Author Topic: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats  (Read 869904 times)

Offline Lumina

Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1500 on: 10/21/2018 02:12 pm »

(snip)

As an aside, the vapour pressure from water alone is almost the same as Mars' atmospheric pressure. Ie, at that pressure of water-vapour, boil-off stops. Note: Of water vapour. Doesn't help you outside, since it's a partial-pressure thing. However, if you merely stop the exchange of water-vapour and Mars air, by having an unpressurised door, you won't lose water from the water-lock once it hits vapour pressure. Hence ideally, the water temperature would be kept at the level needed to reduce the vapour pressure to ambient Mars air pressure. But in most places, that's around or just below freezing. (610pa at 0℃, 870pa at 5℃) So in practice, you'd want a low-pressure capable door. Say max difference 1 kpa. I assume you'd also have both an outer and inner door each capable of maintaining a full 1atm difference, as backup for failure elsewhere. But the water-lock lets you keep the inner-hatch open, and the water-vapour atmosphere in a low-pressure outer room lets you keep the outer hatch open. You only need a low-pressure door.

Assuming you aren't struggling for every drop of water (or you wouldn't have considered a water-lock), then you don't need to worry about losing a little water-vapour when you open the low-pressure door.

(snip) (emphasis added)


Great points. Our "Redwood Forest" design for a city on Mars was designed as a water-rich city, so we deliberately came up with ways to use and store water everywhere: radiation shielding, vast cisterns for swimming and for storage, hydroponics, personal vegetable patches, underground canals connecting the domes, and swim-through water-locks leading from the lowest levels up 26m to the outdoors. For the water-locks we used a low-pressure surface antechamber with revolving doors and mechanical air handling systems to keep the water liquid and dynamically stable. As you point out, in our design we don't care about losses of vapor to the outside when people use the water-lock because the key principle is that the city will be water-rich.
« Last Edit: 10/21/2018 02:15 pm by Lumina »

Offline moreno7798

Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1501 on: 11/05/2018 09:41 pm »
Wondering if SpaceX is going to try to implement Kimbal Musk's farming technology on Mars . . .

The only humans that make no mistakes are the ones that do nothing. The only mistakes that are failures are the ones where nothing is learned.

Offline jpo234

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1502 on: 11/25/2018 04:47 pm »
Saw this on r/CozyPlaces. Something like this on Mars would be amazing...
It's probably from Amangiri
« Last Edit: 11/25/2018 04:54 pm by jpo234 »
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Offline Paul451

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1503 on: 11/25/2018 10:06 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1504 on: 11/27/2018 01:42 am »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.

The blinds will only be closed during dust storms.

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1505 on: 11/27/2018 04:22 am »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
Put a transparent fishtank there for rad shielding/aquaponics.

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1506 on: 11/27/2018 12:14 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
Put a transparent fishtank there for rad shielding/aquaponics.

Sitting in a comfy chair looking out, you'd only get cosmic radiation coming in through a 90 degree x 45 degree solid angle, approximately 1/32 of what you would get sitting out in space. Of that, it's halved again by the horizon, and then more chunks are taken out of it by terrain features. That cosmic radiation is also coming in at a steep angle through the atmosphere, through an average atmospheric slope thickness of 22.5 degrees.

You'd get some backscatter, but it would be fairly small I think. A thick piece of acrylic would cut that down, and of course water would be great too.

Offline envy887

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1507 on: 11/27/2018 12:21 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
Put a transparent fishtank there for rad shielding/aquaponics.

Sitting in a comfy chair looking out, you'd only get cosmic radiation coming in through a 90 degree x 45 degree solid angle, approximately 1/32 of what you would get sitting out in space. Of that, it's halved again by the horizon, and then more chunks are taken out of it by terrain features. That cosmic radiation is also coming in at a steep angle through the atmosphere, through an average atmospheric slope thickness of 22.5 degrees.

You'd get some backscatter, but it would be fairly small I think. A thick piece of acrylic would cut that down, and of course water would be great too.

