How Will We Travel on Mars Itself?

[sanman]

Okay, so the following is a slickly-packaged marketing video -- but it does appear to show footage of a vehicle actually traveling in a certain way, without a need for pre-built road infrastructure.





Under development by a company in Poland, it apparently runs on jet turbines that produce around 118–123 dB(A) at just 3m distance.

On Earth, vehicles like this would be Earth-shatteringly loud. But in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere which doesn't carry sound nearly as well, that could be quite acceptable.

But could a vehicle of this type be supported in that thin air, with the aid of the lower Martian gravity?

If not vehicles like this, then what are the best alternatives?
Shouldn't we prefer vehicles that can traverse terrain without the need for such infrastructure, in order to be able to cover as much territory as possible, for exploration as well as route flexibility?

[sanman]

More info:

[AmigaClone]

I suspect most crewed exploration. at least initially, would be done using land vehicles. These would include rovers that with an appearance similar to the Apollo rovers on the small end to  something reminiscent of several Antarctic Snow Cruisers connected with airtight flexible corridors. The later would have the facilities to serve as a mobile base.

I would expect remotely operated drones to aid in that exploration to sites where the vehicles would not be able to access.

Remember that at least initially, any vehicle on Mars would need to use electricity to move - likely produced by solar cells.

[colbourne]

Could we have some kind of aimable  rail gun on the base that fires a capsule to required destination. Capsule could land using rocket thrusters (maybe compressed gas), possibly using a parachute as well on large jumps.

To return to main base, an electric piston could be used to jump, or maybe it could be a slow wheeled journey.

This method works best when we have several bases , each with their own rail gun.

[spacenut]

A rocket powered hopper similar to the one used on the TV show "Space 1999" could be used on Mars for longer distance trips to check out certain areas.  A dedicated Starship could do this with enough fuel to make a long hop and back to base for refueling.  It would have the built in habitat, space suits, and some cargo for establishing a more remote base, until a road, rail, or hyperloop system could be installed to get people to the new base. 

I like the idea of a larger dedicated rover that could pull a trailer or trailers that a connected for a mobile base, habitat, etc.  This could be made from a Tesla tractor-trailer truck since it is designed to pull loads anyway. 

[Stan-1967]

But could a vehicle of this type be supported in that thin air, with the aid of the lower Martian gravity?

Short answer,  no.

I would expect localized exploration to be driven by orbital surveys directing surface based telerobotic assets.  Humans won’t be going on joy rides anywhere.  Mars surface is fundamentally more similar to a vacuum chamber than an earth desert or ice sheet.  Human travel on the mars surface will be for high value ISRU considerations, and then maybe scientific targets.  Every surface excursion will be like an ISS spacewalk.  Highly planned and executed with key objectives.

If mars is visited only as a scientific target,  a rover like what JAXA is planning would be great.  If it is for travel between settlement A to B ,  i think something like a railway or tram/gondola would be ideal.

I personally think trams or gondolas have been overlooked and would have better metrics for using local materials,  as well as kg/km of needed imported materials.  I also think it would require less effort to build vs the need for rail track to be overlayed on highly prepared surfaces. 

In a mars effort centered on settlement, travel needs will be driven by considerations like moving water from  A to B,  steel from B to C, concrete from A to C.  So a network of connected tramways or railways naturally develops.  An explorer could pick any point along those paths to start a localized excursion.

I don't see wheeled vehicles having great utility for very long distances.  Too much wear & tear on a very valuable asset. 


Surface travel in the hundreds or thousands of km will be very rare.  Suborbital hoppers seem most effective for that expensive task. 

[Robotbeat]

I think you’d just use pipes.

[Stan-1967]

I think you’d just use pipes.

for...?

[Robotbeat]

I think you’d just use pipes.

for...?

moving water.

[Nomadd]

 Already handled.

[Stan-1967]

I think you’d just use pipes.

for...?

moving water.

Good luck to your plan.   

How will you support the needed work crews?  How deep will you excavate & bury it & what is the thermal gradient of the martian regolith that would enable its transport without freezing?  Alternately you could heat the pipeline above ground, so add a several hundred MW power plant to your needed infrastucture. 

I suppose it is all a matter of time if colonization is the driver.  At some point a pipeline may in fact be the best solution.  But alot has to happen first.  A whole lot.

[stormhelm]

My hunch is until more advanced propulsion,, Radiation shielding,, life support beside psychological hurdles solved it will be a LONG time before crewed missions beside other problems undertaken despite Musk`s Blah blah..
I won't say more..

[Robotbeat]

Refueling with aerocapture or direct entry is advanced propulsion. Faster transits than electric propulsion or nuclear thermal.

The other stuff is solved by mass.

Artemis HLS is nearly a proper superset of a Mars mission.

[Robotbeat]

I think you’d just use pipes.

for...?

moving water.

Good luck to your plan.   

How will you support the needed work crews?  How deep will you excavate & bury it & what is the thermal gradient of the martian regolith that would enable its transport without freezing?  Alternately you could heat the pipeline above ground, so add a several hundred MW power plant to your needed infrastucture. 

I suppose it is all a matter of time if colonization is the driver.  At some point a pipeline may in fact be the best solution.  But alot has to happen first.  A whole lot.

Vacuum insulation works fine, to the point that the internal friction is enough to keep the water plenty warm. And you don’t think powering a bunch of vehicles to transport thousands of tons of water (per month? Week? Day?) won’t require a similar amount of power? A vacuum insulated pipe is easier than building a road.

[Stan-1967]

 And you don’t think powering a bunch of vehicles to transport thousands of tons of water (per month? Week? Day?) won’t require a similar amount of power? A vacuum insulated pipe is easier than building a road.

Yes, I do think think that.  Also you need to build a road to transport the people & equipment needed to make the pipeline.  So this shortcircuits the decision on how we will travel on Mars.  If we just build roads, we don't need trams/gondolas, rail, pipelines, airships, suborbital hoppers, etc.  Existing roads would be the winner always.

Transport of water, depending on the distance, is a debatable decision for pipeline/no pipeline.  It comes down to how "rich" Mars is, and what distance does it need to move?

Depending on what you want to transport, it may be that the the optimum solution for a material like water, is very non-optimal for people, concrete, steel, food, etc.  So now Martians need to be able to afford multiple transportation solutions. Modes of transport that are flexible and agnostic to the mass properties will win if Mars is "poor".

Back to pipelines, as I think it is a debatable decision that depends on many factors.

