Training to Inhabit Mars

Since 2016 a volunteer position I've held is to chair the exhibits committee of the International Spaceflight Museum. ISM began in Second Life in 2006 to build and exhibit full scale models of all the worlds rockets, spacecraft etc. It grew to encompass two simulator regions in the SciLands estates. It incorporated as a Texas 501c3 nonprofit with a mission to educate the public and particularly school children about the history and future of space exploration, starting with the original pioneers like Robert Goddard, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, and their rockets, to the present.

ISM's original facility in the virtual world of Second Life

ISM has since expanded into the hypergrid of OpenSim, an open sourced version of SL which you can access via the same viewers (though not the official one from Linden Lab) you use to access SL. Opensim has over 600 independent grids, most of which are connected to the "hypergrid" a connectivity tool that allows users to teleport their avatars from one grid to another, with the same appearance, inventory, and identity. Some of these grids rival Second Life in size, like Opensim Grid, the oldest and most decentralized, to Kitely.com, a commercial OS hosting grid that provides cutting edge service and stability as well as active community involvement with management.

ISM's facilities in OS are in Kitely.com where it has more than 64 SL regions worth of simulated space (for a tiny fraction of the cost of SL). This has allowed us to expand far beyond the limited space we can afford in SL. Our main museum space is equal to four SL sized regions, we have a separate sandbox, and we have been building a Mars Base that is more than a half kilometer in diameter using the latest mesh PBR designs created largely by myself, to provide a space for those dreaming of migrating to Mars a taste of what to expect, and an opportunity to train virtually for the experience, as we are building in functionality into all equipment on the base so that Virtual Analog Astronauts may train to gain expertise on all aspects of base construction, maintenance and management.

Starships "The Ends of Invention" and "A Capital Commitment" rest on the landing pads, waiting for refueling from the Sabatier Process fuel reactor, which combines CO2 from the atmosphere with hydrogen split from water to produce Liquid Methane and Liquid Oxygen to propel the Starships back to Earth to pick up more colonists.

This includes training on building-sized 3d printers, tunnel boring machines, regolith mining and refinery equipment, high intensity agriculture and mariculture, maintenance of Hyperloop trains, solar, wind and nuclear power systems, as well as full scale SpaceX Starship rockets and the Sabatier Process ISRU fuel production systems that will provide them the ability to return to Earth to pick up more colonists.

The MP-200 reactor rests in a pit in a crater, providing safe baseline electricity to the Mars Base, with four maintenance free 50kW Sterling generators as well as thermocouples on the radiator fins, providing 200 kW total baseline power to the pressurized modules of the Base including living and agricultural modules, and to the Hyperloop train.

In Situ Resource Utilization is a broad range of essential technologies to allow colonists to build almost all of the facilities and equipment they need to colonize from native resources found on Mars, from ferrous minerals to produce steel, silicates to produce glass, carbonates to produce marscrete, graphene from atmospheric CO2 for superconductors, to the rocket fueling the Starship rockets.

The Sabatier Process, a chemical engineering process first developed in the 19th century, can be used to compress atmospheric CO2 via a turbo compressor (above the CO2 tank). Water found on Mars in abundance as ice can be electrolysed in to Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2), whereupon the LH2 is combined with the CO2 in the reactor chamber seen between their two tanks. This chamber has catalytic elements in it made from platinum coated material, and is surrounded by a powerful induction coil to heat the combined solution to heat it to high temperatures so the combination catalyzes into a mixture of gaseous methane (CH4) and steam (H20). The mixture is cooled in a condenser to separate the water out first, with the remaining gas going through a further condensation step to become Liquid Methane (CH4).

With these ISRU materials the elements of the colony can be built: steel to produce the frames of the modules, marscrete infused with graphene to strengthen the mixture to over 5x that of earth concrete to encase the metal frames, steel piping, graphene cables, etc. Water from martian ice is suppled to agricultural modules that grow food to sustain the population.

The RASSOR robots begin the ISRU process to build the base, scooping up martian regolith in the drums fore and aft of the cart. When the drums fill, they raise up over the bins and reverse direction to empty their contents into the bins. When the bins are full, each RASSOR returns to the regolith refinery to deliver its payload.

The first modules will be built on the surface, then covered with ample amounts of regolith to provide greater radiation shielding. Radiation levels on Mars surface are slightly higher than experienced at the ISS. While Mars is not protected by a magnetic field like Earth is, it is 40% further from the Sun so it receives less solar radiation. While Earths surface also receives 40% less sunlight than is received in Low Earth Orbit, most of what is filtered out are harmful UV rays, solar cosmic rays, and also less galactic cosmic rays. While unshielded habitation on Mars surface is utlimately sterilizing and deadly, nobody is working on Mars in shirtsleeves. A foot of regolith covering pressure modules is quite sufficient to provide below-earth-normal radiation levels. So to, does leaded glass block out most harmful radiation as seen on this dome (image below) that is used for high intensity agriculture. The shell behind it reflects more sunlight into the dome to boost photosynthesis, yet it is backed by regolith foamcrete to provide radiation protection from the rear, while the large solar panel petals can fold down to enclose the dome and provide increased protection.

The Universal Habitat Dome depicted here is used for high intensity sustainable agriculture. A 40 meter diameter facility can grow enough food to feed 12-20 people, with plant and animal waste being recycled into the system to produce rich fertilized soil The Universal Habitat concept was devised by NASA engineer Greg Allison, known as "Green Greg" on his YouTube channel, and we adapted his concepts to the design requirements for pressurized habitation on Mars.

