The best ways to get around Mars

[OTV Booster]

Re: "the glass"

Just a pedantic point. Sintered regolith is not "glass-like", not without a lot of effort. It's rock-like. Might be like weak friable rock, might be like granite/bedrock, might even by obsidian-like. Only the latter is remotely glass-like, and you don't get obsidian by what experimenters are referring to as "sintering".

In most sintering experiments, only a small amount of melting occurs. So most of the material is aggregate bulk, held together by the "glue" of the sintered melt. The bulk-mechanical properties come from the interaction of the bulk and the glue. Focusing on one (the melt "glue") is as misleading as ignoring it.

I've built roads in central Australia supporting mineral and energy exploration and driven tens of thousands of km over others. Substrate has ranged from sand to rock to fine dust.
[...]
Simplest solutions are best.

Just wanted to give double-props to Dalhousie for this post. I've thankfully never had to build roads, but I've lived in areas serviced by (and regularly had to use) the full range from barely broken track to gravel to sealed double highway. So I'd add that both graded and gravel roads, when maintained, are even fine for ordinary 2WD sedans up to 100kmh.

I'll also add that, from what I've seen in person, and from whenever I look into the history of an area, road just happen. Sometimes a decision is made to intentionally cut an entirely new route while making a major road, but typically each type of development follows (approximately) the path of the previous level. New travellers cut their way through scrub, or find the easiest path through desert. Over time a "track" develops. Occasional improvements are made, people add rocks or fill to holes, gullies or washed out sections, entire bridges are built to bypass a difficult section. Eventually someone starts grading the route down to solid sub-soil. Later someone fills the cut with gravel. Later still, someone firms the gravel with a light bitumen top-coat. Later still, a proper road-bed is added during a major project. Somewhere in there, you widen from a single-lane track to a two-lane (one up/one down) road, and later you might add more lanes, emergency lanes, turning lanes, hard edges, gutters and drainage, etc etc.

I can't see why Mars roads wouldn't follow the same path. (Ha!) And any "road maker" won't be flown in early missions. A bulldozer, sure, serving as digger, filler, and grader. At some point you need dedicated graders, but that's a way off. At some point you need a road layer, but that's so far ahead we can't begin to intelligently predict what is required or available.

So are you saying that this could work for a landing pad or it’s TBD? Any insite on preferred materials? Did a real fast goggle and nada. Here I was all ready to give up sintering as a bad idea and you seem to be holding out (maybe) some hope.


Phil

[A_M_Swallow]

So are you saying that this could work for a landing pad or it’s TBD? Any insite on preferred materials? Did a real fast goggle and nada. Here I was all ready to give up sintering as a bad idea and you seem to be holding out (maybe) some hope.


Phil

If you want grip then a layer of sand or regolith can be laid on the molten glass. As the glass sets it will glue the dust in place.

The exhaust from rocket engines can melt concrete so high melting point materials should be used for the upper layers of the landing pad. Survey the area to find out what materials are available locally.

[OTV Booster]

So are you saying that this could work for a landing pad or it’s TBD? Any insite on preferred materials? Did a real fast goggle and nada. Here I was all ready to give up sintering as a bad idea and you seem to be holding out (maybe) some hope.


Phil

If you want grip then a layer of sand or regolith can be laid on the molten glass. As the glass sets it will glue the dust in place.

The exhaust from rocket engines can melt concrete so high melting point materials should be used for the upper layers of the landing pad. Survey the area to find out what materials are available locally.

Hmmm, that takes it out of the realm of simple. No undoable but pushed deeper into the trade space matrix.


Phil

[maryalice]

For the Rover, could use mobile power stations.
Batteries on trailers.

Benefits:
1 ) Trailers with own motors gives back up to motors on crewed rovers.
2 ) Quick exchange of batteries by just exchanging trailers.
3 ) Mobile power station could also be used as back up or added power
     source for bases, colonies.
4 ) Batteries on trailers already charged when crewed Rover arrives.

Mobile power stations.
Delivered on flat bed rovers.
Solar panels roll out or unfold at a site.
Picked back up when needed to move.
All done automated, no crew needed.


Rail system. ( Need larger population to justify )
Could be covered by dust storms.

Could use overhead power lines used for electric buses like used in the city.

Power lines could also be used to share power between to bases, colonies.

Could be easily covered and connection to truck/rover to power lines from under the cover.

Flight might be possible.
Low level flight by electric airplane. One person and or low weight cargo.
Hydrogen filled blimp ( no O2 in the atmosphere to start fire with H2 ), electric powered motor.

Good for:
1 ) Emergency transport
2 ) Over ruff terrain, over canyons

[Twark_Main]

I've built roads in central Australia supporting mineral and energy exploration and driven tens of thousands of km over others. Substrate has ranged from sand to rock to fine dust.
[...]
Simplest solutions are best.

Agree with Paul451, great post.

So ISTM the cost-optimized solution (as always) is a fractal network, with higher cost trunk roads branching out into ever-cheaper leaf nodes. Just like the power grid, water grid, etc.

Just wanted to give double-props to Dalhousie for this post. I've thankfully never had to build roads, but I've lived in areas serviced by (and regularly had to use) the full range from barely broken track to gravel to sealed double highway. So I'd add that both graded and gravel roads, when maintained, are even fine for ordinary 2WD sedans up to 100kmh.