Pipelines on Mars would have substantial thermal demands to keep the water from freezing.  The energy in joules to keep it from freezing will be far in excess of the joules of mechanical work needed to move it on a tramway or railway.   Having said that if Mars builds nuke power plants, that would enable some localized vacuum pipelines.   Pipelines also work better the bigger they are, as heat transfer scales linear to the pipe diameter, when volume scales to the square, pressure being equal, and assuming the same flow velocity.

A point of reference for my thoughts on this is how a country like Iceland has geothermal plants for electricity generation, and these same plants use the excess thermal energy for supplying nearby cities with hot water as well.  You find these plants ( i.e Svartsengi, 150MW thermal) with excess spare megawatts ( 75 MW) of thermal energy are needed to supply hot water to Reykjavik only 40km away.  The temperature drop is from around 90C at the plant, and by the time it gets to users, it is around 45C.  Ambient ground temps are probably 5-10C.  How bad will this be when ambient ground temps are -60C? 

Iceland can do this because of the vast excess thermal power they have.   Where does this come from on Mars?  Ambient is -60C from freezing, so to move water over a 40 km distance ( similar  Svartsengi to Reykjavik), you need to first mine the ice, then raise the temperature of the ice to 0C, then melt the ice, and then raise it to a temperature that it wont freeze before getting to the destination.  The energy needed to just melt the ice would be more than enough to transport it via rail, tram, or any wheeled vehicle.   

I also look at many municipalities I've stayed in Northern Europe that provide hot water (potable & for heating)  as a utility service, and a single co-generation facility burning hundreds of metric tons of wood chips daily can use the thermal excess for maybe 15-20 thousand citizens within a 4km radius.  This seems feasible for localized use, and within a Mars settlement, you would want to dissipate the heat within habitable structures.  So localized makes sense.  Dissipating Megawatts of power into the ambient martian environment over long distances is simply too costly. 

[Coastal Ron]

Roads. Surface transportation that is electric driven is the cheapest form of transportation for an undeveloped area of Mars - which will be everything humans do for many years during colonization.

The carrying capacity of both roads and large vehicles will be enough for Mars colonists for many years, and will likely be permanent (with periodic upgrades of course) even as other transportation options are built.

It doesn't make sense to invest in permanent infrastructure until you know what the demand will be. Is it water? Is it mineral? Is it pre-packed supplies coming from a spaceport? Is it humans? Define the need first before defining the solution.

And roads will be perfect for autonomous driving systems, since the routes will be fairly traffic free, and any traffic there is can all be autonomous, so AI negotiation can happen when necessary if there is traffic (this won't be high speed driving).

Vehicles on Mars, because of the much lower gravity and lack of atmosphere, will be able to be much more outsized there than what we can use here on Earth. So if you need to transport large amounts of water or minerals, think of a multi-unit articulated road train being the solution. These are very popular in Australia, both for improved roads and unimproved roads.

[Robotbeat]

…

Pipelines on Mars would have substantial thermal demands to keep the water from freezing.  The energy in joules to keep it from freezing will be far in excess of the joules of mechanical work needed to move it on a tramway or railway.   …

This isn’t true, and I know because I calculated it instead of just going off of vibes, as you’re doing here. Vacuum insulation (which is particularly easy on Mars) is really good stuff.

[Stan-1967]

It doesn't make sense to invest in permanent infrastructure until you know what the demand will be. Is it water? Is it mineral? Is it pre-packed supplies coming from a spaceport? Is it humans? Define the need first before defining the solution.

......

Vehicles on Mars, because of the much lower gravity and lack of atmosphere, will be able to be much more outsized there than what we can use here on Earth. So if you need to transport large amounts of water or minerals, think of a multi-unit articulated road train being the solution. These are very popular in Australia, both for improved roads and unimproved roads.

My skepticism of roads and analog Martian/Earth vehicles like the Road Train, or the like is based on multiple considerations. 

1.Good roads take engineered road base, compaction, leveling, and paving.  That is alot of work.  A average dirt road is an order of magnitude harder on the vehicle chassis ( says various 4X4 Bronco's & Trucks I've owned and driven) and free range 4X4 is an order of magnitude worse than a gravel road.

2. Rolling friction in the wheel bearings & stator bearings (EV's)  at -60C to -110 C at night is going to hate hate hate bumpy roads.
3. Tires at said very cold temperatures will also hate this environment.

If the Road Train is crossing Meridiani Planum, I see no major problems.  Other interesting places with water, minerals, or such, may not be as ideal.

When you linked to Australian vehicles, I had hoped some "Fury Road" trucks were going to pop up.  :-)  I could also see SMPT type vehicles being needed early on to move pieces of equipment from landing sites to positions of permanent residence.  Still for short distance within a settlement only.

The low gravity would significantly improve the physics of a tram/gondola system.  Cable sag will be less for a given load, and bearing wear in the rollers has more potential to be managed with low heating requirements.  Tower stations can also be spaced further apart.  The steel cable will be just fine in the cold environment. 

Rail solutions have some of the same skepticisms as for roads.  The ground needs to be surveyed and an engineered base of material needs to be made for the track.  If that is feasible, for needs such as water or minerals, it would be a step up in carrying capacity over tram/gondolas.

I completely agree that all specifics of each need should be defined first. 

Humans will likely travel by whatever method creates the need & is best for any given solution.  The possible exception being pipelines.  :-) 

[Stan-1967]

…

Pipelines on Mars would have substantial thermal demands to keep the water from freezing.  The energy in joules to keep it from freezing will be far in excess of the joules of mechanical work needed to move it on a tramway or railway.   …

This isn’t true, and I know because I calculated it instead of just going off of vibes, as you’re doing here. Vacuum insulation (which is particularly easy on Mars) is really good stuff.

OK, show me your calcs for heat loss per km for pipe size temperature.  Was it the size of the Alaska Pipeline, or a more modest 150-200mm municipal hot water line?  You can pick a pipe size to get you the answer you want.

I do agree there could be some breakeven point if your heat loss per kilometer is less than the rolling friction energy loss of a Tram/Train, then at some point all the energy needed to melt the ice will eventually be equalized.

What values did you use for rolling friction & what cargo capacity? 

Note on earth a 6000 HP ( 4.5MW) diesel locomotive can haul 6 million kg's of cargo.  As a sense of scale, note that the G.G of a Merlin 1-D is around 10,000HP, and its thermal efficiency is probably 30-35%, so how long would it take for the waste heat of the G.G to melt a 5-6 million pound block of ice?  ( that is like the entire prop mass of a Starship sized block of ice.)