Once tunnel boring machinery is assembled on Mars, colonists can begin burrowing under the surface for even greater radiation protection over the long term. As tunnel boring machines bore 6 meter diameter tunnels, 3d printing/assembling machines will follow behind, assembling the pressurized tunnel modules to fit within the bare tunnels. Modules to provide additional sleeping, storage, living, growing and working spaces for a burgeoning population.

A typical tunnel module that would be assembled behind tunnel boring machines

Once multiple colonies are constructed on Mars, travel between them cannot be done across the surface, or via air travel. Thus, the tunnel borers will dig Hyperloop tunnels over thousands of miles to connect these disparate colonies so that they may trade amongst each other, allow for migration of populations to new colonies, and ultimately, commuting from outlier settlements into larger urban communities.

The Hyperloop train enables mass transit between communities for passengers and cargo. Powered by electricity generated from solar, nuclear, and wind sources (no oil on Mars), powerful superconducting magnets using graphene conductors for cheap room temperature superconduction levitate the Hyperloop train and accelerate it to over 600 mph (1000kph) inside the tunnel tubes, which will be maintained at a vacuum to limit atmospheric drag, except for the tubes within stations, that will be closed off via airlock doors.

All of this colonization will require quite a bit of investment, and Mars will have its own economy. Since the light speed delay between Mars and Earth is so significant, we cannot rely upon Earth monetary systems to process transactions, and to limit the overhead of conventional forms of financial systems, Mars economy will be blockchain powered.

A Marscoin blockchain will provide not only digital money that is instantly usable anywhere,?on or off Mars. Secure, decentralized systems allow for smart contracts to turn all property into Non-Fungible Token (NFT) deeded assets that ensure secure title to all property from homes and vehicles, computers, phones, land, mining claims etc. Earthbound investors can thus invest in the Martian economy securely via the blockchain, staking assets to secure the blockchain, to provide Decentralized Finance (DeFi) services to capitalize the Martian economy, invest in Martian startups, etc.

The Universal Habitat provides 1/6th of an acre of arable land, as well as significant mariculture capacity, with soil produced by mixing water cleaned regolith with human waste and soil biomes. The Martian economy will be sustainable, with full recycling of resources via ISRU, with all assets tracked by blockchain technologies.

Terraforming Mars

All of this effort is entirely doable, with current day technologies. The real question is, can we make Mars habitable on its surface like Earth is? The short answer is YES.

The first step goes back to the ISRU technologies. There are ample chlorine and fluorine based minerals on Mars' surface. Along with atmospheric CO2, these can be catalyzed by basic chemical engineering into CFC and CF4, both of which are extremely strong greenhouse gasses.

I have previously calculated that if we built facilities to produce CFC's at the same rate they were produced on Earth prior to the Montreal protocol, and maintained this production rate, dumping the CFC's into the Martian atmosphere, within 30 years enough warming would take place to cause a runaway outgassing of CO2 from ice and regolith deposits deep underground.

As more CO2 outgasses, the warming continues. Within another 30 years, Mars atmospheric pressure will rise to somewhere between 300-500 millibars, which is about the same pressure we see in Tibet. So we wont need spacesuits anymore, though we will need oxygen masks, to walk around outside in shirt sleeves. Climate will be temperate or warmer across 75% of the planet, and the northern third of the planet will be covered in a sea with an average depth of 1 km.

With the ice melted to water, and open seas on Mars, then the hydrological cycle can begin. Water will evaporate under temperate and tropical temperatures into the atmosphere, forming clouds. Rain will fall. Raindrops will absorb CO2 and form carbonic acid. When the carbonic acid hits the ground, it will react with rock and dirt to exchange the carbon in the acid, for nitrogen in the rocks, causing rocks to become carbonates, and releasing gaseous Nitrogen (N2) and Oxygen (O2). We can help this process along by releasing cyanobacteria into the lakes and seas of Mars, which feed on Co2 and release oxygen while forming their own carbonates that settle to the bottom of their seas to form limetone.

The fun part is that while pre-Montreal levels of CFC production may seem a bit daunting, but the other chemical, carbon tetrafluoride (CF4) is over 50x more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CFC, so we can produce CF4 more easily at a lower rate of production to result in the same outcome, with the added benefit of no chlorine being released to operate as a free radical in the stratosphere, interfering in formation of ozone. Thus allowing ozone to form naturally, Mars will then have a natural defense (along with a thicker atmosphere) against a lot of solar radiation.

Map of a terraformed Mars (Image by Quantos on DeviantArt)

Also while CFCs can last for decades in the atmosphere, CF4 lasts for centuries, providing long term protection of the Martian climate greenhouse.

The final step is also dependent upon ISRU: building an electromagnetic field. Graphene is a superconductor. One can produce graphene by running CO2 through a Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic (MHD) Furnace. By equipping robots with such abilities, to construct superconducting cable from atmospheric CO2, and setting the robots to taversing the Martian equator, reproducing themselves along the way, a superconducting coil can be assembled at the equator, powered by wind and solar power, to generate an electromagnetic shield for Mars.

While this is not a permanent solution, it can be maintained for centuries by robots. The ultimate solution will be to move one of the larger asteroids like Vesta or Psyche into Mars orbit, to provide a tidal influence upon Mars core that will restart its tectonic process that is the basis of Earth's own magnetic field.

So, inconclusion, and back to the beginning, all of this begins with YOU, the dreamer, the explorer, the adventurer, who seeks new worlds, to build a new world, a new environment, a new economy and society, deciding that this is the future you want. Then to act to make it a reality, training to live and build in that reality. Come train at ISMuseum.org