Author Topic: Lake Matthew - 2036  (Read 83883 times)

Offline LMT

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Lake Matthew - 2036
« on: 04/11/2016 03:50 am »
[An advanced-concepts thread was suggested.  Well, why not?  Terraformation is “advanced,” one might say, if feeling generous.]

For us, the initial question was,

Quote
On Mars, what must be done to enable construction of a fresh water lake for crewed mission use?

The “Lake Matthew Team” has taken some time to explore the physical and engineering challenges associated with this question. Obviously, Mars surface conditions make such a venture very hard to imagine. Hard, but not impossible. At certain low-elevation sites, and given certain underappreciated geophysical facts, we think it could be done, and within practical constraints of time, money and resources.

Even by 2036.

In the Lake Matthew design, one quintillion Joules of sensible heat is liberated by proprietary means into bedrock at the site. Bedrock is heated above freezing and ice melts into a persistent lake. The persistent heat and water simplify inhabitation, enabling construction of a mass-efficient habitat and greenhouse, potentially for a crew of hundreds. At this scale, Lake Matthew can reduce the required construction cargo mass by half, or more, relative to the mass required to scale published reference designs, such as NASA's Mars Design Reference Architecture 5.0. This slashes the required number of heavy-lift launches, leading to very significant cost reductions for construction of a large habitat.

Moreover, in the Lake Matthew micro-environment, a greenhouse can scale readily to self-sufficiency in food, even stockpiling to provision all future crewed missions, planet-wide. Self-sufficiency and stockpiling are not attempted in reference designs, due to the tremendous difficulty of scaling greenhouses under near-vacuum. But at Lake Matthew, scaling and local provisioning of food and other products should be feasible. Local provisioning could reduce every crewed Mars mission’s initial mass in Low Earth Orbit by over 90%. This would dramatically lower the cost of crewed missions, opening Mars to many national space agencies and aerospace firms.

We continue to refine this design, so as to optimize methods for constructing Lake Matthew, and to maximize the lake's benefits to crewed missions.

More info at:  http://lakematthew.com


habitat rough geometry, as enabled by Lake Matthew micro-environment, 300m scale



So that’s the blurb and thread-starter.  We don’t mean to tease, but there are trade secrets at work here.  Everyone is free to speculate, and we can talk about things that aren’t secret – “Is pumped brine hydroelectricity right for you?” – but some things can only be discussed under NDA.  Prospective contractors and licensees are all under NDA.

For the satellite build, at least six U.S. companies / units have demonstrated ability to build, using existing, commercial tech.  They are:

1.   Lockheed Martin Space Systems
2.   Northrop Grumman - Space & Directed Energy Systems
3.   Boeing Phantom Works
4.   Orbital ATK - Space Systems Group
5.   Space Systems Loral
6.   Ball Aerospace - Space Sciences & Technologies

If this thread eventually justifies interest, any forwards to these teams would be appreciated.  Personally, I am often surprised by the ways in which useful conversations begin.  You just never know.

Thanks.
« Last Edit: 12/14/2016 06:05 pm by LMT »

Offline Lar

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #1 on: 04/11/2016 03:59 am »
You don't see SpaceX as a potential licensee???
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline LMT

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #2 on: 04/11/2016 04:04 am »
Any U.S. company with the ability to construct the required satellite is a potential primary licensee.  But there are many conceivable licensing options out there...

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #3 on: 04/11/2016 04:05 am »
A quintillion (10^30) Joules of heat is about 1/5th the energy needed to boil the Earth's oceans. You're talking about the energy equivalent of hurdling a Ceres-sized object from the outer solar system into Mars. And yeah, you probably WOULD liberate enough volatiles to partially terraform Mars, but that "proprietary method" of developing a quintillion joules of heat is kind of the critical step there...
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 04:06 am by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline LMT

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #4 on: 04/11/2016 04:09 am »
Just using the U.S. definition of quintillion:  a thousand raised to the power of six (1018)

Offline NovaSilisko

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #5 on: 04/11/2016 04:39 am »
Let's stick with the scientific notation alone to avoid further confusion.

Offline strangequark

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #6 on: 04/11/2016 04:47 am »
Just using the U.S. definition of quintillion:  a thousand raised to the power of six (1018)

That's still the equivalent of a 240 megatons of TNT. Or about five Tsar Bomba nuclear weapons. If you're just going to handwave that away with "proprietary process", no one is going to take you seriously.