Search Labs AI says a 6000HP diesel engine uses around 250 gallons per hour of diesel.   I can fit 250 gallons of diesel in the back of a Ford F-150.  This BOEL calc feels like postulating boiling the ocean with a match.

That is the head start that a train, tram, or road based vehicle has on the pipeline.  To be precise, the pipeline yields a head start of 333.55kJ per kg of ice ( heat of fusion) to the modes of transport that don't have to melt it. 

Another perspective.  Say a tram or train car can carry 10 tons of ice.   To get that up to say 50 kph ( 13.9 m/s)(slow) would require 1MJ, and from that point on, assuming constant speed, it is just rolling friction losses all the way to the destination. 

It takes 3.3355 GJ of energy just to melt the 10 tons of ice to 0C.  That train/Tram/Vehicle can go for a long long time before the pipeline breaks even. 

[Robotbeat]

You really expect to transport dirty ice mixed with regolith? K. You have to melt it to realistically extract it, to purify it, or to use it eventually. Not sure why you think transport in solid state is an advantage as it makes nearly every step more complicated. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen. To extract it will involve melting or even vaporizing it, so you might as well keep it liquid (with the heat of friction you’re generating anyway) so it can be used immediately.

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

[Stan-1967]

You really expect to transport dirty ice mixed with regolith? K. You have to melt it to realistically extract it, to purify it, or to use it eventually. Not sure why you think transport in solid state is an advantage as it makes nearly every step more complicated. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen. To extract it will involve melting or even vaporizing it, so you might as well keep it liquid (with the heat of friction you’re generating anyway) so it can be used immediately.

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

Oh goodness we are beating an O.T. dead horse!  I grant that moving water from Mars poles to the equator is a job for a pipeline.  But people will not be traveling in the pipeline, they will travel in whatever mode of equipment used to build the pipeline. 

Also, on Mars it would be much more energy efficient to sublimate the ice, and collect it on a cooled surface.  Think of scraping your windshield on a frosty morning.

Melting it will also ionize/dissolve all those nasty perchlorate & sulfate salts into the liquid.  Yuck!

[Robotbeat]

Perchlorates are a potential heat and oxygen source, tho!

[Lampyridae]

You really expect to transport dirty ice mixed with regolith? K. You have to melt it to realistically extract it, to purify it, or to use it eventually. Not sure why you think transport in solid state is an advantage as it makes nearly every step more complicated. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen. To extract it will involve melting or even vaporizing it, so you might as well keep it liquid (with the heat of friction you’re generating anyway) so it can be used immediately.

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

Oh goodness we are beating an O.T. dead horse!  I grant that moving water from Mars poles to the equator is a job for a pipeline.  But people will not be traveling in the pipeline, they will travel in whatever mode of equipment used to build the pipeline. 

Also, on Mars it would be much more energy efficient to sublimate the ice, and collect it on a cooled surface.  Think of scraping your windshield on a frosty morning.

Melting it will also ionize/dissolve all those nasty perchlorate & sulfate salts into the liquid.  Yuck!

Or with the low atmospheric pressure, you can also just pipe the water as low-pressure steam.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So you have a steampunk Mars colony. Ok, ok, I'll get out!

[Coastal Ron]

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

Of course, just as trains are more efficient than trucks too. But you only build pipelines when you have a large supply of something liquid that is destined for specific point of large demand. That won't happen on Mars for decades, or likely much longer.

So in the beginning, and in the interim, roads will be the method to move everything.

[Robotbeat]

You really expect to transport dirty ice mixed with regolith? K. You have to melt it to realistically extract it, to purify it, or to use it eventually. Not sure why you think transport in solid state is an advantage as it makes nearly every step more complicated. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen. To extract it will involve melting or even vaporizing it, so you might as well keep it liquid (with the heat of friction you’re generating anyway) so it can be used immediately.

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

Oh goodness we are beating an O.T. dead horse!  I grant that moving water from Mars poles to the equator is a job for a pipeline.  But people will not be traveling in the pipeline, they will travel in whatever mode of equipment used to build the pipeline. 

Also, on Mars it would be much more energy efficient to sublimate the ice, and collect it on a cooled surface.  Think of scraping your windshield on a frosty morning.

Melting it will also ionize/dissolve all those nasty perchlorate & sulfate salts into the liquid.  Yuck!

Or with the low atmospheric pressure, you can also just pipe the water as low-pressure steam.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So you have a steampunk Mars colony. Ok, ok, I'll get out!

Indeed. I was actually thinking about that quite a lot. This might be the best way to transport water on Mars for the earliest missions. Attached is water transport study for NASA’s Machete lander concept basically looking at ISRU for Starship.

I was also looking for the Machete lander cryocooler pallet presentation but I couldn’t find it. Transporting stuff in gaseous form has a lot going for it.

[Robotbeat]

Moving stuff around on trucks has a lot of overhead loading and unloading. A pipe therefore works well over short distances, and for long distances, all-terrain trucks/rovers makes sense as it doesn’t require even a road.

For vapor, your pipe could be just like an aluminum HVAC duct like this, with the pressure only slightly elevated and otherwise operating near ambient Martian conditions.

[crandles57]

Why is the discussion about moving water?

OK if in many years you want ice/water from poles moved to near equator, then I can see the need but I hope it is so far ahead in time that it doesn't need to be designed now. For now find sources of ice near equator?

We want the water to react with CO2 from atmosphere. The atmosphere is available anywhere, so put the methane production plant right next to the water source. (The base next to this if possible.) So is the problem really more about transporting methane to the launch site? Or do we want to produce methane near the launch site so have to transport water there?

Which is easier to transport ice/water or methane?

Further, is the transportation needs more about whether ice/water or methane is easier to transport or more about equipment to install from landing site to the ice source located base?

[Robotbeat]

Equator is easier to get to and launch from (for the same reason as on Earth), it has the least temperature extremes and the best solar resource (smallest seasonal effect, which is maybe the most important part).

There’s not a lot of ice there. But even if you land near ice, it still needs to get from the ice mining location to the ISRU site and then loaded into the vehicle. Some transport is needed.

