Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[sevenperforce]

8 minutes ago, PB666 said:

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.

 

Or high-pressure airjets to scour the panels.

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, PB666 said:

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.

(That's more or less what I am planning for my KSP base. From one side - hangars for rovers, from another side - a several meters thick wall with unpressurized cargo containers inside and probably several greenhouses just for fun on top.
6..8 meters at foot, 2.5 storeys high. They will protect the inner yard (covered with a roof which is covered with regolith) from dust, rover collisions, and radiation. So, I was on correct way.)

But there is an outer yard, where rovers run, turn, couple-decouple, load-unload and so on. And it's much larger than the inhabitated part of the base itself, and it will be covered with dust after every sandstorm.
Walls will not protect it, because sandstorms come from above.

So I guess irl the Martian colonists will face this problem.

For the moment the mass dust cleaning and greenhouses radioprotection look like two problems which I have no idea what to advice them about.

Spoiler

Except building pyramides, of course. Dust will not stick on it, greenhouses can be inside.

A hollow transparent pyramide made of several meters thick glass with a concrete ziggurate inside with greenhouses placed on its terraces

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Green Baron]

Hehe, when computer game and fantasy blend :-)

Marsian "sandstone" isn't comparable to the rock hard Mojave formation, if that's what you think. Less gravity, less lasting quartz at the distal end of weathering formed even through billions of marsian years. There is no diagenesis like on earth, that can build compacted layers of rock that were buried under a few (not many) kilometers of sediments and then eroded free again during crustal lift. Nasa uses the word "sandstone" very freely on the Marsian pictures. Just keep in mind: the processes that formed these things on Mars are assumed to have stopped billions of years ago, while on earth they are still up and running.

In general, Marsian dust and sediments are very fine grained, more fieldspar- than quartz rich, less hard, more porous. I'd rather guess that Marsian "colonists", if they ever exist, will rather step away from the soft sediments, dust off the ubiquitous basalts and dig into them. Still they'd probably have to stabilize them as they are more porous and soft than earthly lava, but that'll be imo the better approach.

But, really, i don't pretend that i am correct, just fantasizing :-)

[kerbiloid]

20 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

In general, Marsian dust and sediments are very fine grained, more fieldspar- than quartz rich, less hard, more porous

That's exactly what I'm awaiting from the Martian ground.
My Martian colonists outposters _{otherwise Tater will disagree} can just put several cargo containers as a wall basement,  stick several lightweight aluminium columns around, pour inside Martian gravel, surround this with bags filled with sand, and cover with wire mesh to keep its form.
Like this, but much more massive and armored with cargo containers and aluminium bars.

Spoiler

This requires containers (already there), aluminium bars (a few of them), and empty bags. And wire mesh.

Edited March 3, 2018 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

They are colonist if they make babies. If not their either a retirement community or an outpost. We could add and if the babies survive (we would not want it to be another Jonestown fiasco.)
So thats all the thing, to get Tater credibility you need to have lots of surviving babies crying at the top of their lungs . . . ."please take us back to Earth".

[kerbiloid]

About greenhouses. Got it.

Martian greenhouse would be anyway hydroponics, so contain a lot of water.
They can make glass roof and glass ceiling and use 30..50 cm between them as a water tank.

So, the glass water tank above the head will be semi-transparent and let the sunlight get in. Like on laguna bottom.

It will raise the greenhouse thermal inertia thanks to great water heat capacity.
It will protect the inner space from UV totally and decrease average radiation dose down to tenths rem per year. (2x5 cm of quarz glass + 30 cm of water = 50 g/cm²)
Massive solar flashes will hurt the plants once per decade, but we can say the same about moths and weevils. On Mars there are no moths and weevils rather than on Earth.

They can bring an empty greenhouse from the Earth and then fill it with Martian water.

And KSP standard greenhouse should be imagined as it is a mini oceanarium.

Spoiler

Like this, but with tomatoes and without fishes.

So, a problem of colonists' greenhouses is probably more or less solved.
They still have to find a way to broom the unprotected yard.

Edited March 4, 2018 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

18 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

About greenhouses. Got it.

Martian greenhouse would be anyway hydroponics, so contain a lot of water.
They can make glass roof and glass ceiling and use 30..50 cm between them as a water tank.

