Author Topic: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats  (Read 869899 times)

Offline gospacex

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #120 on: 10/17/2016 01:56 am »
Long term I would expect deep shafts drilled down into the crust. Mars is for the most part geologically dead, so drilling down even for miles should be safe in suitable spots. Put a domed roof with windows over the shaft and mount aluminum mirrors around it to allow for daylight (and natural day/night cycles) down there. Grow some suitable plants (vines etc.) on the walls. Carve spiral stairways and terraces into the walls, so our colonists get natural exercise while moving around during the day instead of having to waste time and willpower on exercising with machines two hours a day. Carve horizontal tunnels and caves from the main shaft for living space, workshops and greenhouses (with racks of vegetables) as well as pools with water for growing fish and for swimming.

Why drill vertically when you can drill horizontally? Moving stuff via horizontal roads is notably easier than in vertical ones.

Offline Lumina

Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #121 on: 10/17/2016 05:29 am »
Long term I would expect deep shafts drilled down into the crust. Mars is for the most part geologically dead, so drilling down even for miles should be safe in suitable spots. Put a domed roof with windows over the shaft and mount aluminum mirrors around it to allow for daylight (and natural day/night cycles) down there. Grow some suitable plants (vines etc.) on the walls. Carve spiral stairways and terraces into the walls, so our colonists get natural exercise while moving around during the day instead of having to waste time and willpower on exercising with machines two hours a day. Carve horizontal tunnels and caves from the main shaft for living space, workshops and greenhouses (with racks of vegetables) as well as pools with water for growing fish and for swimming.

Why drill vertically when you can drill horizontally? Moving stuff via horizontal roads is notably easier than in vertical ones.

It might turn out to be one of those "all of the above" outcomes. If drilling, digging and excavating turns out to be a highly efficient basic form of Martian habitat architecture, then we can expect all kinds of these forms to be tried and also we can expect them to be combined with all sorts of windows, domes and mirror solutions for letting in sunlight, vistas and views.

Bottom line, if we are right that excavating rock is the way to go for large, amazing habitats then expect drilling both vertically and horizontally.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #122 on: 10/17/2016 07:14 am »
If we drill deep enough, a real long term effort, how deep would we have to go to have enough atmospheric pressure to live in? I think someone has already done the calculation. It would be so deep that we would have to entirely use artificial lighting and energy production to support it. But it should be quite safe without pressure seals.


Offline uhuznaa

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #123 on: 10/17/2016 12:29 pm »
If we drill deep enough, a real long term effort, how deep would we have to go to have enough atmospheric pressure to live in? I think someone has already done the calculation. It would be so deep that we would have to entirely use artificial lighting and energy production to support it. But it should be quite safe without pressure seals.

Here's a calculator: http://www.mide.com/pages/interplanetary-air-pressure-at-altitude-calculator

Depending on air temperature you'd need to drill down to about 150km. You would be way past the crust there and in the mantle. I have no idea what this means in practical terms, but nothing good I guess.

Offline Oli

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #124 on: 10/17/2016 04:22 pm »
Mars has no global magnetic field. But I have heard it has localized magnetic fields. I would like to see research on these. Do they locally reduce radiation?

If yes it would be good to put settlements there. Not having to plan for heavy radiation shielding would make many things easier.

Magnetic shielding saves mass, but Martian regolith is a lot easier to come by than superconducting coils.

For example here:

http://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/RadiationShields.pdf

To reach 0.5 rem/year in a toroidal habitat with 900m diameter and 60m thickness the mass of a magnetic shield is 12x10^6kg while the mass of a passive shield is 12x10^9kg.

So we're talking thousands of tons of superconducting coil vs. millions of tons of readily available regolith.

I don't see how putting a few meters of regolith on top of a habitat is that much of a problem. If the hab itself can withstand the internal pressure you won't actually need much on top, only for shielding.
« Last Edit: 10/17/2016 04:24 pm by Oli »

Offline uhuznaa

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #125 on: 10/17/2016 05:55 pm »
Long term I would expect deep shafts drilled down into the crust. Mars is for the most part geologically dead, so drilling down even for miles should be safe in suitable spots. Put a domed roof with windows over the shaft and mount aluminum mirrors around it to allow for daylight (and natural day/night cycles) down there. Grow some suitable plants (vines etc.) on the walls. Carve spiral stairways and terraces into the walls, so our colonists get natural exercise while moving around during the day instead of having to waste time and willpower on exercising with machines two hours a day. Carve horizontal tunnels and caves from the main shaft for living space, workshops and greenhouses (with racks of vegetables) as well as pools with water for growing fish and for swimming.

Why drill vertically when you can drill horizontally? Moving stuff via horizontal roads is notably easier than in vertical ones.

Drilling down gives you a hub to expand from instead of building a rabbit burrow, it can give you a lot of open space with natural light with long lines of sight and some plants all around, it makes mixing of atmosphere easier and it makes drilling down robotically easier, since going down is easier than to drill tunnels. It's all linear, set up a machine and it will go down until you stop it.