At that angle, the atmosphere is equivalent to about 3 m of water. Would need a pretty big fish tank to appreciably improve that.

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1508 on: 11/27/2018 01:45 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
Put a transparent fishtank there for rad shielding/aquaponics.

Sitting in a comfy chair looking out, you'd only get cosmic radiation coming in through a 90 degree x 45 degree solid angle, approximately 1/32 of what you would get sitting out in space. Of that, it's halved again by the horizon, and then more chunks are taken out of it by terrain features. That cosmic radiation is also coming in at a steep angle through the atmosphere, through an average atmospheric slope thickness of 22.5 degrees.

You'd get some backscatter, but it would be fairly small I think. A thick piece of acrylic would cut that down, and of course water would be great too.

At that angle, the atmosphere is equivalent to about 3 m of water. Would need a pretty big fish tank to appreciably improve that.

Think you misplaced a decimal point, Mars' atmospheric column is 20g/cm^2 and at 22.5 degrees that's about 50g/cm^2.

With properly designed buildings (which colonists spend most of their time in) you could build domes* with less transparent radiation shielding. And I firmly believe that Musk is going to offer domes of some sort. The front of Starship is already half a dome. Nobody wants to go to Mars to live in a cave and peek out through an airlock portal the engineers grudgingly allowed.

Water features with a thin layer of oil would be an interesting sight.

*half-buried pressure vessels
« Last Edit: 11/27/2018 01:53 pm by Lampyridae »

Offline envy887

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1509 on: 11/27/2018 02:09 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
Put a transparent fishtank there for rad shielding/aquaponics.

Sitting in a comfy chair looking out, you'd only get cosmic radiation coming in through a 90 degree x 45 degree solid angle, approximately 1/32 of what you would get sitting out in space. Of that, it's halved again by the horizon, and then more chunks are taken out of it by terrain features. That cosmic radiation is also coming in at a steep angle through the atmosphere, through an average atmospheric slope thickness of 22.5 degrees.

You'd get some backscatter, but it would be fairly small I think. A thick piece of acrylic would cut that down, and of course water would be great too.

At that angle, the atmosphere is equivalent to about 3 m of water. Would need a pretty big fish tank to appreciably improve that.

Think you misplaced a decimal point, Mars' atmospheric column is 20g/cm^2 and at 22.5 degrees that's about 50g/cm^2.

With properly designed buildings (which colonists spend most of their time in) you could build domes* with less transparent radiation shielding. And I firmly believe that Musk is going to offer domes of some sort. The front of Starship is already half a dome. Nobody wants to go to Mars to live in a cave and peek out through an airlock portal the engineers grudgingly allowed.

Water features with a thin layer of oil would be an interesting sight.

*half-buried pressure vessels

20 g/cm2 atmospheric column at datum, but colonies are likely to be well below datum. Either way, I shouldn't do trig in my head :D the best case at 22.5 deg oblique angle at the bottom of Hellas is about 1 meter water equivalent and not 3 m. At datum it's about half a meter.

Offline Cheapchips

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1510 on: 11/29/2018 11:53 am »

JPL / Blackbird Interactive's* little interactive Mars base demo is available on Steam.  There's not a lot to do other than look around.  The scanner model lets you mouse over buildings for descriptions.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/224000/Project_Eagle_A_3D_Interactive_Mars_Base/



* Homeworld developers, for those who like games.  It would be nice if they did develop this into a full game.  Neither of the recent-ish Mars strategy games have struck a chord with me.

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1511 on: 11/29/2018 12:00 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
As long as you only sit in front of the window an hour a day, you should be OK?

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1512 on: 11/29/2018 09:00 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...

You might want to close that window/door.
As long as you only sit in front of the window an hour a day, you should be OK?

Recall the inside of the F-16 glass canopy is coated with a thin layer of gold. Will some similar technique significantly reduces the radiation exposure dosage?

