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2005-08-15 Home Front: Tech

New Mars Orbiter's Strategy: 'Follow the Water'

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Posted by Slamp Snurong2047 2005-08-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The waters. I came to Mars for the waters.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-08-15 09:56|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-08-15 09:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Water, we don't need no stinkin' water. I wanna see "My Favorite Martian"

Posted by Captain America 2005-08-15 12:16|| 2005-08-15 12:16|| Front Page Top

WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

Posted by Sandy Greenbody, Mayor of Cydonia 2005-08-15 15:34|| 2005-08-15 15:34|| Front Page Top

#4 After the various reconnaisance missions, in the 2015-2030 frame, I would imagine that we would send an unmanned burrowing robot to prepare the place for a long term human visit. The reason being that prepared horizontal caves are good radiation protection, are relatively easy to make air-tight, and can even have large open water cisterns in them. It just makes sense to have a lot of the grunt work done well before we arrive. The Robot would approach a rock wall, drill holes and insert explosives, fired remotely from a safe distance. Then, after scraping away several feet of broken collapsed rock, grind away large jagged edges on the inside walls, then drill lateral holes to insert lightweight ceramic reinforcing rod. Then it would begin again with the next section of rock face inside the new cave. When finished with that section of cave, it would spray the inside of the cave with an anti-leak goo. Lastly, the door to the cave would be cannibalized from the landing craft, part of its hull designed to be a door, with the rest of the ship cannibalized for wall and ceiling supports. This means that when people do arrive, they already have basic shelter, pre-tested for leaks, waiting for them. Additional robots sent prior to astronauts can do things like prospect for mineable quantitites of water and minerals, actually mine water for testing and pre-storage in quantity, and even build a much smoother landing pad to improve landing safety. When the people do arrive, whatever they bring will be the lighter supplies and equipment, in a faster spaceship more concerned with getting there and getting home. The slower and heavier robot ship can theoretically soon be assembled in space, in 100 ton chunks, with NASA's newest generation of cargo carrying rockets. Given two years lead time before the people leave, there are any number of missions the robots could perform, leading the way for multiple manned and unmanned missions for many years beyond. Best of all, the robots mission continues with or without people there, needing only periodic maintenance to continue on.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 19:40|| 2005-08-15 19:40|| Front Page Top

#5 Interesting post, 'moose. What about food? Drop shipped ahead of time? Preparations for growing their own?

Posted by eLarson 2005-08-15 20:20|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com] 2005-08-15 20:20|| Front Page Top

#6 Well, 'moose, with all that multi-billion-dollar robot action, why would you bother to send people? Why would they want to live in that cave? What can they do that robots can't do? And why would I want to spend that much money?

Posted by Darrell 2005-08-15 21:26|| 2005-08-15 21:26|| Front Page Top

#7 Okay, to answer your questions in order:

1) why would you bother to send people?

The robots I propose are complex but simple. They are designed for "brute force" projects that people would otherwise have to do themselves, but by having them done would free humans up for the truly complex and intellectual tasks, the real reason to go to Mars. They will still be busting their butts with physical labor, mind you, just not spending all their time doing it.

2) Why would they want to live in that cave?

Because the surface of Mars is hostile. Both with hard radiation and lack of breathable atmosphere. Since the minimum human mission time would be six months (I believe), it would be difficult for them to live in a compact space after the long trip in a compact space from Earth. A cave presents an excellent environment, both for area and for utility. That is, storage of water, growing of food, even storing oxygen in pressurised chambers. Later uses could include processing H3 (in the Lunar version) for shipment back to Earth, and refining metals, glasses and ceramics locally to save the expense of shipping them up.

3) What can they do that robots can't do?

Robots are terribly limited in their abilities compared to people. They are best used for difficult, dangerous, and time consuming or repetitive tasks. Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy, but may be able to accomplish the tasks I outlined.

4) And why would I want to spend that much money?

Many people would prefer living in a social welfare state to any investment in science, the military, art and culture, or even quality of life. You can see the ruin societies who have adopted this model become. Traveling to the Moon can provide the US with vast amounts of clean energy. Traveling to Mars, and eventually establishing a permanent colony there will have so many benefits to mankind that it even defies the imagination.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 23:10|| 2005-08-15 23:10|| Front Page Top

#8 eLarson: Much of what people do on Mars depends on how much pre-preparation is done before they arrive. The prototypes for this exploration will be done on the Moon, an even more hostile non-environment. In that case, I would expect that manned robots would be used, along with verticle, rather than horizontal tunnel shafts. Once a short tunnel is dug, then a cylindrical shell will be lowered into it. The purpose of this shell will be to protect the tunneling robots from the insidious Lunar dust, which destroys mechanical parts quickly. Once inside the shell, then the manned robots will be used to hard-rock tunnel horizontally, possibly just using a shield against explosion fragmentation, it being in a vacuum. The focus on the Lunar expeditions would be to both learn how to do it, and to set up a permanent mining facility to scrape Lunar dust; then in a below ground facility, to concentrate the H3 for shipment back to Earth. The value of a single ship full of H3 is so great, it would pay for the entire Lunar project and much of the Martian project.

To answer your question about food, I would expect that the robot ship to Mars would probably have the entire ration of food and water for the mission, and the human ship would have enough for its round-way trip, plus enough emergency stores for an abbreviated mission. The assumption would be that unless the robot ship successfully landed and performed its missions, then the human ship wouldn't take off in the first place. But this wouldn't preclude other ships being sent to Mars both before and after the people, to do things like set up communications relays, transport endless amounts of additional equipment and fuel, along with things like test animals and replacement parts.

Once on Mars, in cave dwelling and with mined water, permanent hydroponic gardens would be set up with artificial light and heat, along with controlled nutrients. Again, the idea will be to continually reduce the number things that need to be shipped by making them locally. The big manufactured items of high value will be metals, ceramics and glasses.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 23:34|| 2005-08-15 23:34|| Front Page Top

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