Offline LMT

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #7 on: 04/11/2016 05:02 am »
Just using the U.S. definition of quintillion:  a thousand raised to the power of six (1018)

That's still the equivalent of a 240 megatons of TNT. Or about five Tsar Bomba nuclear weapons. If you're just going to handwave that away with "proprietary process", no one is going to take you seriously.

Nuclear explosives are not used.  The legal team knows the specifics, and has recommended the NDA on this point.  But many other things can be discussed in open forum.
« Last Edit: 12/14/2016 06:08 pm by LMT »

Offline Stan-1967

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #8 on: 04/11/2016 05:26 am »
You don't see SpaceX as a potential licensee???

Well, they did mention SpaceX for the launch vehicle: ( bottom of page, last bullet)
http://www.lakematthew.com/?page_id=62

"The invention’s required technology is launched as a single satellite payload, notionally upon a reusable Falcon Heavy rocket."

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #9 on: 04/11/2016 05:52 am »
The amount of heat sounds like a lot especially when compared to nuclear weapons, but I presume that in contrast to nuclear weapons this energy does not have to be released instantaneously but rather over several years? That would make it sound a lot less unrealistic.
Seeing that a satellite is required, I would assume they are talking about some sort of beamed solar power (would have to be many satellites, I would presume), or concentrated solar power with some sort of system of many small reflecting satellites?
Edit, they are talking about only one FH payload. Not sure if my above ideas are doable with such a small payload.
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 05:53 am by Elmar Moelzer »

Offline Stan-1967

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #10 on: 04/11/2016 06:23 am »
A quintillion (10^30) Joules of heat is about 1/5th the energy needed to boil the Earth's oceans. You're talking about the energy equivalent of hurdling a Ceres-sized object from the outer solar system into Mars. And yeah, you probably WOULD liberate enough volatiles to partially terraform Mars, but that "proprietary method" of developing a quintillion joules of heat is kind of the critical step there...

Boiling 1/5th of the Earth's ocean is a modest illustrattion of the audicity of the claims.  (edit: The wildness of that claim is only if you use the definition of quintillion as 10^30, not 10^18.   I will use 10^18 as the basis of the claim.  It changes the scale of the event by a factor of a trillion!)  I did note that it did not claim to liberate all this heat in one event, although that may be the intent.   The website also claims that the method is non-nuclear.   That really only leaves a few options:

1.  Nuclear
2.  Directed asteroid collision
3.  Solar thermal
4.  Solar  PV beamed microwave

Solar thermal would require at least a 10km x 10km array of highly focused sunlight to deliver the energy in one year.   I don't see how that is going to heat the bedrock for a sustained period of time.  Solar PV is also beyond current technology to beam this quantity of power.

That leaves a directed collision by an asteroid.   I can calculate the diameter of such a body needed to liberate 10^18 J quite easily.  If I assume it's a carbonaceous chondrite of density around 3.7, the diameter of the colliding body needs to be around 340 meters.   That is also assuming a impact velocity of around 5km/s.  ( martian escape velocity, & the minimum velocity possible for a impact ) This size will be reduced by quite a bit if the velocity is higher.   

The post above also gives away that this is the method they are considering.   See this link....

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/companies-selected-to-provide-early-design-work-for-asteroid-redirect-robotic-mission

Then look at the list of companies in the first thread post:

1.   Lockheed Martin Space Systems
2.   Northrop Grumman - Space & Directed Energy Systems
3.   Boeing Phantom Works
4.   Orbital ATK - Space Systems Group
5.   Space Systems Loral
6.   Ball Aerospace - Space Sciences & Technologies
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 02:01 pm by Stan-1967 »

Offline Stan-1967

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #11 on: 04/11/2016 06:53 am »
Well, I thought I was onto something, but I just can't get any numbers that make any sense.   A quintillion Joules is a whole lot of heat.   Some quick math says that Ceres, weighing 2.3 E-21 kg would have to impact at 29.5km/s to have 10^30 joules of energy.   Think of the scale of that.  A Ceres impact would probably remelt much of the upper Martian crust.
 
I'm missing something very big, or the proposal is way off, and non-serious.   Or maybe it's too late, & I am incapable of midnight math.   I checked my formulas,  units, etc. etc. 

Four words arguing against releasing 10^30 Joules on the martian surface:  ejecta, escape velocity, Earth
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 07:05 am by Stan-1967 »

Offline R7

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #12 on: 04/11/2016 08:23 am »
The US quintillion (1018) is still a big number. 3 gigawatts for ten years.
AD·ASTRA·ASTRORVM·GRATIA

Offline gospacex

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #13 on: 04/11/2016 08:47 am »
By the sound of it, this "startup" hired lawyers before engineers.