[spacenut]

While we have moved to moving water.  Not hard in a pipeline with solar panels along it's path to keep it warm.  Then, you can have expansion joints every so often in case of freezing.  Gee wiz.  That is very easy to do.  No need for tanker trucks.  An ice extraction station, warm up to melt, start pumping in pipeline, especially during the day when the pipeline can be warm enough to push water.  Then you can have battery operated heaters at night.  Some type of heat tape wrapped around the pipe.  Industrial sized not like 3/4" pipe at your house. 

Again, I like the idea of a truck train.  Say a modified Tesla tractor trailer truck pulling a train of cars connected together by flex joints to house a work crew exploring, prospecting, etc.  Portable solar panels for charging during the day and travel at night or so on.  Or, travel one day, charge the next. 

[Coastal Ron]

...
Again, I like the idea of a truck train.  Say a modified Tesla tractor trailer truck pulling a train of cars connected together...

Think BIGGER!!

Mars has 1/3rd the gravity of Earth, so build BIGGER vehicles! Bigger wheels too, and they can be like wagon wheels, with the suspension isolating the road from the payload. And if the road is scraped (no need for paving), then there won't be much road vibration anyways with large sized wheels.

[spacenut]

It will all depend on how big a vehicle can be carried in a Starship or use multiple Starships and couple each section together after they are all off loaded. 

[Coastal Ron]

It will all depend on how big a vehicle can be carried in a Starship or use multiple Starships and couple each section together after they are all off loaded.

The components can be shipped to Mars and assembled on site.

EVERY other form of transportation will have the same challenge - how does it get to Mars? Right?

At least with trucks you only need the moving asset, you don't need any infrastructure, and the whole thing can be run on electricity generated on Mars, without the need for consuming gasses.

[DanClemmensen]

It will all depend on how big a vehicle can be carried in a Starship or use multiple Starships and couple each section together after they are all off loaded.

The components can be shipped to Mars and assembled on site.

EVERY other form of transportation will have the same challenge - how does it get to Mars? Right?

At least with trucks you only need the moving asset, you don't need any infrastructure, and the whole thing can be run on electricity generated on Mars, without the need for consuming gasses.

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

[spacenut]

This is why Musk says 1,000's of Starship flights to Mars will be needed to eventually build a self-sustaining colony.  Mars will cease to become a colony when it is truely self-sustaining. 

[Robotbeat]

This is why Musk says 1,000's of Starship flights to Mars will be needed to eventually build a self-sustaining colony.  Mars will cease to become a colony when it is truely self-sustaining.

Well, technically “colony” refers to political status. No country on Earth is fully autarkic (except maybe a few uncontacted tribes). So some trade does not preclude political self-governance.

[Twark_Main]

You really expect to transport dirty ice mixed with regolith? K. You have to melt it to realistically extract it, to purify it, or to use it eventually. Not sure why you think transport in solid state is an advantage as it makes nearly every step more complicated. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen. To extract it will involve melting or even vaporizing it, so you might as well keep it liquid (with the heat of friction you’re generating anyway) so it can be used immediately.

Pipelines on Earth are FAR more efficient for transporting liquids than truck.

Oh goodness we are beating an O.T. dead horse!  I grant that moving water from Mars poles to the equator is a job for a pipeline.  But people will not be traveling in the pipeline, they will travel in whatever mode of equipment used to build the pipeline. 

Also, on Mars it would be much more energy efficient to sublimate the ice, and collect it on a cooled surface.  Think of scraping your windshield on a frosty morning.

Melting it will also ionize/dissolve all those nasty perchlorate & sulfate salts into the liquid.  Yuck!

This is my general concept.

    1. Cover the surface with a thin membrane, burying the perimeter.

    2. Pull a vacuum (these two steps are already proven with vacuum surcharging on Earth).

    3. The ice underneath sublimates at the lower pressure.

    4. Re-deposit the (now clean) ice in a collection vessel.

    5. Recycle the heat of deposition back under the membrane, so it's used to sublimate more ice. Lots of heat in that phase change!

    6. Optionally you might expose ice by "gardening" with heavy equipment or blasting, make the membrane a solar collector (80% vs 25% efficient), or selectively insulate to reduce heat loss.


Fortunately this is very short range movement of water vapor (as mentioned above), so it does work, but I don't know if it makes sense as a method of bulk water transport much beyond that.  Compared to a conventional water pipe it has extremely low fluid density, which means extremely high pipe mass and pumping power for a given mass flow rate. 

[Coastal Ron]

It will all depend on how big a vehicle can be carried in a Starship or use multiple Starships and couple each section together after they are all off loaded.

The components can be shipped to Mars and assembled on site.

EVERY other form of transportation will have the same challenge - how does it get to Mars? Right?

At least with trucks you only need the moving asset, you don't need any infrastructure, and the whole thing can be run on electricity generated on Mars, without the need for consuming gasses.

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

Sure, given that you have shipped the large tools and fixtures needed to rip apart a ship in a controlled manner.

That won't happen too early in the life of a Mars colony though, since that will require probably thousands of man hours for the disassembly and then assembly of the land vehicles. Putting together stuff that has been built to go together can sometimes take quite a while, whereas building something out of something else will take a LOT of work - and did I mention all the tools and supplies that you would need?

First generation trucks, both short haul and long haul, will be shipped from Earth in pieces and assembly on Mars. You could probably ship a small fleet of them inside of the 400m³ cargo hold of a Starship. And remember with the 1/3rd gravity of Mars you can build them bigger while being lighter in weight. Plus active suspension and slow speeds will allow them to be mass efficient.

[DanClemmensen]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

Sure, given that you have shipped the large tools and fixtures needed to rip apart a ship in a controlled manner.

That won't happen too early in the life of a Mars colony though, since that will require probably thousands of man hours for the disassembly and then assembly of the land vehicles.

You can cut up a Starship fairly quickly using an oxyacetylene torch. We see this all the time at Starbase. On Mars, a fiber laser cutter of the same power as that torch is a better choice. This is basically a hand tool and could be operated by and Optimus-class robot. You can weld Stainless steel using a fiber laser welder. This is also basically a hand tool. that can be operated by a robot. All the cuts and welds can be planned in advance and prracticed on Earth.

For dissasembly, Start at the top of the landed ship and work your way down, lowering the  pieces with a cable. No individual piece needs to be very large or heavy.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

[Coastal Ron]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

Sure, given that you have shipped the large tools and fixtures needed to rip apart a ship in a controlled manner.

That won't happen too early in the life of a Mars colony though, since that will require probably thousands of man hours for the disassembly and then assembly of the land vehicles.

You can cut up a Starship fairly quickly using an oxyacetylene torch. We see this all the time at Starbase.

