thinktank Neowin Think Tank: Mars Colony One (and Two ... and Three ... and ... )

[DocM]

Immediately subsurface. When the Phoenix lander touched down it blew away the surface dust and exposed large blocks if ice. In other locales it's about a meter or so down.

[hagjohn]

We can't even live on earth.

[DocM]

7 billion people say you're wrong, and compared to past time epochs we in the 21st are at relative peace and living longer and better.

[Arachno 1D]

Yea but is that water or frozen CO2?

[DocM]

Both at the poles but mainly water, with more water at the lower latitudes. Globally averaged, the Martian surface is about 14% water. In many locales 0.34 m³ of soil contains about 1 liter of water.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Okay...I killed my idea of Hellas...glacier is good, temp bad, storms real bad, difficult terrain......trash can.......

 

My new spot....lot of research on this one.....

NE Arabia Terra...Protonilus Mensae.....Moreux and Coloe Fossage......all along north bottom of cliffs...over 1000 miles to choose from and Glacier Alley, this area is at a combination of some of the newest and oldest formations on the planet.....glacial debris...eskers....and sulpher as well. It will take a recce to nail down the spots but I have several...Just to show the ICE...

43.6N...28.6E...radar...pure ice...

 

42.2N...50.5E....12 km long

 

41.3N....54.7E...

 

42.2N...50.5E...massive glaciers

 

Area in question...

 

Geological mixture...she's all there....

 

I am really excited about this area...all kinds of places for shelter and rock areas to batten down....this will take a closer look to find the best spot to get at minerals as well as the ice and the ice is plentiful....

 

Okay....tear it apart......

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I was just reading another article about a new rover for 2016 launch.....and no surprise...investigating old rocks for history and checking ground level thermal currents........none of my business...but you would think that someone who also wants to go to Mars....should be thinking less about rock history and sending toys to determine several habitable sites for their future endeavors......WHICH brings me to a suggestion for us...why not send a probe with a box launcher for a mess of cube sats and check out the area's while we decide and build our first ships.....sound good....lets throw a mess of cube sats out there, with the intent of a short scan time and try to burn them up or let them orbit and we will home in on beacons and clean our orbit yard...

 

 

Edit...just found out they are also sending 2 cube sats.....lets send 20..whaahaahhaaahhhaahhah.......

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Here is what ESA is thinking about after 2024 term of ISS.....Lunarville........source is suspect...but...

 

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3114679/European-Space-Agency-plans-town-moon-replace-International-Space-Station.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

 

[123456789A]

Dava Newman of MIT, now Deputy Director of NASA, has been developing the BioSuit. It's one example of what they call a Space Activity Suit (SAS), which have been in development since 1959.

D.D. Newman in her BioSuit

 

Doesn't it get pretty cold on Mars? Would that be enough to stay warm?

[Blue-Vision]

Ahhh ... Southeast of Deut. Mensae into Protonilus Mensae? That's a great area. I skimmed over it Wednesday but passed it by. Let's take a closer look, shall we ...

 

 

Now we can see why they call it Glacier Alley. Look at all of that cheddar. Let's see what the Neutron Data and Hydrogen Abundance is ...

 

 

 

Neutron Data says it's in the soil, Hydrogen Abundance says it's more than 1 meter down if it's there at all. We can see the damned Glacier Formations in the Topography Map, so if there are no objections I'll flag the area "Green" and tag it as Candidate Area A.

 

Great digging, DD.  

 

I'm eyeballing some potential locations already ...

 

 

Thoughts? Rip it apart, folks.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I would think it has it's uses but...we would need a rugged wear resistant suit for mining and processing activities...actually it is for EVA and is designed to be Mars rated.....don't know about mining though...

 

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/15920/20140919/mit-biosuit-form-fitting-spacesuit.htm

 

 

"We want to achieve that same pressurization, but through mechanical counterpressure - applying the pressure directly to the skin, thus avoiding the gas pressure altogether. We combine passive elastics with active materials... Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration," Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, said.

A nickel-titanium shape-memory alloy (SMA) was used to manufacture the small coils. This material is normally manufactured in long cables. Coils were created from the wire through the use of a technique designed to manufacture robotic worms, invented by fellow researchers from MIT.

Coils manufactured from SMA were set into shape at temperatures over 840 degrees Fahrenheit. After, these devices became pliable at room temperature, allowing an astronaut to easily change in and out of the new suit. Heat causes the coils to tighten over the body of the space traveler.

 

Newman and her team have not yet constructed an entire new suit, but the coils represent a technology that could lead to form-fitting space wear. One challenge facing the MIT researchers is how to keep the coils locked in place once they contract. Keeping the suit heated would be uncomfortable or dangerous for the wearer, so future investigation will study a possible locking mechanism for the tiny coils.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Ahhh ... Southeast of Deut. Mensae into Protonilus Mensae? That's a great area. I skimmed over it Wednesday but passed it by. Let's take a closer look, shall we ...

 

glacier_alley1.jpg

 

Now we can see why they call it Glacier Alley. Look at all of that cheddar. Let's see what the Neutron Data and Hydrogen Abundance is ...

 

globalneutron.jpg

 

Water_equivalent_hydrogen_abundance_in_the_lower_latitudes_of_Mars_01.jpg

 

Neutron Data says it's in the soil, Hydrogen Abundance says it's more than 1 meter down if it's there at all. We can see the damned Glacier Formations in the Topography Map, so if there are no objections I'll flag the area "Green" and tag it as Candidate Area A.

 

Great digging, DD.

 

I'm eyeballing some potential locations already ...

