Author Topic: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars  (Read 26178 times)

Offline Bynaus

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #40 on: 11/07/2014 09:29 am »
I am not sure the summit of Olympus Mons is really a good idea - after all, the MCT is to use the atmosphere for deceleration (even though it has retropropulsion), so I don't know if there is enough of atmosphere along the path from hyperbolic entry to the summit of Olympus Mons to allow a landing there.

Of course, if the atmosphere plays an important role during deceleration, deep sites might be favored, e.g. the depths of Valles Marineris or the flats of Hellas planitia (also for radiation shielding).

But the thought I would like to contribute here is that the landing site and the site of the "first colony" (Elonsville? Why not :) ) do not need to be at the same spot. Remember, MCT is thought to be a SSTO vehicle on Mars (even a "single-stage-to-escape-velocity" vehicle), so it can easily do suborbital point-to-point transport to any site on the martian surface, probably even two-ways (i.e., no re-fueling needed at the destination). All you need is site convenient for refueling the MCTs (e.g., close to large deposits of water ice, abundant sun-light for PV, enough tankage for multiple re-fueling of incoming and outgoing MCTs), and then the whole surface of the planet is accessible for exploration and colonization.
« Last Edit: 11/07/2014 09:39 am by Bynaus »
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Offline Hotblack Desiato

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #41 on: 11/07/2014 09:31 am »
but we have a chance of determining the parameters needed for at least a settlement, if they later find out that an other spot is better suitable, they might consider movement or foundation of a second settlement and start transporting goods back and forth.

what the settlement will initially need: a wide flat area for landing spacecrafts, low altitude, and water supply. and those parameters can be determined from space.

later on, when the settlement grows to a full colony, their demands will shift. equipment and materials initially brought from earth have to be manufactured on site. maybe we aren't looking at one colony but on a network of colonies, and every colony has its own goods (mining sites offering valueable metals, but lack of water), and those colonies trade and exchange their products.

Offline GORDAP

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #42 on: 11/07/2014 12:57 pm »
I think there are several factors that go into the selection of a first 'base' landing site:

1) Optimal for EDL.  I believe in the latest Red Dragon sample and return talk the speaker stated you'd want to shed velocity by riding in at about 10k feet, and that this meant 'avoiding the southern hemisphere highlands'.
2) Locate close to known reserves of (possibly close to the surface) water.  (Don't we have pretty good data on this now?)
3) Location with high solar radiation (i.e. close to equator) for solar power, plant growth, etc.
4) Close to possible geothermal activity.
5) Close to possible metal ore deposits.
6) Close to optimal launch location (again equator).
7) Close to caves/lava tubes for possible habitation.
8) Close to 'interesting' geological features.

I think the above list is probably close to the right priority order.  I think 1 and 2 favor some mid northern latitudes, while 3 and 6 favor equator.  No idea about the rest.

Can anyone with a good familiarity with martian topography suggest a location that might be best with the above list in mind?  Seems there should be several locations that meet, say, 1-4 above.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #43 on: 11/07/2014 01:34 pm »
I think there are several factors that go into the selection of a first 'base' landing site:

1) Optimal for EDL.  I believe in the latest Red Dragon sample and return talk the speaker stated you'd want to shed velocity by riding in at about 10k feet, and that this meant 'avoiding the southern hemisphere highlands'.
2) Locate close to known reserves of (possibly close to the surface) water.  (Don't we have pretty good data on this now?)
3) Location with high solar radiation (i.e. close to equator) for solar power, plant growth, etc.
4) Close to possible geothermal activity.
5) Close to possible metal ore deposits.
6) Close to optimal launch location (again equator).
7) Close to caves/lava tubes for possible habitation.
8) Close to 'interesting' geological features.

I think the above list is probably close to the right priority order.  I think 1 and 2 favor some mid northern latitudes, while 3 and 6 favor equator.  No idea about the rest.

A comprehensive list, I like it. Except I would place availability of water even higher than optimal EDL. IMO a small payload hit is better than insufficient or difficult water supply especially for the first settlement.

Also I cannot imagine useful geothermal energy aynwhere on Mars but I may be wrong.