Also walking in 0.38g will be awkward, you'll be more jumping than walking anyway so you'll need high ceilings. Having spiral stairs will mean getting around will be great exercise while the workshops and living quarters can be more tight. I know it sounds silly, but at Mars gravity you will need to put load on your muscles and bones to stay healthy and doing this while sweating on machines two hours a day will just not fly in the long run. Better make people run up and down 500m between meals and work (and I guess climbing along nets will make good fun in 0.38g too), they will just do that without heaps of discipline and have fun instead while doing it. Of course you'd need elevators too. People will pass every part of the hab when getting around while seeing most of it all the time. People aren't moles.

But yes, you will also have to go horizontally from that shaft, but as a kind of hub or plaza a naturally lighted shaft with stairs and terraces and plants covering the walls would be better than a network of tunnels. I think.

I'm too lazy to try and do a render, but I think a shaft with 50m diameter and 500m deep with a gathering place with a canteen and plaza on the bottom, spiral stairs and terraces, plants on the walls with workshops, greenhouses and living spaces dug horizontally from the sides could make a place to live. A home to live in, not just a base to survive in. You'd get dawn and sunset, day and night (even weather maybe, you'll be able to see clouds through the roof and you may even get some rain if water from the air condenses on the roof  at night when it cools down), you'd be able to see what people are doing, you'd have space and still never be far from the others, you'd have most the exercise you need just by going through your day. At fridays you can have running and climbing races from the bottom up to the roof (opposite direction for the elders ;-)

But of course if we will find a nice, fat, stable lava tube with a glacier around the corner we would be silly not to take it. There's room for more than one type of hab on Mars.

(Full disclosure: I worked in a deep coal mine for a few years when I was younger. I liked it down there, it was more like a dark forest than like the countryside, but it wasn't bad at all. It was often very quiet and fascinating and no place looked like the other. I hate server rooms much more and I now work as a sysadmin and know what I'm talking about. Living in tin cans with machinery humming all around you all the time doesn't make a home.)

Offline Owlon

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #126 on: 10/17/2016 06:47 pm »
If we drill deep enough, a real long term effort, how deep would we have to go to have enough atmospheric pressure to live in? I think someone has already done the calculation. It would be so deep that we would have to entirely use artificial lighting and energy production to support it. But it should be quite safe without pressure seals.

I've had this thought before. It turns out, due to the thermal gradient, the temperature becomes unmanageably high before you get any useful amount of pressure.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #127 on: 10/17/2016 09:05 pm »
If we drill deep enough, a real long term effort, how deep would we have to go to have enough atmospheric pressure to live in? I think someone has already done the calculation. It would be so deep that we would have to entirely use artificial lighting and energy production to support it. But it should be quite safe without pressure seals.

I've had this thought before. It turns out, due to the thermal gradient, the temperature becomes unmanageably high before you get any useful amount of pressure.

I don't want to doubt your statement, you are likely right. But do we have solid knowledge about the temperature gradient on Mars? We have not done any deep drilling. There may well be other methods than drilling to determin the thermal gradient.

Online matthewkantar

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #128 on: 10/18/2016 11:04 pm »
As far as stairs are concerned, would it be possible with 8 foot ceiling heights to just jump from one floor to the next?

Matthew

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #129 on: 10/19/2016 08:08 am »
As far as stairs are concerned, would it be possible with 8 foot ceiling heights to just jump from one floor to the next?

Matthew

I think it's a stretch even for full earth strength people. But a rope with knots for up and a fire brigade pole for down could do the trick. Or a revolving rope for up and down.

Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #130 on: 10/19/2016 11:30 am »
Just found something relevant to a previous post:
In the short term this just means you do not think of yourself as building on a hard surface. Your base should to evolve towards being a buoyant roof in a non-catastrophic fashion.

I wondered how we deal with unstable soil on earth and found this "concrete raft" concept. It also specifically mentions mining as a cause of unstable ground.
http://civilconstructiontips.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/unstable-ground-soils.html



Offline rsdavis9

Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #131 on: 10/19/2016 01:46 pm »
Just found something relevant to a previous post:
In the short term this just means you do not think of yourself as building on a hard surface. Your base should to evolve towards being a buoyant roof in a non-catastrophic fashion.

I wondered how we deal with unstable soil on earth and found this "concrete raft" concept. It also specifically mentions mining as a cause of unstable ground.
http://civilconstructiontips.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/unstable-ground-soils.html

All of the MIT buildings in cambridge ma are built on fill. They are 4 to 6 story buildings with 2 basements. They are designed to float on the fill. This was common knowledge at MIT 40 years ago.

Also of note.
One of the skyscrapers of boston has 3 piers on bedrock but the fourth is in fill and they freeze the soil around it to keep it stable. I thought it was the pru of the hancock but haven't found any references yet.

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Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #132 on: 10/20/2016 12:59 am »
Mars has no global magnetic field. But I have heard it has localized magnetic fields. I would like to see research on these. Do they locally reduce radiation?