 

glacier_alley_sites.jpg

 

Thoughts? Rip it apart, folks.

Right area...to the right, top...that cliff point,...all along the top and down the long side....those cliffs and upper ridges have the metal...1000 miles worth.....and down below... lots of "ice harbors".......

[Blue-Vision]

Right area...to the right, top...that cliff point,...all along the top and down the long side....those cliffs and upper ridges have the metal...1000 miles worth.....and down below... lots of "ice harbors".......

Near the 3443 Marker, up on the Glacier Peninsula or on the lowland below it?

 

[EDIT] I see it now. The Coloe Formation, East Side along the cliffs facing the lowland. Great mining potential there, ripe for the picking.

[DocM]

Doesn't it get pretty cold on Mars? Would that be enough to stay warm?

The temperature on Mars ranges from -133

[FloatingFatMan]

We can't even live on earth.

 

*looks around*

 

Umm... Wrong!

[Arachno 1D]

Some interesting toys here we could make use of [more on link]

 

 

Eurobot

This car-sized rover is Eurobot, which will be remote controlled by ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his 10-day flight to the International Space Station in September.From 400km above the rover, Mogensen will issue commands to move the rover and simulate tasks on other planets, such as moving boxes and unfurling solar arrays. He will also control a second rover, which will beam video to the station so Andreas can monitor Eurobot.In the future astronauts could use similar technology to control robots on planets from orbit, setting up bases or performing scientific research

 

 

Shadow Hand

Fancy controlling a robot hand in space? ESA is sourcing technologies to allow humans to control distant robotic limbs as if they were part of their body.Shadow Hand reproduces the motion of its human operator and incorporates a force-feedback sense of touch and pressure to allow  it to precisely grip and manipulate objects.

 

 

Telerobotics exoskeleton

In a similar vein to Shadow Hand, this lightweight, 10kg, exoskeleton allows the wearer to control a robot. The users' actions can be transmitted more than 400km to a robotic arm, which will replicate the wearer's movements.

 

 

As previously mentioned

Picasso CubeSat

Tiny cubesats can make it into orbit at a fraction of $500m it can cost to put a large satellite in space.

Just 30x10x10 cm in size, the PICosatellite for Atmospheric and Space Science Observations (Picasso) cubesat will investigate the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere.Picasso will measure the distribution of ozone in the stratosphere and profile the temperature of the mesosphere and the electron density in the ionosphere.When it launches next year, Picasso will be part of a network of 50 cubesats probing largely unexplored layers of Earth's atmosphere.

[Arachno 1D]

The temperature on Mars ranges from -133

[DocM]

Probably. There are prefab greenhouses designed for hydroponics on the market today.

[The Evil Overlord]

Doesn't it get pretty cold on Mars? Would that be enough to stay warm?

If memory serves... It is laced with a heating system of some sort...

[Draggendrop Veteran]

If memory serves... It is laced with a heating system of some sort...

Yes...but inadvertently....a current is used to lock the coils which generates heat...but not intentionally. This locking coil problem will be addressed by other means. A heating/cooling unit with life support is in a backpack....neat idea but still a work in progress....Cheers

 

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/second-skin-spacesuits-0918

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/617047main_45s_building_future_spacesuit.pdf

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16038/20140919/mit-s-pressurized-biosuit-ensures-astronauts-are-comfortable-in-their-second-skin.htm

[chrisj1968]

 We have all the Oxygen we need right there. It's locked up in the Water Ice. Water is H2O (2 Hydrogen atoms, 1 Oxygen atom). We can use simple melting to get it to a liquid state, then it's a simple matter to get Hydrogen and Oxygen to separate from one another.

 

More chemistry combined with CO2 (1 Carbon atom, 2 Oxygen atoms) in the atmosphere, and we've got even more Oxygen plus Methane. Once we have Methane, we can perform even more chemistry to get Nitrogen, and poof. Breathable air, Rocket Fuel, Fertilizer for plants, everything else we need at that point.

 

Inflatable Habitation Modules (Bigelow Aerospace patented) will provide Living Quarters. 3D-Printing will be used to fabricate even more 3D Printers and additional parts to fix the ones we have. Those 3D Printers will be used to build Greenhouses and Support Equipment needed to get the Farms and Water Reclamation going.

 

See how one thing leads into another? And don't fret -- we'll bring backup supplies with us as a precaution. We're not flying into this one blindly.

 

now you have me thinking about the original total recall  

 

[The Evil Overlord]

Yes...but inadvertently....a current is used to lock the coils which generates heat...but not intentionally. This locking coil problem will be addressed by other means. A heating/cooling unit with life support is in a backpack....neat idea but still a work in progress....Cheers

 

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/second-skin-spacesuits-0918

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/617047main_45s_building_future_spacesuit.pdf

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16038/20140919/mit-s-pressurized-biosuit-ensures-astronauts-are-comfortable-in-their-second-skin.htm

I never said I was an expert, I just happened to remember reading about this suit, and have been asleep since that day

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I never said I was an expert, I just happened to remember reading about this suit, and have been asleep since that day

The info was just meant to help jog your memory...no ill intent...Cheers...

[Arachno 1D]

A few suggestions here http://www.racetomars.ca/mars/article_vehicles.jsp

 

Race to Mars: Terra Nova docking with Gagarin (still in it

[Arachno 1D]

I don't know if this is just marketing but it might be a date to add to the diary but if its true it gives us a timeline to work to

 

 

The 2018 launch opportunity also coincides with the 11-year solar minimum providing the lowest solar radiation exposure.

http://www.universetoday.com/100339/tito-wants-to-send-married-couple-on-mars-flyby-mission/