Yes, and they have built up a huge amount of inventory of equipment for doing that. You'd need to take that to Mars first.

On Mars, a fiber laser cutter of the same power as that torch is a better choice. This is basically a hand tool and could be operated by and Optimus-class robot.

Fiber laser cutter & welder, yes, but no to humanoid robots. They are just not there yet.

For dissasembly, Start at the top of the landed ship and work your way down, lowering the  pieces with a cable. No individual piece needs to be very large or heavy.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

This is also where colonists (or colony management & planning here on Earth) will have to decide is it better to ship a product to Mars rather than shipping to tools and ability for Martians to build their own from Starship scrap. Early on I don't think there will be enough human labor available for disassembly work, at least for surface transportation needs...

[Robotbeat]

Doesn’t take much energy to cut things into pieces, if you compare it to melting stuff down or synthesizing materials using electrolysis-produced hydrogen or CO.

[crandles57]

Fiber laser cutter & welder, yes, but no to humanoid robots. They are just not there yet.

For dissasembly, Start at the top of the landed ship and work your way down, lowering the  pieces with a cable. No individual piece needs to be very large or heavy.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1922083384085430492

Though I do realise we don't get much info on how easily trained to do complex movements.

A crane that extends out the payload door will be available. Once you cut down the attachment points, you need to fit it at a lower level and have places for the robots to stand to do the cutting which may be tricky. Once the payload is emptied attach cable(s) and pull it over then cut it up?

[DanClemmensen]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was discussing a single Ship carrying stuff to build a restricted set of stuff. Yes, it gets dissasembled from the top down.

No, the specific material for the vehicle chassis may not be from the top. The curved sections will be removed and saved for other projects.

No dissassembled part needs to have a mass of more than one tonne. This can be handled by a very small "crane" whose booms are made from salvaged stainless steel, plus a winch with a light-duty cable.

No hatch is needed. The robots can cut their way out.

The "humanoid robots" are not making any sort of  sophisticated decisions. It's all preprogrammed. Every cut, every winch operation, every weld are all planned in advance. The robots are not much more than 6-axis CNC machines.

The Ship is assumed to have electrical power available for the robots and other equipment. If this is not true for my scenario, then most other scenarios are in trouble also and we will need to carry solar panels as payload and lay them out on the surface in an early step of the process.

[Lampyridae]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was discussing a single Ship carrying stuff to build a restricted set of stuff. Yes, it gets dissasembled from the top down.

No, the specific material for the vehicle chassis may not be from the top. The curved sections will be removed and saved for other projects.

No dissassembled part needs to have a mass of more than one tonne. This can be handled by a very small "crane" whose booms are made from salvaged stainless steel, plus a winch with a light-duty cable.

No hatch is needed. The robots can cut their way out.

The "humanoid robots" are not making any sort of  sophisticated decisions. It's all preprogrammed. Every cut, every winch operation, every weld are all planned in advance. The robots are not much more than 6-axis CNC machines.

The Ship is assumed to have electrical power available for the robots and other equipment. If this is not true for my scenario, then most other scenarios are in trouble also and we will need to carry solar panels as payload and lay them out on the surface in an early step of the process.

Why not just go full 6-axis machine then. Just put a laser on an arm somewhere inside the Starship? Have little wheeled robots carry and stack. Cut out enough and the Starship turns into a factory space. Other robot arms hold, bend and weld. Like a mini Tesla factory.

[DanClemmensen]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was discussing a single Ship carrying stuff to build a restricted set of stuff. Yes, it gets dissasembled from the top down.

No, the specific material for the vehicle chassis may not be from the top. The curved sections will be removed and saved for other projects.

No dissassembled part needs to have a mass of more than one tonne. This can be handled by a very small "crane" whose booms are made from salvaged stainless steel, plus a winch with a light-duty cable.

No hatch is needed. The robots can cut their way out.

The "humanoid robots" are not making any sort of  sophisticated decisions. It's all preprogrammed. Every cut, every winch operation, every weld are all planned in advance. The robots are not much more than 6-axis CNC machines.

The Ship is assumed to have electrical power available for the robots and other equipment. If this is not true for my scenario, then most other scenarios are in trouble also and we will need to carry solar panels as payload and lay them out on the surface in an early step of the process.

Why not just go full 6-axis machine then. Just put a laser on an arm somewhere inside the Starship? Have little wheeled robots carry and stack. Cut out enough and the Starship turns into a factory space. Other robot arms hold, bend and weld. Like a mini Tesla factory.

I assumed general-purpose robot hardware because it can be used for other tasks in addition to Ship dissassembly and rover chassis building. I believe two general-purpose robot chassis can do the pre-programmed dissasembly. Two, because the wincihng step works better with one at the top and one at the bottom. We are probably power-limited, so multiple parallel specialized robots will not help much, and we don't need a high-production factory to disassemble one Ship and build only the number of rovers that consume one Ship's worth of steel.
 Required hardware:
    two humanoid robots
    two fiber laser cutter/welders (optimized for Mars)
    one winch with 50 meters of cable
    one pulley
You of course still need all the manufactured parts of your rovers other than the chassis and wheels.
   The fiber laser cutter/welders are probably around 2000 Watts. They must be optimized for Mars because the ones we use on Earth are air or water cooled. Welding will not need the Argon used on Earth.

[punder]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was discussing a single Ship carrying stuff to build a restricted set of stuff. Yes, it gets dissasembled from the top down.

No, the specific material for the vehicle chassis may not be from the top. The curved sections will be removed and saved for other projects.

No dissassembled part needs to have a mass of more than one tonne. This can be handled by a very small "crane" whose booms are made from salvaged stainless steel, plus a winch with a light-duty cable.

No hatch is needed. The robots can cut their way out.

The "humanoid robots" are not making any sort of  sophisticated decisions. It's all preprogrammed. Every cut, every winch operation, every weld are all planned in advance. The robots are not much more than 6-axis CNC machines.

The Ship is assumed to have electrical power available for the robots and other equipment. If this is not true for my scenario, then most other scenarios are in trouble also and we will need to carry solar panels as payload and lay them out on the surface in an early step of the process.

As long as we’re cutting up landers, why not cut off the pressure vessels (of crew landers that won’t return, be used as habs, or employed otherwise) and place them on truck suspensions? (Somewhat) instant crewed surface vehicle.

Actually this could also be done to unpressurized landers, for cargo carriers.