Offline JasonAW3

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #44 on: 11/07/2014 03:11 pm »
Personally, I kind of prefer the first colony be named someting like Bradbury Base.  But that's just me.
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Offline guckyfan

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #45 on: 11/07/2014 04:01 pm »
Personally, I kind of prefer the first colony be named someting like Bradbury Base.  But that's just me.

It won't be Elonsville. But the Mars president will have the title "The Elon". Wernher von Braun already knew that. :)

Bradbury Base sounds good.


Offline llanitedave

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #46 on: 11/07/2014 05:06 pm »
but we have a chance of determining the parameters needed for at least a settlement, if they later find out that an other spot is better suitable, they might consider movement or foundation of a second settlement and start transporting goods back and forth.

what the settlement will initially need: a wide flat area for landing spacecrafts, low altitude, and water supply. and those parameters can be determined from space.

later on, when the settlement grows to a full colony, their demands will shift. equipment and materials initially brought from earth have to be manufactured on site. maybe we aren't looking at one colony but on a network of colonies, and every colony has its own goods (mining sites offering valueable metals, but lack of water), and those colonies trade and exchange their products.

I would think so too, which brings up the point that, to quote Aldo Leopold:  "You can't do one thing."  A successful colony can't stand alone.  It needs a widely developed regional infrastructure to support trade and the uneven pattern of resource availability.  This takes time to develop.

So, to answer guckyfan's question:
Quote
Are you arguing that you need people on Mars for decades before you start a colony?

Yes.  Anything less is a recipe for a human tragedy.

Quote
In a real scenario you start the colony and worst case you have to relocate later.

That's why I suggested naming such a colony "Roanoke".  It would be doomed, and the long time between possible replenishment visits would mean that relocation may not be that simple.

Another consideration is the need to figure out what resources you really need to prioritize, and their value.  It wouldn't be the same as on Earth.  Gold, for example, is often held as having some sort of inherent standard value to justify exploitation.  In reality, the value of gold is probably substantially less than tradition and symbolism makes it.  Certainly, on Mars you wouldn't need stored piles of gold bars just to back up some currency.  For industrial and construction uses, you really only need very small amounts of it.

Which is good, because we don't really know what sort of processes would concentrate gold into ore-grade bodies on Mars.  If you find veins of pure gold, great.  Where?  It's often associated with volcanism, but not just any old volcanism.  Seen any gold deposits on Hawaii?  Volcanic gold usually is associated with felsic volcanism -- granites and rhyolites, which are notably lacking on Mars.  It also requires a good geothermal (areothermal?) water circulation system, which hasn't occurred on Mars in a very, very long time.  Other types of gold deposits on Earth are Carlin type gold deposits, in which hydrothermal gold-bearing fluids deposit the metal in sedimentary rocks, often altering them to clay or silica-rich derivatives in the process.  Recovery of this type of gold is difficult and expensive, often requiring requiring extensive crushing of the host rock, and water slurries containing cyanide to leach through the ore pile to recover the gold in solution.  You're also left with huge piles of waste rock that end up making your nearby mining settlement somewhat less than a paradise.

Other minerals might be more valuable on Mars than on Earth.  One possibility I can think of is lithium, which would come in really handy for batteries and a lot of other uses.  It's not that uncommon overall, but on earth it's very hard to find good concentrations of it, and that might be the case on Mars as well.

Take a look at this diagram from Western Lithium:


Most lithium is recovered from evaporated brines in arid environments.  Maybe you can find stuff like that underground on Mars, but don't expect it to be ubiquitous.  It will have to be painstakingly prospected for.  The next most common source, pegmatite and spodumene, are also associated with felsic rocks like granite and granodiorite, which are extremely rare on Mars, rather than the more common basalt.  There may be unexpected sources there that don't occur on Earth, but we don't know that.  It will have to be researched, and don't count on it being easy.

Phosphorus is another vital element for life.  We may luck out there, as both Opportunity and Curiosity have found areas of enhanced phosphate deposition, and the Martian crust may be richer in phosphorous than that of Earth.  But that's not to say you can just dig it up anywhere, especially in the concentrations needed to grow crops.

