Surface transport for Martian volcanoes.

[farmerben]

 

It seems to me that the ideal place to prospect for valuable mineral ores on Mars are the large volcanoes, including Olympus Mons.  These high altitude sites might be ideal for other purposes as well, including slightly lower cost to obit.  However the lowland such as the north pole ice cap is worth stationing for fuel, water, and air.  So we have the need for transport between these regions.  What would be the ideal vehicle?  What sorts of road or track surfaces might be worth it to build on Mars.

An electric wheeled rover that can handle off-road terrain is probably first.  What comes next?

[darthgently]

12 minutes ago, farmerben said:

 

It seems to me that the ideal place to prospect for valuable mineral ores on Mars are the large volcanoes, including Olympus Mons.  These high altitude sites might be ideal for other purposes as well, including slightly lower cost to obit.  However the lowland such as the north pole ice cap is worth stationing for fuel, water, and air.  So we have the need for transport between these regions.  What would be the ideal vehicle?  What sorts of road or track surfaces might be worth it to build on Mars.

An electric wheeled rover that can handle off-road terrain is probably first.  What comes next?

Suborbital point to point?  Helos for smaller loads?  I'm thinking along the lines of least infrastructure and avoiding terrain altogether early on.  A rail system ultimately, but maybe some off-road cargo rovers early on with nuclear sterling power on board so they can roll day and night

[kerbiloid]

The Martian volcanoes have very high walls, so probably suborbital hoppers on cheap local storable propellant, produced from air (CO2 and N2) and ice (H2O), like C-Stoff und T-Stoff.

19 hours ago, farmerben said:

What sorts of road or track surfaces might be worth it to build on Mars.

Dust-protected. Any of them will be covered by dust very quickly.

So, maybe some planet-long reticular catwalks, to let the dust drop down through.

Upd.
Liquid ammonia (from N2 and H2O) and liquid oxygen for the orbit-surface shuttles.
With same T-Stoff for RCS.

Edited February 11 by kerbiloid

[farmerben]

Or maybe carbon monoxide and oxygen, as you can make that anywhere.

 

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, farmerben said:

Or maybe carbon monoxide and oxygen, as you can make that anywhere.

 

The shuttle lifts up, unloads, returns back. It doesn't stay fueled for long time. So, it can use cryogenic propellant.

The hopper may return in a day, or may stay for a month, or for a year. Or you may need to bring some propellant and refuel an empty hopper to return it back. You don't want a cryogenic equipment for that, mostly buckets.
So, storable components are required for the hopper.
C-Stoff and T-Stoff can be stored in barrels for years. You can make a fuel depot of them for operations far from the base.
While the cryogenic liquids can be stored only for several weeks, without the active cooling.

You have a lot of H₂O ice around, so you can produce H₂O₂.
It's good as a monopropellant fuel, as chemical agent, as hypergolic oxidizer, and hair bleacher.

By electrolyzing H₂O, you get a lot of H₂, and O₂.

By electrolyzing CO₂ (or by partially reducing it into C), you can produce CO.

CO and H₂ produce CH₃OH methanol.

Atmospheric N₂ and electrolytic H₂ produce NH₃ ammonia.
They anyway need it for all kinds of chemistry and farming, and as the cheapest possible coolant for cryo tech.

NH₃ and H₂O₂ (for example, as usually they use another way) will produce N₂H₄ hydrazine.

Both methanol and hydrazine are water solutions, so the hydrazine exists as hydrazine hydrate, and there is free water already mixed in.

So, you produce the methanol and hydrazine hydrate and store them in barrels, mostly for your chemical and fertilizer production.
When you need rocket fuel, you take as much as you need, and mix them into C-Stoff.
Also you take H₂O₂ and call it T-Stoff.
Then you add some alcali and permanganite ingredients (say, Z-Stoff for the T-Stoff) from flasks (you need not very much, so they are either imported from the Earth, or produced from the Martian ground). Interesting, can the perchlorates be used instead, to ignite the H2O2, as the Martian ground is rich of them.
And thus you get a cistern of C-Stoff fuel, and a cistern of T-Stoff oxidizer,both hypergolic and storable.
You can either pump them into the hopper tanks, or carry them to the field camp, to fuel the hopper later, in situ.

As you are producing a lot of ammonia as product, and liquid oxygen as by-product, you can use them as dense cryogenic propellant for the shuttles to orbit. They can survive a week or two in orbit, and the shuttle doesn't stay docked longer. It brings your Martian products to the orbital base and returns back.

Also, you can use this propellant (C & T Stoffs) as fuel for various on-ground field equipment.
Also you can use pure T-Stoff itself, but it's weaker.

