Mars Direct Mission by Dr. Robert Zubrin

[TomKerbal]

 @magnemoe I see it similarly. My first HAB also has four wheels and carries two harvesters, one for water and one for regolith. The landing site is at the colony, and it is abundantly filled with near-surface water ice (see NASA report). Deuteronilus Mensae. However, the first ERV is independent of water ice and brings its own liquid hydrogen for fuel production (based on Dr. Zubrin's book). This would even make it possible to land anywhere on Mars. Elon wants to move a million people there, so there will soon be a lot going on. Who knows if someone will need a ride back to Earth if they get lost.

54 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I say an drill rig would be an obvious cargo on the initial cargo mission. An satellite who could detect permafrost water would be even better but sure you still wanted an drill rig. 
I'm pretty sure permafrost water is say 3-10 meter under the surface pretty common on mars but we don't know where and how much. I would mine the ice the same way we often mine for salt, pump down steam to heat the area around the hole up and pump up the melted water and the condensed steam. Water would then need to be cleaned and some of it reused for more steam, pretty sure this would use much less energy than the electrolyte. 

Oh, but we (or NASA) know exactly where there is a lot of  near-surface water ice on Mars.

17 hours ago, darthgently said:

A lot to think about there.  One thing that occurs to me is throwing money at the problem and sending one or two tanker starships full of water.

It would store indefinitely, unlike hydrogen, and allow extracting hydrogen and a significant portion of the oxygen from the tanks as a contingency if extraction of local water became problematic.

Or even if available power became strained having the water on hand would allow a lot of wiggle room in the energy budget not having to harvest and process local water.

Of course water extraction and processing should be plan A and if the tankers of water aren’t used they are left as a cache for future missions

The more I think about it, we should definitely cache tanks of pure water on Mars as a contingency, not just for this upcoming mission, but for future missions.  And not just for US use, but for any nation’s astronauts under duress.

@darthgently  In any case, water is life. If there is enough will on the part of the people on earth, this will no longer be a problem, as the technical problems are likely to be solved. I am still looking for publications in this direction.

Edited January 27 by TomKerbal

[magnemoe]

7 minutes ago, TomKerbal said:

 @magnemoe I see it similarly. My first HAB also has four wheels and carries two harvesters, one for water and one for regolith. The landing site is at the colony, and it is abundantly filled with near-surface water ice (see NASA report). Deuteronilus Mensae. However, the first ERV is independent of water ice and brings its own liquid hydrogen for fuel production (based on Dr. Zubrin's book). This would even make it possible to land anywhere on Mars. Elon wants to move a million people there, so there will soon be a lot going on. Who knows if someone will need a ride back to Earth if they get lost.

Oh, but we (or NASA) know exactly where there is a lot of surface near-surface water ice on Mars.

Ok so it is known, was not sure they knew. And yes to not be dependent on it is nice but my guess is that you would operate out of an base or orbit. 
It would also make the logistic easier as its less parts who can fail and I assume an lower energy budget. 

[TomKerbal]

I placed my current paper version (very very early) to my new MEGA account: See initial post.

The whole thing should be a completely voluntary activity for the common good without any selfish interests.

Everyone is invited to take part and of course we will mention everyone in the acknowledgements.
Per Aspera Ad Astra

Edited January 28 by TomKerbal

[TomKerbal]

The new HAB landing on Mars - video is online (see initial post) .

[TomKerbal]

ERV working on colony side: https://dai.ly/k39O8QhGM7lRsbClB5c

 

[TomKerbal]

Paper updated to version 0.1.3 (see initial post for link)

[TomKerbal]

In my last video I said something wrong, here is the correction : the hydrogen boil off loss rate is 23g/h, 7.8kg/d, 201.5kg/a, 324 mL/h, 7.8L/d, 2841L/a