All of these things and more will take time and energy to locate and characterize, more time and energy to extract and process, before they can actually be useful to any nearby residents.  We'll have to learn new ways of prospecting, new ways of mining, and new ways of refining, and do it with a different mix of ores and priorities than we're used to.  I laughed when I heard a certain Alaskan once imply that our ticket to national wealth was just "drill, baby, drill!"  You have to drill in the right place, or you're going to go broke.  It happens all the time on Earth, where we supposedly have a decent understanding of the geologic processes and resource distribution.  On Mars, we're starting from scratch.  We can't just show up with a drill and a pan and think we're going to get rich.

Or even survive.
« Last Edit: 11/07/2014 05:12 pm by llanitedave »
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Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #47 on: 11/08/2014 12:44 am »
Personally, I kind of prefer the first colony be named someting like Bradbury Base.  But that's just me.

It won't be Elonsville. But the Mars president will have the title "The Elon". Wernher von Braun already knew that. :)

Bradbury Base sounds good.

I protest. >:( The first Martian Barsoom base should be Helium. President don't really matches Elon's usual M.O., the title "Warlord of Barsoom" is a better fit.  ;D

Seriously the supposed site of Helium on Mars is right next to Hellas Plantina crater basin, Which might have ice deposits. So somewhere in the Hellas Plantina basin might be a good location for base or colony.

Quote from: Wikipedia
The altitude difference between the rim and the bottom is 9,000 m (30,000 ft). The depth of the crater (7,152 m (23,465 ft) ( 7,000 m (23,000 ft)) below the standard topographic datum of Mars) explains the atmospheric pressure at the bottom: 1,155 Pa[1] (11.55 mbar, 0.17 psi, or 0.01 atm). This is 89% higher than the pressure at the topographical datum (610 Pa, or 6.1 mbar or 0.09 psi) and above the triple point of water, suggesting that the liquid phase could be present under certain conditions of temperature, pressure, and dissolved salt content

Note - obviously E R Burroughs fan, much better than that Johnny come lately Bradbury.  :D

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #48 on: 11/08/2014 01:06 am »
Zed_Noir, you missed it. "The Elon" is a title that Werner Von Braun made up for Mars, way before Elon Musk was born.
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Offline Jcc

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #49 on: 11/08/2014 01:10 am »
Probably the first base will be just that, a place from which to go exploring, and determine the site for the first major colony. Initially they will need to build the base and establish the first group. The colony with likely be built elsewhere, but there will be small outposts in several locations to explore and prospect for resources.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #50 on: 11/08/2014 01:39 am »
Zed_Noir, you missed it. "The Elon" is a title that Werner Von Braun made up for Mars, way before Elon Musk was born.

Knew about the Von Braun "The Elon" remark. Nevertheless E R Burroughs predate Von Braun.  ;)

Offline Jimmy_C

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #51 on: 11/08/2014 02:24 am »
Zed_Noir, you missed it. "The Elon" is a title that Werner Von Braun made up for Mars, way before Elon Musk was born.

Knew about the Von Braun "The Elon" remark. Nevertheless E R Burroughs predate Von Braun.  ;)

Could you provide a reference for Von Braun's remark please? I'd love to read about it.
« Last Edit: 11/08/2014 02:25 am by Jimmy_C »

Offline dcporter

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #52 on: 11/08/2014 04:16 am »
Jesus. imgur.com/a/yhvDH

EDIT: "Jesus" was because it was my sixth or so try to make an imgur link, which don't fly on this forum for some reason.
« Last Edit: 11/08/2014 10:38 pm by dcporter »

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #53 on: 11/08/2014 04:25 am »

Could you provide a reference for Von Braun's remark please? I'd love to read about it.

He wrote a book, called "Mars Project". In that novel the Mars president has the title The Elon. It is available as PDF.

http://www.wlym.com/archive/oakland/docs/MarsProject.pdf

Offline nadreck

Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #54 on: 11/08/2014 07:05 am »
Yes exploration has to happen from several bases with the capabilities to be either relocatable, or field long range missions, before any colony sites are picked. However, Roanoke comments aside, the whole concept of having Mars as the first redundant active store of human DNA, is, well, redundancy. Not all early American colonies were successful, however several separate and successful colonies established interdependence.  If I can be allowed to posit what Elon might have meant by public comments that he hopped that there were several colony initiatives is that he wants both the exploration and establishment of colonies to exist in a sort of co-petative environment. That would likely stimulate the greatest endeavours within the growing civilization on Mars.

