They should be using nuclear for power, though, not solar.
6 thoughts on “Martian Concrete”
Start small. Nuclear power will be a great long-term solution but it’s a bit much at first. Use solar power to build the shells of basic structures, perhaps robotically before the first people arrive. There’s no rush – you could land the robotic vehicles a couple years before humans arrive. When they get there, they install liners, insulation, air locks, life support, etc. to create the initial habitats. In the meantime, keep building new structures to meet the projected growth needs and nuclear power when necessary and available. This is what I propose if you’re trying to develop a colony. If you’re going for exploration, you’ll need much smaller habitats at multiple locations instead.
Concrete is normally very strong in compression and pretty weak in tension. The structures will be pressurized internally, meaning the concrete will be in tension. I wonder how difficult it would be to add structural reinforcement (lightweight rebar or perhaps a mesh) robotically while building the structure. A dome or half cylinder seems like the best shape.
Bury the shell deep enough and the weight of overburden can exceed the internal pressure. But that’s a lot of stone dust to move.
Solar may be a good option for tasks that can be scheduled to match available power.
A stupid one cubic meter hole in the ground should dump a fairly phenomenal (and totally non-Earthlike) amount of heat. Or skip the hole and build a ‘wall’ with the intent of deep shade.
Packing a thermopile and some cells both make sense to me early on, but heat cycle based solar efforts would seem to provide routes to expansion out of native materials. Focusing intently on developing and expanding the access to power opens up what can be done with the materials on hand dramatically.
The article doesn’t say how high a temperature is high enough to degrade or melt the marscrete, which would be useful to know.
It sounds very promising but the real question is, does it smell? Martians would forever be mocked as the stinky people of the solar system who couldn’t even get the smell off by taking a shower. It might even be so bad that Martians would have to go into a deodor quarantine when visiting space stations shared with Earthlings.
I don’t know if concrete would seal well enough to hold in the atmosphere*. I recommend lining the shell’s interior with something rubberlike to form a seal. That will reduce air leakage and also block off any outgassing from the concrete.
*I wonder if they’d try to go with a pure oxygen atmosphere at reduced pressure like they used in the Apollo space suits or with a 1 Earth atmosphere nitrogen/oxygen mixture like on the ISS? At least in the early days, a pure or mostly oxygen atmosphere will make it easier to suit up for exterior work without having to go through a lengthy process of breathing pure O2 to avoid the bends. I can see a lot of spacesuit work in the early days. They could increase the nitrogen content once the majority of the outside work is finished.
Start small. Nuclear power will be a great long-term solution but it’s a bit much at first. Use solar power to build the shells of basic structures, perhaps robotically before the first people arrive. There’s no rush – you could land the robotic vehicles a couple years before humans arrive. When they get there, they install liners, insulation, air locks, life support, etc. to create the initial habitats. In the meantime, keep building new structures to meet the projected growth needs and nuclear power when necessary and available. This is what I propose if you’re trying to develop a colony. If you’re going for exploration, you’ll need much smaller habitats at multiple locations instead.
Concrete is normally very strong in compression and pretty weak in tension. The structures will be pressurized internally, meaning the concrete will be in tension. I wonder how difficult it would be to add structural reinforcement (lightweight rebar or perhaps a mesh) robotically while building the structure. A dome or half cylinder seems like the best shape.
Bury the shell deep enough and the weight of overburden can exceed the internal pressure. But that’s a lot of stone dust to move.
Solar may be a good option for tasks that can be scheduled to match available power.
A stupid one cubic meter hole in the ground should dump a fairly phenomenal (and totally non-Earthlike) amount of heat. Or skip the hole and build a ‘wall’ with the intent of deep shade.
Packing a thermopile and some cells both make sense to me early on, but heat cycle based solar efforts would seem to provide routes to expansion out of native materials. Focusing intently on developing and expanding the access to power opens up what can be done with the materials on hand dramatically.
The article doesn’t say how high a temperature is high enough to degrade or melt the marscrete, which would be useful to know.
It sounds very promising but the real question is, does it smell? Martians would forever be mocked as the stinky people of the solar system who couldn’t even get the smell off by taking a shower. It might even be so bad that Martians would have to go into a deodor quarantine when visiting space stations shared with Earthlings.
Probably relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_concrete
I don’t know if concrete would seal well enough to hold in the atmosphere*. I recommend lining the shell’s interior with something rubberlike to form a seal. That will reduce air leakage and also block off any outgassing from the concrete.
*I wonder if they’d try to go with a pure oxygen atmosphere at reduced pressure like they used in the Apollo space suits or with a 1 Earth atmosphere nitrogen/oxygen mixture like on the ISS? At least in the early days, a pure or mostly oxygen atmosphere will make it easier to suit up for exterior work without having to go through a lengthy process of breathing pure O2 to avoid the bends. I can see a lot of spacesuit work in the early days. They could increase the nitrogen content once the majority of the outside work is finished.