If yes it would be good to put settlements there. Not having to plan for heavy radiation shielding would make many things easier.

Magnetic shielding saves mass, but Martian regolith is a lot easier to come by than superconducting coils.

For example here:

http://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/RadiationShields.pdf

To reach 0.5 rem/year in a toroidal habitat with 900m diameter and 60m thickness the mass of a magnetic shield is 12x10^6kg while the mass of a passive shield is 12x10^9kg.

So we're talking thousands of tons of superconducting coil vs. millions of tons of readily available regolith.

I don't see how putting a few meters of regolith on top of a habitat is that much of a problem. If the hab itself can withstand the internal pressure you won't actually need much on top, only for shielding.

You need to look up minimagnetosphere.  It's a different concept than the close by superconducting coils.  The power requirements are in the KW range.  There are existing, natural  surface level ones on the Moon.  My worry is that the Martian atmosphere would short the plasma shell and destroy it.  But perhaps not.  If this works, its no regolith and not superconducting coils.

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #133 on: 10/20/2016 01:02 am »
As far as stairs are concerned, would it be possible with 8 foot ceiling heights to just jump from one floor to the next?

Matthew
Don't forget inertia. You can jump, but it's also harder to stop once you get going...

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #134 on: 10/20/2016 01:06 am »
Just found something relevant to a previous post:
In the short term this just means you do not think of yourself as building on a hard surface. Your base should to evolve towards being a buoyant roof in a non-catastrophic fashion.

I wondered how we deal with unstable soil on earth and found this "concrete raft" concept. It also specifically mentions mining as a cause of unstable ground.
http://civilconstructiontips.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/unstable-ground-soils.html

The most common method is to drive piles down to the bedrock.  If the bedrock is too far, you can invest in wide footings, that eventually end up to be full size, i.e. a raft.  But not much good for tall buildings, because of moment from wind and earthquakes.  That would not be a worry on Mars though.

Melting permafrost is a pain.  Again seems unlikely to happen on Mars in the first few centuries.  But the food production might run fairly hot, and nuclear reactors as well.  Wouldn't want them to sink...


Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #135 on: 10/20/2016 01:09 am »
Just found something relevant to a previous post:
In the short term this just means you do not think of yourself as building on a hard surface. Your base should to evolve towards being a buoyant roof in a non-catastrophic fashion.

I wondered how we deal with unstable soil on earth and found this "concrete raft" concept. It also specifically mentions mining as a cause of unstable ground.
http://civilconstructiontips.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/unstable-ground-soils.html

All of the MIT buildings in cambridge ma are built on fill. They are 4 to 6 story buildings with 2 basements. They are designed to float on the fill. This was common knowledge at MIT 40 years ago.

Also of note.
One of the skyscrapers of boston has 3 piers on bedrock but the fourth is in fill and they freeze the soil around it to keep it stable. I thought it was the pru of the hancock but haven't found any references yet.

And in Boston as well, freezing the soil was used in the Big Dig, and is sometime used in mining to create ice dams in the ground for persistent water infiltration problems.  But these are all temporary systems.  It would be  risky to depend on compressors for long term structural safety.

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #136 on: 10/20/2016 01:24 am »
One idea I have been wondering about for a few years would be to build a tunnel boring machine on Mars, or the moon.  a 10m diameter boring machine can do more than 700m per month.  Run one of these for 10 years, and you get 84 km of tunnel, that could be arranged into about 1 000 000 m2 of floor.
Run a few for 40 years, and you end up with quite a bit of space.  Probably enough for Musk's million, if food production is in low pressure buildings on the surface.

Need a lot of blades though  ;-)

But you can dig in nice solid rock, rather than loose regolith, and probably have very little risk of leaks.  And don't need to worry about ice melting or not.





Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #137 on: 10/20/2016 01:37 am »
Melting permafrost is a pain.  Again seems unlikely to happen on Mars in the first few centuries.  But the food production might run fairly hot, and nuclear reactors as well.  Wouldn't want them to sink...
I was referring to a few reasons it might specifically happen on mars though: boring down through say ten meters of regolith on mars to get to the relatively pure ice speculated to exist in buried glaciers near the equator, burying yourself under a thick blanket of regolith which I think would lead to heat seeping into the surrounding ground unless you have complicated cooling to prevent it.

I think you want your waste heat to be exploited melting ice. You should arrange it, not fight it. but then you have to work around this problem.

Online Robotbeat

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #138 on: 10/20/2016 03:16 am »
As far as stairs are concerned, would it be possible with 8 foot ceiling heights to just jump from one floor to the next?

Matthew
Yes.
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Offline sdsds

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #139 on: 10/20/2016 05:39 am »
build a tunnel boring machine on Mars

I think on Earth these are limited to fairly shallow grades; can't really dig straight down. But with Mars (or Moon) gravity? I wonder how quickly you could get well below the surface?

And how sharply can they turn?
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