[DanClemmensen]

You can build the structural parts and probably the wheels from stainless steel salvaged from the Ship. You will still need payload mass for the battery, solar panels, motors, electronics, and some precision mechanical parts.

- How do the humanoid robots charge up while they are up there?

- Are you assuming there will be a large crane?

- And you seem to be assuming that the material for the "truck" is coming from the curved section of the nose, which is half covered in tiles (which have to be removed first). I would think the middle section for the propellant tanks would have the material that would be needed for truck construction.

Fiber laser torches and welders consume electricity, not gas, and I think they will work well in the Martian atmosphere of 6 millibar of CO₂.

Electricity is much better than gas that isn't common with Starship propulsion, but where are you getting the power from? Power will be a scarce resource on Mars for a long time, and will probably be one of the moderators of how quickly colonization can increase.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was discussing a single Ship carrying stuff to build a restricted set of stuff. Yes, it gets dissasembled from the top down.

No, the specific material for the vehicle chassis may not be from the top. The curved sections will be removed and saved for other projects.

No dissassembled part needs to have a mass of more than one tonne. This can be handled by a very small "crane" whose booms are made from salvaged stainless steel, plus a winch with a light-duty cable.

No hatch is needed. The robots can cut their way out.

The "humanoid robots" are not making any sort of  sophisticated decisions. It's all preprogrammed. Every cut, every winch operation, every weld are all planned in advance. The robots are not much more than 6-axis CNC machines.

The Ship is assumed to have electrical power available for the robots and other equipment. If this is not true for my scenario, then most other scenarios are in trouble also and we will need to carry solar panels as payload and lay them out on the surface in an early step of the process.

As long as we’re cutting up landers, why not cut off the pressure vessels (of crew landers that won’t return, be used as habs, or employed otherwise) and place them on truck suspensions? (Somewhat) instant crewed surface vehicle.

Actually this could also be done to unpressurized landers, for cargo carriers.

Rigging for this is a lot harder. It's a large heavy mass that must be handled as a unit. My proposal is to slice into pieces that are no more than one tonne apiece, to be handled by small winches and small robots. I'm fairly sure that the largest sliced piece will actually be less than 100 kg. some pre-built components (motors, batteries) might be heavier, as will the robots themselves, which is why the winch must be rated at one tonne.

If I had a need to start from a 9-meter element, I would wait until I got all the way down to near the thrust puck. But that's an unwieldy size for a vehicle.

[Coastal Ron]

Why not just go full 6-axis machine then. Just put a laser on an arm somewhere inside the Starship? Have little wheeled robots carry and stack. Cut out enough and the Starship turns into a factory space. Other robot arms hold, bend and weld. Like a mini Tesla factory.

I assumed general-purpose robot hardware because it can be used for other tasks in addition to Ship dissassembly and rover chassis building.

Except that general purpose humanoid robots today can't do any of that. Or I should say, have not shown the ability to do that in applications here on Earth. And if they can't do it here on Earth, then doing it on Mars will be a lot harder.

I believe two general-purpose robot chassis can do the pre-programmed dissasembly.

I see the same irrational exuberance around humanoid robots as I do with AI software these days. Until you actually SEE a humanoid robot demonstrating IN REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS the tasks you want them to do on Mars, they can't yet do it.

For instance, I own a Tesla Model Y, but I have NEVER believed anything Elon Musk has said about Full Self Driving (FSD). He has been promising it was right around the corner since 2018, and it still isn't here (I've tried it, and see no reason to buy it).

And it is the same with the Tesla Optimus robot. I've been following the end-effector field for humanoid robots since I was in college, and while dancing and running robots abound, using humanoid robots for general purpose tasks has not happened yet. Why? Because the combination of abilities to do dextrous detailed work, quickly, has not been realized yet.

Which is why Lampyridae's suggestion of task-specific equipment is a good one.

Two, because the wincihng step works better with one at the top and one at the bottom. We are probably power-limited, so multiple parallel specialized robots will not help much, and we don't need a high-production factory to disassemble one Ship and build only the number of rovers that consume one Ship's worth of steel.

Time is a factor here, from the standpoint of when you start and when a rover is needed. In other words, if this turns out to be a 10-year project, then it probably is not worth the effort. And modern planning systems today could estimate how many man-hours it would take to do this project, and then you would multiply by some X-factor for how much less capable humanoid robots are in doing the same tasks.

Required hardware:
    two humanoid robots
    two fiber laser cutter/welders (optimized for Mars)
    one winch with 50 meters of cable
    one pulley
You of course still need all the manufactured parts of your rovers other than the chassis and wheels.
   The fiber laser cutter/welders are probably around 2000 Watts. They must be optimized for Mars because the ones we use on Earth are air or water cooled. Welding will not need the Argon used on Earth.

My gut tells me you are seriously under-resourcing this effort, and not taking into account equipment failures and the time it will take overall for this project.

So if the goal is to land one ship, and have one or more land vehicles produced by the time the next ship arrives in 2 years, I doubt this will work. Such a project on Earth would be hard, and humans are wonderful multi-purpose machines, but humanoid robots are not - not yet.

Which is why I would assume that any transportation that is needed early on in the life of Mars colonization will be purpose built on Earth, and shipped to Mars in some compact form that doesn't require complex assembly when it arrives.

Oh, and there will be a LOT of them shipped to Mars, because Elon Musk plans for an ever increasing number of ships to transit each Earth and Mars conjunction.

[BN]

[Twark_Main]

My favorite fact about the LRV is that (for reasons that should be obvious) it's one of the few electric cars ever made that uses primary cells.  It was never intended to be charged up again, and non-rechargeable batteries achieved lower weight and could better withstand the extreme environment.

[BN]

a similar, compact "MRV" is a reasonable solution for initial mars logistics imo. although this time with rechargeable batteries and solar panels.

as usual, the primary design constraint is weight and the LRV was a great design in that regard at 210kg.


my favorite detail would have to be the story of them repairing the fender with tape and a map.

[AmigaClone]

I can see several vehicles being used for travel on Mars itself.

Initially, a modernized version of the LRV might be a good option for short (single EVA) trips.

Longer trips would use a larger vehicle that could still be sent to Mars on a single Starship without the need for major reassembly once there. That vehicle would not only serve as transport, but also serve as a mobile base. One of the possible inspirations for this larger vehicle could be a pure electric version of the "Antarctic Snow Cruiser". Another could be "Arc II" from the 1976 American TV series by the same name.

