science' module.

In other words, just producing food, water, O2 and purifying out toxins for exhaust or reuse in situ will be very hard, but doable fairly quickly, as long as there is a supply and comms  line back to Earth to work out the kinks, plenty of power, and there is enough emergency food and water there to sustain the populace for as long as it will be between "now' and ' the next time you can launch a resupply or rescue'. And that's just Tier One. Maybe that's what the focus would be at first?

So.. some thoughts. I hope this helps the process!!

 

Edited January 7, 2016 by Dr.LoveJoy
adding too many details :-)

[Dr.LoveJoy]

Also, perhaps this reference may help:

 

http://voitlab.com/courses/thermodynamics/index.php?title=Co-Electrolysis_of_CO2_and_H2O_to_Create_Fuel_and_Oxygen_on_Mars

I would ignore the cost estimates though.. they have just gone down given SpaceX's accomplishment.

 

PS: Just read the last three pages and I see people are all into thinking about this stuff. Hope my notes help ping some ideas :-)

Edited January 7, 2016 by Dr.LoveJoy

[Aristaeus]

Hi there,

This looks like a really great mod. Realistic ISRU is something missing from the KSP mod community. I've had a look at the github, and commits have been infrequent lately. I haven't modded KSP before, but I have a bit of programming experience and a lot of free time. Is there anything I can do to help?

[Sardaukar]

Hello Everybody and a big thnx to all modders...

Last Night i figured out how to get the ice drill and liquefaction process working...

So this is my solution:

\Kerbal\GameData\RealISRU\Parts\scienceDrill\part.cfg   --->  change Ore to Water       (case sensitive)

\Kerbal\GameData\RealISRU\Parts\MMparts\Refrigerator.cfg ---> change lqdHydrogen to LqdHydrogen     (and all the other resources... needed just Hydrogen for my Nerva ;-)         (case sensitive)

 

Have a nice day everyone

 

cu in Space

[Sardaukar]

Still testing (playing around) with this awesome mod...  Can u please tell me were to find the resource definitions for phobos and deimos... cause i can´t find water there.... thnx a lot.

[Tanuki Time]

Hi, love the mod and love the use of realistic resources. One problem though - How the heck do you actually extract resources besides from the atmosphere? E.g., using drills and ore, etc. Everything works well except that I cannot seem to figure out how to extract resources (water, etc.) to use and refine from planets/asteroids using Real ISRU. Any help or suggestions? Thanks!

[Phineas Freak]

This is a mod under development, meaning that features may not still exist or may not be fully implemented. Surface resource harvesting is one of the features not implemented yet.

[Tanuki Time]

I see, thank you so much for replying. Any suggestions then for using existing drills, ore, etc, to convert it into, let's say water? I'm only so so at figuring out how to edit all this in config files, so any ideas of what to change to make that work with Real ISRU would be very appriciated. Thank you again!

[Sardaukar]

the icedrill and the liquefier works with a little editing...  read my post ;-)

I am refueling on moon now... (takes a lot of time so ;-)

[Tanuki Time]

Thanks, I'll try it out!

[hypervelocity]

this is a GREAT addition to the realism suite of mods !!!!!!! many thanks for taking on this endeavour !!!! I am eagerly downloading now and very hopeful the development continues !!!!!

[Dr. Jet]

AT LAST!!! A comprehensible Sabatier unit design!

http://www.tda.com/Library/docs/05ICES_Paper_31_TDA_051305_revised.pdf

Let's think...

As we already have PSA unit for atmospheric CO₂ extraction and at the same time have some air scrubbers in manned parts by default (assuming TAC LS), we don't need the sorbent part - just some CO₂ tank to be fed from...

Then we need a fan or gas pump to make gas flow...

Then we have TWO sabatier chambers - both 4 inches in diameter, but one is inside 6 inches vacuum tube...

And some thermoexchanger thingy... can't see it on photo, but can imagine how it looks...

And some tanks... H₂, CO₂ and CH₄ - some of them or all of them...

The only question remaining - should I make it insulated or not insulated? For orbital usage insulation is not needed, but for atmospheric usage it's useful. 

[stratochief66]

I used the data from this paper and have added a complete set of Sabatier-Electrolisis-Reverse Water Gas Shift parts tailored to Mars ISRU that are now in RealISRU

http://www.pioneerastro.com/Team/RZubrin/Mars_In-Situ_Resource_Utilization_Based_on_the_Reverse_Water_Gas_Shift_Experiments_and_Mission_Applications.pdf
 

Enjoy!

[keys72]

How far along in development is this mod? Is the Fischer-Tropsch process for Kerosene working?

[Dr. Jet]

Sabatier unit model almost finished.

Unconnected pipe should lead to radiator, which separates water vapor from methane. Thus I need two more tanks to place along with radiator itself... Kinda tricky. No ideas yet. 

Edited March 27, 2016 by Dr. Jet

[Dr. Jet]

Radiator from Fuel Cell unit fitted nicely, thus solving a tank layout complication. 
Hydrogen tank is ridiculously small... but re-connecting to make it lowermost (100 liter) is not a good idea. 100 liter is still TOO small.

And now question to the audience... Should I make some kind of control panel? Without it there is literally nothing to be animated. Single valve there is set only once - to choose flow separation rate.

 

P.S. I completely forgot how to convert liters to KSP units.

Edited March 27, 2016 by Dr. Jet

[hypervelocity]

Jet, this is looking gorgeous! can't wait!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the control panel question... wouldn't this unit be controlled directly from the command pod systems' interface?? I am absolutely ignorant about this

[Dr. Jet]

7 minutes ago, hypervelocity said:

Jet, this is looking gorgeous! can't wait!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the control panel question... wouldn't this unit be controlled directly from the command pod systems' interface?? I am absolutely ignorant about this

Purely cosmetical thing. A couple of LEDs and/or gauges to animate like on other hex RISRU parts. 

[hypervelocity]

ahhh cool, why not???? many many thanks Jet for this work!!!!!

[Dr. Jet]

Fast ingame check.

 

Hm-m-m... tanks holders were left unpainted... and no animation yet. Animation takes TIME... as well as less crappy textures...