So, the glass water tank above the head will be semi-transparent and let the sunlight get in. Like on laguna bottom.

It will raise the greenhouse thermal inertia thanks to great water heat capacity.
It will protect the inner space from UV totally and decrease average radiation dose down to tenths rem per year. (2x5 cm of quarz glass + 30 cm of water = 50 g/cm²)
Massive solar flashes will hurt the plants once per decade, but we can say the same about moths and weevils. On Mars there are no moths and weevils rather than on Earth.

They can bring an empty greenhouse from the Earth and then fill it with Martian water.

And KSP standard greenhouse should be imagined as it is a mini oceanarium.

  Reveal hidden contents

Like this, but with tomatoes and without fishes.

So, a problem of colonists' greenhouses is probably more or less solved.
They still have to find a way to broom the unprotected yard.

No problem, when the glass breaks the dust will wash away. Problem solved.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

when the glass breaks the dust will wash away

It will make a pool of mud. Then a spot of dry mud.

Cleaning of solar panels is a necessity. Otherwise they will give less energy.
But the dust from panels will fall under them, on the ground.

Modules, antennas, and sensors require the cleaning, too.
And dust will lay around them.

Rovers may rove between the modules, but thick layer of dust doesn't make this easier.

If your base is covered with dust, you have to clean more dust from your spacesuit every time when entering an airlock.
This would overload the air cleaning system more and more.

So anyway you have either to broom your long-lasting base to the bare rock, or make kind of concrete layer or whatever solid, and then place your base on it.
And then you have to broom the base from time to time.

This makes no problem on Earth thanks to air freeware.
But how should they broom a place say 100x100 m on Mars.

Edited March 5, 2018 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

19 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

It will make a pool of mud. Then a spot of dry mud.

Cleaning of solar panels is a necessity. Otherwise they will give less energy.
But the dust from panels will fall under them, on the ground.

Modules, antennas, and sensors require the cleaning, too.
And dust will lay around them.

Rovers may rove between the modules, but thick layer of dust doesn't make this easier.

If your base is covered with dust, you have to clean more dust from your spacesuit every time when entering an airlock.
This would overload the air cleaning system more and more.

So anyway you have either to broom your long-lasting base to the bare rock, or make kind of concrete layer or whatever solid, and then place your base on it.
And then you have to broom the base from time to time.

This makes no problem on Earth thanks to air freeware.
But how should they broom a place say 100x100 m on Mars.

Actually dust accumulates only slowly on downfacing surfaces, if you simply invert the panels during dust storms that will attenuate most of the dust problems on panels, but on the glass greenhouses, there is no way  to tilt tons of glass and water. So you will require much more frequent cooling.

 

[tater]

This seems to belong here:

 

[kerbiloid]

There are several more videos on their channel, including a meditative 1.5 h long video of a roboarm melancholically buttering the floor with clay.

The interiors of their buildings look nice, but the whole picture looks not viable.

1. Thin walls.
So, a poor rad-protection. Nuff said.

2. Standalone small buildings.
So a great area/voulme ratio. Loss of heat, more leaks, more dust to clean.
A large complex buildng is much better.

3. Vertical planning.
The heavy legacy of the medieval towns, mountain towers, suburban cottages.
Towers always look great, and running all day long up and down is a good training (especially while you are young and healthy).
But unlikely it's a sane way to plan the mass habitat.
A large wide multistorey buildng is much better. You don't need to run vertically from a room to a room.

4. Open stairways without handrails.
Every night they'd be awaken by the scream "Jeronimo-o-o!" and know that somebody sleepy was walking to the restroom.

5. High ceilings.
A half of the room volume is unused and hard to clean. So, the ceilings would be grey, not white.
Better make a catwalk around the atrium. Then ceilings are high, everything can be touched by hands and washed, all voulme is used.
Like any archaic 2-storey stoney house with inner yard, but covered with the ceiling.
Why show off when everything good is already invented?

5. "Environmental" design with no clear shapes, like you are living inside a coral reef.
Has some estetic advantages, of course. But for fans.
Btw, in the Niven's books they were just growing GMO corals to build houses.

6. Those silly spacesuits with suitports, staying outdoors.
A fantastically stupid idea.

***

Nice movies and the roboarm is great.