Now, lets consider that there may well be a number of different colony sites and that each of these needs some independent capabilities, but that, in the longer run, sites could specialize based on nearby resources to produce some of the things that they no longer want to import from Mother Earth. It would make a good topic for another thread to determine what the basic industries each site would need, vs those that could exist in just one or two places on Mars (ok lets go with at least two, anyone remember the RAM shortage after the Kobe earthquate?).

It is all well and good to quote those things that made it past your confirmation bias that other people wrote, but this is a discussion board damnit! Let us know what you think! And why!

Offline Hotblack Desiato

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #55 on: 11/11/2014 04:56 pm »
I guess, it would revolve just around a few parameters.

1. is it possible to land there from space. a place that is suitable for landing MCTs (or more generally every landing system).

2. is water available.

the first colony will obviously need these two parameters, others are less important.

3. local resources like iron, copper, phosphor and so on. the starting colony needs virtually everything. they will send prospection-rovers out to find deposits of what they need, and then found mining sites. those mining sites will eventually grow from small settlements to cities on their own.

4. energy-production.  first colonies will rely on solar energy. but depending on their energy requirement, they will soon switch over to nuclear power since most industries require large amounts of energy. I'm thinking about nuclear facilities with 100s of MW(el), maybe even GW-scale. that requires a large heatsink. a lot of chemical processes directly require heat, and a human settlement needs heat aswell.

the 4th requirement does not depend on geology but on where they set up a nuclear reactor, and that would be the only a large settlement, which produces a lot of good.

another equally important thing will be transportation between colonies. I guess, first transportation will be done with rovers on roads. but those roads will be just leveled regolith. no concrete, no asphalt, nothing (since it isn't raining, that's not a big problem). I guess, top speed will be 50 km/h.
later on, when iron/steel production kicks in, they can set up railroads, allowing much higher speeds (150km/h) and larger transportation capacities. they'd even allow precision docking since a railcar moves on a precise track.

Offline RonM

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #56 on: 11/11/2014 05:10 pm »
I guess, it would revolve just around a few parameters.

1. is it possible to land there from space. a place that is suitable for landing MCTs (or more generally every landing system).

2. is water available.

the first colony will obviously need these two parameters, others are less important.

3. local resources like iron, copper, phosphor and so on. the starting colony needs virtually everything. they will send prospection-rovers out to find deposits of what they need, and then found mining sites. those mining sites will eventually grow from small settlements to cities on their own.

4. energy-production.  first colonies will rely on solar energy. but depending on their energy requirement, they will soon switch over to nuclear power since most industries require large amounts of energy. I'm thinking about nuclear facilities with 100s of MW(el), maybe even GW-scale. that requires a large heatsink. a lot of chemical processes directly require heat, and a human settlement needs heat aswell.

the 4th requirement does not depend on geology but on where they set up a nuclear reactor, and that would be the only a large settlement, which produces a lot of good.

another equally important thing will be transportation between colonies. I guess, first transportation will be done with rovers on roads. but those roads will be just leveled regolith. no concrete, no asphalt, nothing (since it isn't raining, that's not a big problem). I guess, top speed will be 50 km/h.
later on, when iron/steel production kicks in, they can set up railroads, allowing much higher speeds (150km/h) and larger transportation capacities. they'd even allow precision docking since a railcar moves on a precise track.

Transportation is an important consideration for expansion. The location should allow for easy road and rail construction. Good point about rail cars and docking.

Offline go4mars

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Re: Possible locations for Elonsville, Mars
« Reply #57 on: 11/19/2014 03:17 am »
A deep excavation below Hellas.  Mainly for pressure and top sealing.
I also like Hellas because it's the biggest and best for atmospheric-friction negative acceleration. 

But also because I suspect the remanent fracture networks below the enormous impact will have fluids within for exploitation.  Silane, hydrogen, methane, and noble gases in particular.  Might even find water down there above the hydridic (redox) interface. 

I believe silane will quickly overtake methane/oxygen or hydrogen/oxygen to become the most important rocket fuel on Mars, because the atmosphere itself can act as oxidizer - allowing isp's over 1000.  Preferable to drill for silane on Mars rather than expending energy synthesizing it. 
« Last Edit: 11/19/2014 03:18 am by go4mars »
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