Offline Paul451

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1513 on: 11/30/2018 08:57 am »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...
You might want to close that window/door.
As long as you only sit in front of the window an hour a day, you should be OK?
Recall the inside of the F-16 glass canopy is coated with a thin layer of gold. Will some similar technique significantly reduces the radiation exposure dosage?

In case you missed the joke, there's no glass on that opening.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1514 on: 11/30/2018 11:55 pm »
Something like this on Mars would be amazing...
You might want to close that window/door.
As long as you only sit in front of the window an hour a day, you should be OK?
Recall the inside of the F-16 glass canopy is coated with a thin layer of gold. Will some similar technique significantly reduces the radiation exposure dosage?

In case you missed the joke, there's no glass on that opening.

Didn't missed the joke. It is just strange to see an open space that big without a glass panel.

But the query remains can a gold plated glass panel reduce radiation exposure on the Martian surface.



Online docmordrid

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1515 on: 12/01/2018 12:07 am »
A thin, transparent  layer, like on helmets? Only from alpha (helium nuclei) and low energy beta (electrons). Higher  energy beta hitting gold will create x-rays via bremstrahlung, and hard x-rays will pass through a transparent coating- or worse, scatter. 

Lead or barium/lead  glass is better, and ALON may be acceptable for mild environments (impact resistant too).
« Last Edit: 12/01/2018 12:39 am by docmordrid »
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Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1516 on: 12/01/2018 12:08 am »
But the query remains can a gold plated glass panel reduce radiation exposure on the Martian surface.
Just answering as a layman.. I would say absolutely not. You generally want a meter or so of material with a high hydrogen content such as water or various plastics to make any difference.

(edit) To clarify, in space a few grams per square centimetre DO make a useful difference. I think this can eliminate the low energy radiation that there is a lot of.. but once you have gotten rid of the easy stuff you are left with high energy cosmic rays and similar and that stuff gets really hard to block. You can't just say a few grams blocks half the radiation so a few more grams will halve it again, and so on.


Maybe for a vertical window you could get significant gains from much less since most of the radiation is probably coming from above rather than from near the horizon. Also it is probably the shielding above your head that matters most. That is one of the reasons I like the idea of towers instead of domes.

Anyone know what this gold film is for? Maybe it is for shielding against something else, like ultraviolet or glare in general?

(google is your friend.. just found this: )
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/29107/why-does-the-canopy-of-the-f-22-raptor-have-a-golden-tinge

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21802/what-kind-of-materials-is-being-used-for-fighter-jets-glass-shields

The "radiation" it is keeping out is things like microwaves and also scatters radar according to those links.. not cancer causing radiation.
« Last Edit: 12/01/2018 12:15 am by KelvinZero »

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1517 on: 12/01/2018 11:19 am »
About GCR coming through the window. It is probably not that bad. The vertical component is still shielded by the roof material. What comes in is going at a low angle through a lot of atmosphere. The total coming in is a small part of the total dose you would get in a space suit outside. You still would not want your bed or desk right by the window.

Offline Oersted

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1518 on: 12/01/2018 11:42 am »
........Which is why SpaceX is heading underground: the radiation issue is solved.

Also: when you go underground you don't make structures, you make spaces. The structures are already there. In abundance. They're called bedrock.

Sure, living underground can be a bit oppressive. However, it won't be the first time humanity starts settling a planet by living in caves.

Online docmordrid

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Re: Envisioning Amazing Martian Habitats
« Reply #1519 on: 12/01/2018 01:01 pm »
........Which is why SpaceX is heading underground: the radiation issue is solved.
>
Sure, living underground can be a bit oppressive. However, it won't be the first time humanity starts settling a planet by living in caves.

We're already becoming Morlocks, at least in terms of our habitation.

The EPA reports the average US resident spends 87% of their life indoors and 6% in vehicles. That's just 7% of our time outdoors.
« Last Edit: 12/01/2018 01:07 pm by docmordrid »
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