[BN]

I can see several vehicles being used for travel on Mars itself.

Initially, a modernized version of the LRV might be a good option for short (single EVA) trips.

Longer trips would use a larger vehicle that could still be sent to Mars on a single Starship without the need for major reassembly once there. That vehicle would not only serve as transport, but also serve as a mobile base. One of the possible inspirations for this larger vehicle could be a pure electric version of the "Antarctic Snow Cruiser". Another could be "Arc II" from the 1976 American TV series by the same name.

this is the approach being taken for Artemis. they have granted contracts for several open MRV style vehicles, but also JAXA/Toyota is developing a pressurized vehicle.

[DanClemmensen]

Why not just go full 6-axis machine then. Just put a laser on an arm somewhere inside the Starship? Have little wheeled robots carry and stack. Cut out enough and the Starship turns into a factory space. Other robot arms hold, bend and weld. Like a mini Tesla factory.

I assumed general-purpose robot hardware because it can be used for other tasks in addition to Ship dissassembly and rover chassis building.

Except that general purpose humanoid robots today can't do any of that. Or I should say, have not shown the ability to do that in applications here on Earth. And if they can't do it here on Earth, then doing it on Mars will be a lot harder.

I refer to the hardware, not to the "AI" software, which I agree is sketchy. For the specific cut and weld application I propose, the hardware would be programmed to configure itself as a 6-axis CNC cutter, and that CNC cutter would then be programmed to perform a very specific set of steps. The hardware will reconfigure, move, and then perform another specific set of cuts, etc. This is not some weird robotic dancer or gymnast. The entire sequence can be practiced on Earth before the Mars mission.

I believe two general-purpose robot chassis can do the pre-programmed dissasembly.

I see the same irrational exuberance around humanoid robots as I do with AI software these days. Until you actually SEE a humanoid robot demonstrating IN REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS the tasks you want them to do on Mars, they can't yet do it.

agreed. I have never seen humanoid robotic hardware programmed to perform simple CNC operations. I suspect is has been done, but it's not sexy enough to make YouTube videos.

For instance, I own a Tesla Model Y, but I have NEVER believed anything Elon Musk has said about Full Self Driving (FSD). He has been promising it was right around the corner since 2018, and it still isn't here (I've tried it, and see no reason to buy it).

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted. They are also irrelevant to the use of humanoid robot hardware on Mars. The specific reuse of a specific Starship to create specific set of rover chassis is a highly restricted pre-planned activity in a highly restricted  workspace with no unknown or time-critical inputs.

And it is the same with the Tesla Optimus robot. I've been following the end-effector field for humanoid robots since I was in college, and while dancing and running robots abound, using humanoid robots for general purpose tasks has not happened yet. Why? Because the combination of abilities to do dextrous detailed work, quickly, has not been realized yet.

Which is why Lampyridae's suggestion of task-specific equipment is a good one.

Two, because the winching step works better with one at the top and one at the bottom. We are probably power-limited, so multiple parallel specialized robots will not help much, and we don't need a high-production factory to disassemble one Ship and build only the number of rovers that consume one Ship's worth of steel.

Time is a factor here, from the standpoint of when you start and when a rover is needed. In other words, if this turns out to be a 10-year project, then it probably is not worth the effort. And modern planning systems today could estimate how many man-hours it would take to do this project, and then you would multiply by some X-factor for how much less capable humanoid robots are in doing the same tasks.

Required hardware:
    two humanoid robots
    two fiber laser cutter/welders (optimized for Mars)
    one winch with 50 meters of cable
    one pulley
You of course still need all the manufactured parts of your rovers other than the chassis and wheels.
   The fiber laser cutter/welders are probably around 2000 Watts. They must be optimized for Mars because the ones we use on Earth are air or water cooled. Welding will not need the Argon used on Earth.

My gut tells me you are seriously under-resourcing this effort, and not taking into account equipment failures and the time it will take overall for this project.

So if the goal is to land one ship, and have one or more land vehicles produced by the time the next ship arrives in 2 years, I doubt this will work. Such a project on Earth would be hard, and humans are wonderful multi-purpose machines, but humanoid robots are not - not yet.

Your gut feeling is at least as valid as mine, but we will need to do some actual experiments to find out. I think maybe a day to set up, a day to cut open the hatchway and set up the hoist, and then two days for each chassis. My mental model draws more from Mad Max, Junkyard Wars, and First robotics than it does from Curiosity or Perserverence.

[Twark_Main]

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

This one is gonna age like milk.

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

[Coastal Ron]

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

This one is gonna age like milk.

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

If you haven't driven a Tesla with FSD (i.e. Full Self Driving), then you wouldn't know... 

The way I like to describe FSD, which I last used in 2024, is that it is a like a nervous teenage learning how to drive. In other words, it requires far more effort to use FSD than it does to drive the car myself. I do use Adaptive Cruise Control while on the freeway, but only while already in traffic, since it can't see stopped traffic far enough in advance to slow down from freeway speeds. The lack of processing power, the lack of better sensors, and other issues limit the safety of the current FSD.

The reason I raised the issue of Tesla and their current Full Self Driving software is that it represents the height of AI development for Tesla. They have the most training data for FSD, the most users, the most experience in production environments, etc. The Tesla Optimus robot is still literally in its infancy, without any large scale deployments that improve on anything humans can do.

For Mars, where moving around won't need to be fast, I think autonomous vehicles will be prevalent, but I also think that manual control will always be an option. And once remote sites are set up, with a need for constant movement of cargo and people, then I think that is a good use for autonomous road transportation systems.

[Twark_Main]

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

This one is gonna age like milk.

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

...FSD, which I last used in 2024...

With the rate of progress, this is like the (apocryphal) IBM exec adding... "and I should know, I used a computer as recently as 1973!"   

[Coastal Ron]

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

This one is gonna age like milk.

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

...FSD, which I last used in 2024...

With the rate of progress, this is like the (apocryphal) IBM exec adding... "and I should know, I used a computer as recently as 1973!"   

FSD is HARDWARE dependent, which means that back in 2018 Elon Musk was promising FSD using Hardware 2 that existed in their production cars, then said it would really work with Hardware 3 (which is what I have in my 2021 Model Y), and now he says FSD will FINALLY work as advertised using Hardware 4. Without any major changes to the sensors (and actually deactivated any existing ultrasonic sensors).

That isn't "progress", that is a lack of real understanding by Elon Musk about what it takes to create a Full Self Driving feature that works as advertised. After more than 6 years!