Edited February 11 by kerbiloid

[cubinator]

Re: high volcano walls: Run a ski/cable lift down the side.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Atmospheric N₂ and electrolytic H₂ produce NH₃ ammonia.

Mars atmosphere is 95% CO₂ and 3% N₂:  very little available nitrogen.

[Nuke]

hydrogen airships? i guess with a big enough gas bag it would work. without an o2 atmosphere it wont hindenburg. 

[farmerben]

Just now, Nuke said:

hydrogen airships? i guess with a big enough gas bag it would work. without an o2 atmosphere it wont hindenburg. 

Because of the low air density on Mars the lifting performance is approximately 200 times worse than airships on Earth.    It has to be huge just to lift it's own envelope.  And then you're at the mercy of the wind.

[kerbiloid]

16 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Mars atmosphere is 95% CO₂ and 3% N₂:  very little available nitrogen.

Yes. That's why I suggest to save it, and use as less hydrazine as possible, mixing it with methanol.

The storable alternative is hydrocarbon fuel, a pseudo-kerosene, synthesized from methane, which is produced from CO2 and H2O.
But I would expect much greater mass of required equipment (actually, a whole oil plant), while N2 mining needs just gas separation plant and patience.

As they anyway need ammonia for any serious chemistry or farming, the NH3 production looks much more viable that hydrocarbons one.

As a bonus: by producing NH3, they make available local production of explosives for serious geology, and dense, storable fuel for the space ships to send them back to the Earth.

17 hours ago, cubinator said:

Re: high volcano walls: Run a ski/cable lift down the side.

Yes. But the volcanoes are also 500 km wide, so you also need several weeks to travel by wheels, spending supplies and with risk of damage.
And before having the roads built, you will probably be needing to hop there and back again, above the rocky wastelands.

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

hydrogen airships? i guess with a big enough gas bag it would work. without an o2 atmosphere it wont hindenburg. 

0.001 atm on top of the hill, and 0.01 atm at the foot.
It's > 30 km at the Earth. Even the last year UFO airships don't fly so high.

P.S.
Also, they need heavy equipment, like drills. Usually powered from diesel or petrol motor.
So, at the field camp they need either portable reactor, or a huge field of solar panels, and anyway several kilometer long cables.

Or a chemical engine. Say, using same C-Stoff + T-Stoff to power a turbine or an MHD generator right at the drill.

I mean, at the research camp, of course. The industrial mine can use the reactor.

A sun-powered rover brings barrels from the field camp warehouse to the drill, and they pour the fuel into the drill tank for the high-power drilling motor.

Edited February 12 by kerbiloid

[farmerben]

42 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

 

Or a chemical engine. Say, using same C-Stoff + T-Stoff to power a turbine or an MHD generator right at the drill.

I

you could patent that

[farmerben]

I didn't find ISP information for C-stoff and T-stoff.  There is a lot of water on those, but the storability advantage could be huge.  What temperatures do they freeze or separate I wonder?

I was considering the possibility of water pipes on Mars.  You might need bulk water from the poles or Valles Marineras but the pipes would freeze with ordinary liquid water.  

When we get to the point of wanting to move tons of ice thousands of kilometers on Mars, surface transport starts to look good again.  A railway with regenerative braking could bring its diggings down to pay for the energy of the lighter load of ice going up.  Cog driven systems are perfect at low speeds.  On the other hand two rail system can simply be your hot AC transmission line in the form of a rail.  At least for now nobody is worried about safe crossings.  If you can build poles to support overhead cables, then you can build railway sleepers.  Probably easier since stone and even ice can make rail sleepers, but not poles.

Edited February 12 by farmerben

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, farmerben said:

you could patent that

The V-2 and R-7 turbopumps are rotated by H2O2 decomposition products.

MHD can work on any fuel.

A turbine needs just any expanding gas.

The reason why the C-Stoff was abandoned is that post-WWII countries live on a planet with oxygen atmosphere and rich with natural oil.
The Mars isn't.

3 hours ago, farmerben said:

I didn't find ISP information for C-stoff and T-stoff.

http://www.airpowerworld.info/aircraft-engine-manufacturers/walter-hwk-109-509.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_HWK_109-509

Its ISP is low, about 180 s,
(17 300 N / 8 kg/s / 9.81 m/s2)

It's not a fuel of choice when you have alternatives.
But poor conditions sometimes need poor solutions.

3 hours ago, farmerben said:

What temperatures do they freeze or separate I wonder?

0 .. 2° C (water and hydrazine freeze).

But it's easier to keep a hangar +4°C warm than cryotanks -200°C cold.

Also maybe it's wise not to keep it mixed (to store the hydrazine hydrate apart), so methanol can stay liquid even outdoors most part of the year.

Edited February 12 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

_(multipost)

Edited February 12 by kerbiloid