I'll also add that, from what I've seen in person, and from whenever I look into the history of an area, roads just happen. Sometimes a decision is made to intentionally cut an entirely new route while making a major road, but typically each type of development follows (approximately) the path of the previous level. New travellers cut their way through scrub, or find the easiest path through desert. Over time a "track" develops. Occasional improvements are made, people add rocks or fill to holes, gullies or washed out sections, entire bridges are built to bypass a difficult section. Eventually someone starts grading the route down to solid sub-soil. Later someone fills the cut with gravel. Later still, someone firms the gravel with a light bitumen top-coat. Later still, a proper road-bed is added during a major project. Somewhere in there, you widen from a single-lane track to a two-lane (one up/one down) road, and later you might add more lanes, emergency lanes, turning lanes, hard edges, gutters and drainage, etc etc.

"Pave the cowpaths." Good design. https://sivers.org/walkways

I can't see why Mars roads wouldn't follow the same path. (Ha!) And any "road maker" won't be flown in early missions. A bulldozer, sure, serving as digger, filler, and grader. At some point you need dedicated graders, but that's a way off. At some point you need a road layer, but that's so far ahead we can't begin to intelligently predict what is required or available.

A mini excavator with attachments is amazingly versatile. Check out some of Andrew Camarata's videos with the mini on YouTube.

Caterpillar (part of the Secret SpaceX Mars Conference^TM, iirc) has a new 4-ton excavator with a skid steer attachment. Electrified and tele-operated (and maybe put a ballast bucket where the cab is), it would make a versatile little Mars machine.

[Twark_Main]

So are you saying that this could work for a landing pad or it’s TBD? Any insite on preferred materials? Did a real fast goggle and nada. Here I was all ready to give up sintering as a bad idea and you seem to be holding out (maybe) some hope.


Phil

If you want grip then a layer of sand or regolith can be laid on the molten glass. As the glass sets it will glue the dust in place.

The exhaust from rocket engines can melt concrete so high melting point materials should be used for the upper layers of the landing pad. Survey the area to find out what materials are available locally.

Hmmm, that takes it out of the realm of simple. No undoable but pushed deeper into the trade space matrix.


Phil

Perhaps we're overthinking this. What about a "lightweight" solution?

Find some flat hard ground, and grade any large rocks. That's it for surface prep. All around each landing pad, erect a ring of nets to catch any debris propelled by the exhaust. These nets would be angled inward to prevent debris from ricocheting back toward Starship, similar in principle to the spikes in an anechoic chamber. Combining a fine mesh screen and a coarse "chain link" should minimize total mass. Any debris smaller than the mesh would be handled by the standoff distance between pads, so there's a design trade-off here.

Might need a high-temp mesh over top to prevent too-large debris, but hopefully not.

Could this work? Surely we can't know until we're actually on Mars, but perhaps it's worth adding to the trade space.

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
A mini excavator with attachments is amazingly versatile. Check out some of Andrew Camarata's videos with the mini on YouTube.

Caterpillar (part of the Secret SpaceX Mars Conference^TM, iirc) has a new 4-ton excavator with a skid steer attachment. Electrified and tele-operated (and maybe put a ballast bucket where the cab is), it would make a versatile little Mars machine.

{snip}

What happened to the equipment Caterpillar was developing for NASA?
Can those machines work on both the Moon and Mars?

[Paul451]

If you want grip then a layer of sand or regolith can be laid on the molten glass. As the glass sets it will glue the dust in place.

Again, "sintering" doesn't mean glass. There is no smooth surface (at least, not without a lot of extra work.)

[lamontagne]

Tesla Semi frame model.   This is based on the published information I could find.  For the 300 miles (480 km) version, the expected mass of the overall vehicle is 25000 pounds (11 000 kg) for the semi truck.  Of this, about 5-6000 kg is the batteries. The truck uses 4 model 3 electric engines for a total power of over 1000 hp ( 750 kW). 
Pneumatic suspension.
There would be 4 batteries, at 250 kWh each, so 1000 kWh of energy capacity.
The structure is 7m long, so it fits nicely in a Starship cargo hold.

I've substituted double steel wire wheels for the rear axle drives, as compared to the 2 wide tire wheels used on Earth. But since this vehicles works during the day, and can be stored in a garage at night, I wonder if standard tires might not be used instead for most application?  There is no reason to leave this vehicle out in the Martian winter, except for an exploration version.  The pneumatic suspension would be covered with flexible heat insulation, and have a heat source inside. 

This can serve as a basis for any number of Mars exploration and utility vehicle and variations.  Actually, it's probably much too powerful for most applications, so I'm mostly going to be working with a lower capacity version with just two axles and probably only 500 kWh of battery and 2 motors.  This would still have 500 hp of motor but would mass about 3000 kg less.  The basic frame would be 1,2m shorter.

Heating the cabin might require a few 2-5? kW at night, less during the day, if any.  Battery cooling might supply some of this during vehicle movement.

Wonder what the range might be? 

[JulesVerneATV]

NASA Wants to Build a Maglev Railroad Across the Moon

https://gizmodo.com.au/2024/05/nasa-wants-to-build-a-maglev-railroad-across-the-moon/