[tater]

I think they say that the plastic offers good radiation protection. I know the skylight on  top is water-filled, perhaps the void between the outer layers (the outer shell is an inner and outer wall with an air gap) is water filled as well?

As for the other considerations, while I tend to agree (particularly the stairs without a rail, lol), the other way to think about it is that since it is robot-built, the only cost would be the plastic stock (it's mixed with regolith), so perhaps the goal is not efficiency, but space.

I'd like to see them show their work on radiation protection to be sure.

[wumpus]

The "large complex building" would be largely be limited to how many windows you want, and if you want occupied areas to contain windows.  Presumably you would have large multistoried buildings with storage/utility areas in the middle and living quarters/work spaces around the perimeter (yes this isn't good for radiation, but anything that gets the surface/volume under control will have a large advantage for radiation).

Stairs without rails might happen, but I'd suggest living in .38g before removing them.

The "tower" on the cover of the linked video might be a start, but I'd expect a much more squat building to be the final iteration.

[tater]

21 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The "tower" on the cover of the linked video might be a start, but I'd expect a much more squat building to be the final iteration.

They actually address their rationale for the tower in their first video (which you can agree with or not, lol):

 

 

[tater]

I'd say (having just rewatched the original video) that they should put the sleeping quarters at the bottom, and pile regolith around the base.

One thing about their concept that to me is a fail (they show it as a colonization habitat, not a Mars mission habitat (kids and old people shown)), is the lack of connectivity, though that is a printing issue, and could be addressed.

Ie: They should show these habs built next to each other, with a part like the windows that is a hatch, then a connecting tube to the next habitat. The suit ports make sense in the way they have shown this, since there is no airlock (and the dust would be a dangerous mess). The trouble of course is that in their video examples, the kids are trapped in the hab forever, or until they are large enough to wear a suit (only 2 people can leave at a time). So the renders of these things spread out is really goofy.

[kerbiloid]

50 minutes ago, wumpus said:

how many windows you want

Looking at the real world desert houses

Spoiler

, probably not very much.

That's more viable extraterrestrial interior planning for me:

Spoiler

 

And the hollow tower from "Les deux mondes" / "Two worlds" (2007) looks almost ideal for a small 3d-printed settlement.
(Without the handrails, just like you prefer.)
In the movie it's shown more detailed.

Spoiler

 

50 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Presumably you would have large multistoried buildings with storage/utility areas in the middle and living quarters/work spaces around the perimeter

As anyway you can't open the windows or get a solar bath, I would hide the rooms in the inner part of the building, leaving galleries to look at the desert.
And sensor displays with screensavers or images on every wall to show the people that the life is still boiling around.
A big multistorey atrium kinda a park.

Exactly to keep the sapient objects  in the safest part of the base.

Probably I would make a multistorey recreational greenhouse with transparent water tanks made of glass on top, but anyway it would be isolated from the habitat section.

50 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Stairs without rails might happen, but I'd suggest living in .38g before removing them.

Falling from 1 m here is not nice, too.
As well as standing below.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

17 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Looking at the real world desert houses

I have rather a lot of windows, though most tend to be small (adobe house, thick walls).

Windows are important, but the real concern is radiation. Their design is good in this regard, because there is the out wall with windows, then that inner wall, so that most of the time the people get the light, without direct LOS out the window. Seems like a more realistic hab might be more like a hobbit house, but with deep eaves (regolith covered) out from all windows, so that only GCRs from the sliver of available view can make it in. You'd also not put such windows in sleeping quarters.

[wumpus]

31 minutes ago, tater said:

I have rather a lot of windows, though most tend to be small (adobe house, thick walls).

Windows are important, but the real concern is radiation. Their design is good in this regard, because there is the out wall with windows, then that inner wall, so that most of the time the people get the light, without direct LOS out the window. Seems like a more realistic hab might be more like a hobbit house, but with deep eaves (regolith covered) out from all windows, so that only GCRs from the sliver of available view can make it in. You'd also not put such windows in sleeping quarters.

Or LOS to landscape, not the Sun or cosmic radiation.  Or you might build a large dome atrium and have all the "windows" facing inward.  While Martian colonists are likely to be a pretty weird bunch, you can probably expect that they will want to live in buildings with windows.