Offline strangequark

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #14 on: 04/11/2016 09:03 am »

Nuclear explosives are not used.  The legal team knows the specifics, and has recommended the NDA on this point.  But many other things can be discussed in open forum.

Nuclear or not, my point is that 10^18 joules is a lot of energy; almost exactly the annual energy consumption of South Korea in fact.

Even if you were to start now, you will need a 1.6 Gigawatt power source to pump that much energy over a 20 year period. Using state of the art solar at 10 kg/kW, that's 16,000,000kg of payload, ignoring solar constant drop off and PV degradation.

So far, you have stated you have invented a magic box, capable of fitting on a Falcon Heavy, that unleashes Herculean quantities of energy on demand, and is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude lighter than known power sources. Yet its operating principle is so simple that you cannot breath a single word of how it conceptually works, lest the magic be stolen. It defies belief for all but the most credulous.

Offline Burninate

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #15 on: 04/11/2016 11:19 am »
A quintillion (10^30) Joules of heat is about 1/5th the energy needed to boil the Earth's oceans. You're talking about the energy equivalent of hurdling a Ceres-sized object from the outer solar system into Mars. And yeah, you probably WOULD liberate enough volatiles to partially terraform Mars, but that "proprietary method" of developing a quintillion joules of heat is kind of the critical step there...

Quote
Morpheus: The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combinedwithaformoffusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need.  There are fields, Neo, endless fields where human beings are no longer born. We are grown.
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 11:29 am by Burninate »

Offline LMT

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #16 on: 04/11/2016 11:21 am »
By the sound of it, this "startup" hired lawyers before engineers.
We looked at the physics first, then the engineering, then legal matters.  Might you do the same, in our shoes?

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...anyone who struggled hard with a problem never forgets it...
-Elon Musk

Offline LMT

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #17 on: 04/11/2016 11:39 am »
The artists rendition of the habitat also looks like the sci-fi representations of building domes over craters  I recall as a kid. 

I LOVE IT!
ETFE foil architecture is versatile and mass-efficient, and we took note of it.  A pair of 300-m ETFE structures, notional hab and greenhouse, should be feasible in this warmed micro-environment, given sufficient water.  With in situ manufacturing, a single MCT-class payload (100 tons) can be sufficient to build the structures (structures alone, excluding other equipment).  It's one way to put the micro-environment to good use. 

The illustrated hab geometry is a simple, low-curvature dome.  It's a starting point, only.  Other forum members might think of something better.

Offline Jim Davis

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #18 on: 04/11/2016 12:52 pm »
So far, you have stated you have invented a magic box, capable of fitting on a Falcon Heavy, that unleashes Herculean quantities of energy on demand, and is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude lighter than known power sources. Yet its operating principle is so simple that you cannot breath a single word of how it conceptually works, lest the magic be stolen. It defies belief for all but the most credulous.

One would also think that such a "magic box" would have far more immediate and profitable uses than creating lakes on Mars.

Offline Stan-1967

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Re: Lake Matthew - 2036
« Reply #19 on: 04/11/2016 01:56 pm »
So far, you have stated you have invented a magic box, capable of fitting on a Falcon Heavy, that unleashes Herculean quantities of energy on demand, and is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude lighter than known power sources. Yet its operating principle is so simple that you cannot breath a single word of how it conceptually works, lest the magic be stolen. It defies belief for all but the most credulous.

One would also think that such a "magic box" would have far more immediate and profitable uses than creating lakes on Mars.

They are going to use the payload of a FH launch ( or other vehicle ) to leverage the release of the energy.   From what I can tell, they want to re-purpose and scale up the technology for asteroid re-direct.  see post #10 above.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40019.msg1515158#msg1515158

In specific, I would expect that they would try to pick a 340 meter boulder off the surface of Phobos, since it is already pretty far down the Martial gravity well.   Giving it the extra push to de-orbit would be the easiest path.  That also squares with the list of companies and technologies being discussed for the ARRM mission. ( end of post #1)

I'll give a shot to determining the DV needed to move a 340 meter boulder of the face of Phobos and de-orbit.   It's gonna have to wait for windows between a busy workweek.   If anyone else wants to give it a try, have at it.   Phobos material supposedly has the density of a carbonaceous chondrite.  And its going to need a mass of around 8 E-10 kg's
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 02:25 pm by Stan-1967 »

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