And now people like you are drinking the Elon PR, thinking that autonomous driving is just a software update away. You are funny 

[Twark_Main]

I have been driving my Model Y since Q2 2020. I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

This one is gonna age like milk.

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

...FSD, which I last used in 2024...

With the rate of progress, this is like the (apocryphal) IBM exec adding... "and I should know, I used a computer as recently as 1973!"   

FSD is HARDWARE dependent, which means that back in 2018 Elon Musk was promising FSD using Hardware 2 that existed in their production cars, then said it would really work with Hardware 3 (which is what I have in my 2021 Model Y), and now he says FSD will FINALLY work as advertised using Hardware 4. Without any major changes to the sensors (and actually deactivated any existing ultrasonic sensors).

That isn't "progress", that is a lack of real understanding by Elon Musk about what it takes to create a Full Self Driving feature that works as advertised. After more than 6 years!

And now people like you are drinking the Elon PR, thinking that autonomous driving is just a software update away. You are funny 

This is getting way off-topic, but obviously Tesla built the computer as a modular replaceable unit so it can be upgraded if necessary.  It may be necessary.     I expect the AI can be tweaked to use the existing cameras however, but we shall see how it ultimately turns out.  Swapping out cameras is a few grand in labor but ultimately doable.

I think, for the thread moving forward, it's okay to assume that FSD-type capabilities will or will not be available on Mars. Just disclose what you are assuming.  Further discussion is too off-topic, I expect.

[BN]

I have never used autopilot or FSD, even when FSD was offered for free trial. These features are too complicated to be trusted.

I am absolutely blown away by this lol.

[TheRadicalModerate]

This is my general concept.

    1. Cover the surface with a thin membrane, burying the perimeter.

How far away is the perimeter?  How far down do you have to go to get under the water deposit?

    2. Pull a vacuum (these two steps are already proven with vacuum surcharging on Earth).

    3. The ice underneath sublimates at the lower pressure.

If you pull a vacuum, then the thin membrane coats the surface of the ice.  I don't know enough about the thermodynamics of a solid covered by a membrane, but ISTM that the effective pressure will be atmospheric pressure--which is usually a couple of pascals above the triple point pressure.  So I think you're not subliming a lot of ice without lots of heat.

    4. Re-deposit the (now clean) ice in a collection vessel.

    5. Recycle the heat of deposition back under the membrane, so it's used to sublimate more ice. Lots of heat in that phase change!

You still need a heat pump to do this.  Nothing wrong with recycling process heat, but it might be better to have less of it, not more.

    6. Optionally you might expose ice by "gardening" with heavy equipment or blasting, make the membrane a solar collector (80% vs 25% efficient), or selectively insulate to reduce heat loss.

We obviously don't know very much about the quality of the ice under the surface.  Is it mixed with soils, or is it relatively pure?  Is it a vast expanse, with tens of thousands of m³, or is it patchier?  How deep is the deposit?  Tens or hundreds of meters?  There are a lot of variables

Fortunately this is very short range movement of water vapor (as mentioned above), so it does work, but I don't know if it makes sense as a method of bulk water transport much beyond that.  Compared to a conventional water pipe it has extremely low fluid density, which means extremely high pipe mass and pumping power for a given mass flow rate. 

I assume you're thinking only of extremely high scale mining, on extremely large water deposits.  For this to work, you have to be able not only to stake off the area you're going to mine, but also somehow seal the area you want to mine next, so it doesn't sublime away while you're waiting for the equipment to mine it to become available.  At the very least, that involves trenching all the way to the bottom of the deposit, and constructing some kind of vapor-retaining wall.

If you have a really high quality deposit, it might make more sense to use underground mining techniques, where you can continue to the pressure of the overtopping regolith to keep thinks stable, while cutting galleries into the ice, chewing it up, and sending it to a hopper for transport to whatever refining you need to do.

But this is all colonial-scale mining.  I'm more interested in base-scale extraction to begin with.  That requires ~1000t of prop every 2.14y (for one return flight per synod), plus, say, maybe 100t a year for base use (assuming no water-intensive industrial processes, at least to begin with).  That's about 100t of LCH4 per year, which requires 25t of hydrogen, which is 225t/y of water.  Note that pure Sabatier reactions yield O:F=2:1, so you need some other way to lean the mixture down to 3.6:1.  You can do that with RWGS, using recyclable hydrogen as a catalyst to generate excess O2, or you can simply supply more water.  Too lazy to do the math on how much more water--say about double?  That would make prop requirements 550t/y.  Say 700t/y for all base ops.  That's roughly 2t/day.

[Twark_Main]

This is my general concept.

    1. Cover the surface with a thin membrane, burying the perimeter.

How far away is the perimeter?...

My reply is posted in the Processing/Collection of Water Ice thread:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60717.msg2688492#msg2688492

[Coastal Ron]

Saw this and thought it could be relevant:



The wheelbase would probably have to be spread out more due to the lower Mars gravity, but the concept has a lot of possibilities for low-tech applications. Early on, having multi-use vehicles like this, that appear to be fairly easy to maintain, could be important.

[JulesVerneATV]

  Say a modified Tesla tractor trailer truck pulling a train of cars connected together by flex joints to house a work crew exploring, prospecting, etc.  Portable solar panels for charging during the day and travel at night or so on.  Or, travel one day, charge the next. 

For crossing crater, rifts and mountains, the canyon system on Mars. The sky tram, ropeway cable car, aerial tram, or  téléphérique or Seilbahn

[Coastal Ron]

  Say a modified Tesla tractor trailer truck pulling a train of cars connected together by flex joints to house a work crew exploring, prospecting, etc.  Portable solar panels for charging during the day and travel at night or so on.  Or, travel one day, charge the next. 

For crossing crater, rifts and mountains, the canyon system on Mars. The sky tram, ropeway cable car, aerial tram, or  téléphérique or Seilbahn

The amount of material that it would take to set that up, and the number of skill laborers required for the installation, operations and maintenance, would be prohibitive for an early colony. Plus, such a transportation system is usually installed only AFTER traffic patterns are understood, and there is enough demand for a particular route.

Wheeled vehicles will be available on DAY 1 after landing, and will be the easiest way to get around.

[spacenut]

Yes, early on, it will be wheeled vehicles going around craters, canyons and mountains.  Even an older crater may be sloped enough travel across with a wheeled vehicle.   Early landings will be on the flat plains near a water supply