Looks like they have a bunch of windows in Antarctica, although I can't say what rooms can see out of them: https://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/modern_antarctic_bases3.php

[kerbiloid]

45 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Or LOS to landscape

@tater's outside landscape is a feast of life compared to the Martian desert.

No trees, no clouds, no birds. No sounds.

Sometimes a rover is passing by or a dust whirl.

Also you can wash the windows from outside. On Mars it's more challenging, while a lot of dust is always around.

P.S.
I was thinking: what if one is flying in a ship for several years where the Voyager is.
What would he see?

Absolutely motionless sky behind the windows. No weather. Nothing at all except stars.
But he's breathing inside the ship, he's feeling well. No visible danger, no reasons to worry.
How much time will it take for him to get mad and think that the world outside the ship is just another room and get out without a suit?

The same with the motionless Mars.
I'm sure they would prefer not to see the Martian desert for years. A kind of escapism.
Like sitting at home near the fire in the winter night ignoring the outside world.

Edited February 8, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

21 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

@tater's outside landscape is a feast of life compared to the Martian desert.

When I moved to New Mexico I thought it was a brow wasteland compared to where I grew up in New England. Now I find NE oppressively green, lol. NM is not super dry, but I have traveled to legitimate deserts, that are Mars-like in terms of visible life (the Sahara, for example). They are still stunning to look at.

If I was living on Mars (not that I'd want to), I'd want to see this out the window:

 

A long time ago I made this lousy drawing for what a hab might look like in cross section:

You put is so that it looks at some landscape feature (a crater wall?) that blocks most LOS to the sky when combined with the overhang. The orange is a metric crap-ton of regolith on the roof.

[kerbiloid]

In Sahara you can get out.

(Without a suit, I mean.)

Edited February 8, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

19 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

In Sahara you can get out.

(Without a suit, I mean.)

No argument. I'm not a "colonize Mars" person, it makes no sense to me. None the less, I like the idea of robotically constructed architecture, and this fits the bill for Occupy Mars! aficionados.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, tater said:

I have rather a lot of windows, though most tend to be small (adobe house, thick walls).

Windows are important, but the real concern is radiation. Their design is good in this regard, because there is the out wall with windows, then that inner wall, so that most of the time the people get the light, without direct LOS out the window. Seems like a more realistic hab might be more like a hobbit house, but with deep eaves (regolith covered) out from all windows, so that only GCRs from the sliver of available view can make it in. You'd also not put such windows in sleeping quarters.

Interestingly, there’s this dome design in Surviving Mars. Can’t find any images online, unsurprisingly. Slaps some horizontal “blinds” onto the the usual plastic bubble to blot out most of the direct sunlight.

Soft sci-fi game, but not a bad idea.

13 minutes ago, tater said:

this fits the bill for Occupy Mars! aficionados.

Well, what also suits them is ignoble failure, as it did the first Occupy... movement.

[<Joseph kerman>]

colonizing mars should be on the top of the to - do list. however, it would inflict health issues on the inhabitants. radiation is one of the main issues, but it is too cold and infertile to grow plants on the surface. also mars dust is really fine and the spacesuits are almost impossible to clean so they would probably have to dock on the outside of the base. but if we could warm mars up a little, we could grow some potted plants. earth plants inhale C02 and exhale oxygen.this could be a major step in terraforming mars. if there was more oxygen, an atmosphere could form, warming the planet, causing the ice caps to melt, finishing the process.

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum, @<Joseph kerman>.  I used to be a believer in colonizing Mars until I realized the difficulties involved - even if you could terraform Mars (no small feat) you would still have the problem of solar wind and cosmic radiation bombardment because of the lack of a magnetosphere.  I have read of a proposal of placing a solar shade at one of the LaGrange points (it would need to be many kilometers in diameter) to mitigate this problem but you are still left with a colony that requires just about everything to be delivered from Earth, at constant peril of disaster.  Other issues are that we just don't know if animal reproduction is viable at low G's and such an endeavor would require huge amounts of cash and resources.

The discussions here on the subject have led me to believe orbital outposts are more viable until we discover better propulsion and energy production methods and we know more about long term space habitation.