Life Support Project
From: Terry Kok
Reply-to: "Dean Calahan, FoB"
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RE: Biosphere Research OpportunityDean had mentioned: How fast can you get a system up and running? Say, starting with seeds and spores and eggs (and/or what not), to processing its daily workload and recirculating clean water back to the flush tank?
Kurtis replied: That could be a very interesting experiment. There are many factors that would effect the outcome of this experiment, such as size of habitat, number of people, types of plant matter, requirements of daily workload, etc. What would you be using this information for? Would this information be used for the MARS project or for future development projects. The better we can tailored the experiments to the end result the more useful the outcomes might be.
I understand that the Mars society is having a conference in Toronto in August. We would obviously like to have most of the details of any experiments worked out before then, but it might give us a chance to meet as a group to discuss any last minutes items. It would also give us a chance to meet face to face. I assume that the society does not get together as a whole on a regular basis.
Dean further pontificates: For F-MARS, the current priority is simply providing wastewater treatment. Ideally, this can be done in a context that advances the science and technology useful for P-Mars (Planet Mars). There are a number of constraints that apply both to F-MARS and to P-Mars; namely, the system would need to be compact, lightweight, low power, and quick to start up. For the NASA reference mission (and for F-MARS), the crew size is 6 persons. Not all of our work needs to be focused solely on F-MARS; especially the long-term operation of the system (500 days - 10 times
the 50 day season at Haughton Crater).
Any of these questions (I only suggested the start-up time because I have some ideas of my own in that direction) would be worthy of your investigation, Kurtis. If you wanted to tailor your experimental design.
Subject: Jump starting plant growth a the north pole Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 16:50:26 -0400
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hello
I have been thinking about the 5 week window that will
be available at the Pole for testing any of the green house designs we bring there.
Would it be useful to start plants here and then transport them up to the testing station and see how they thrive in the greenhouse structure. We can use terrariums to move the seedlings up there and then
decant them into the greenhouse. 19th century explorers used this method to bring tropical plants back to northern temperate climates. I have tried this with basal seeds and mason jars and it works surprisingly well. Take peat pot, soak in hydroponics solution, add seed and seal inside of one quart mason jar.
I have been thinking about a plan for building a lightweight transport system for keeping the seedlings alive during the transport to the Pole.
If we brought seedlings and also seeds to start growing up there of the same plants we could see if the seeds develop at the same rate as they did when their cousins were started in the terrariums.
Robert Gissing
From: Pokchoy@aol.com | Block address Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 17:31:21 EDT Subject: Re: Jump starting plant growth a the north pole To: RGissing@descartes.com, dean@baloney.com, dblersch@wam.umd.edu, Kmicheels@aol.com, ParkerLC@cdm.com, patrick.collier@exgate.tek.com, BMackenzie@alum.mit.edu, shane@greenhousegarden.com, Jacobson.Mindy@oscsystems.com, warp@polylab.sfu.ca, KokhMMM@aol.com, jpl@xiphos.ca, ramsesny@hotmail.com, curtis@baloney.com, pk31@umail.umd.edu, jseltzer@theitgroup.com, biermann@mangrove.umd.edu, biostar_a@yahoo.com, talon57@well.com, jedwards@umich.edu, grshaid@marsacademy.com, tms9@psu.edu, jives@compuserve.com, salamon@home.com, knmcbrid@engmail.uwaterloo.ca
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Hello to all- I have been listening this discussion for a few weeks. I think we may be looking at the problem backwards. It may be simpler to simulate Devon Island than it is to transport a biosphere/living machine/etc to Devon Island.
The key elements are extreme arctic temperatures and low air pressure. Even on Mars day length is not the issue, though light intensity is. Perhaps a Mars greenhouse of any variety should be located where
they can easily be monitored and maintained for extended periods.
I do not think a greenhouse AT Devon Island will teach anything that can't be done elsewhere. In fact, I think the long days of arctic summer may make its operation artificially easier than it should be. I give my plants 20+ hours of strong light a day (with lights) and you
could almost get rocks to sprout under those conditions. Where Mars will be a
challenge is the low light levels and air pressures. Those must be the 'dragons we slay'. Growing plants under harsh conditions has been done at the South Pole station for years. I would hate to miss the party at Devon Island,
but in all honesty, that is not where we can do the most.
What is needed is a facility where light levels and atmospheric conditions can be simulated, then the various organic,
or hydroponic, or other systems can tested under conditions more closely
like Mars.
Rudy Behrens
Would depend on where "Here" was. It's generally illegal to transport living plant species into Canada, and semi-illegal to transfer species from Canada into the High Arctic science locations. The latter can probably be done with a science permit from NRI, as long as there's general control of pollen release, etc. There's a lot of work up here on choosing the species for building living machine type tech out of Canadian plants.
Steve
-- Stephen P. Braham Director, PolyLAB warp@polylab.sfu.ca
Reply-to: "Dean Calahan, FoB"
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Steve's note reminds me of the teleconference, where Dave or Dr. Kangas (or somebody) mentioned that Arctic species often have a high growth rate to take advantage of the short growing season. This might
be ideal, and what we MIGHT want to do is transfer species from the High Arctic down to the more inhabited zones, for characterization for use in systems like this, rather than the other way around.
In a message dated 4/24/00 4:31:21 PM EST, Pokchoy writes:
<< Hello to all- I have been listening this discussion
for a few weeks. I think we may be looking at the problem backwards. It may be simpler to simulate Devon Island than it is to transport a biosphere/living machine/etc to Devon Island. >>
I agree. There are better situations in which to simulate plant growth on Mars. The primary reason for doing plant growth on Devon is as an ergonomic exercise. It is a certainty, I believe, that one of the first things Mars explorers will want to varify is the ability to grow plants. They must do this in addition to all other operational activities (such as, explore)
kam
From: Pokchoy@aol.com | Block address Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 11:56:59 EDT Subject: Re: Jump starting plant growth a the north pole To: Kmicheels@aol.com, RGissing@descartes.com, dean@baloney.com, dblersch@wam.umd.edu, ParkerLC@cdm.com, patrick.collier@exgate.tek.com, BMackenzie@alum.mit.edu, shane@greenhousegarden.com, Jacobson.Mindy@oscsystems.com, warp@polylab.sfu.ca, KokhMMM@aol.com, jpl@xiphos.ca, ramsesny@hotmail.com, curtis@baloney.com, pk31@umail.umd.edu, jseltzer@theitgroup.com, biermann@mangrove.umd.edu, biostar_a@yahoo.com, talon57@well.com, jedwards@umich.edu, grshaid@marsacademy.com, tms9@psu.edu, jives@compuserve.com, salamon@home.com, knmcbrid@engmail.uwaterloo.ca
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Hello all, again- Thanks for the response. It occurred
to me that you never really can grow plants "under Mars-like conditions". Plants grow slowly below 60 degrees F, and not at all below 50 degrees F, are dying below 40 and are dead below 32. What we are really trying to figure out is what is the best way to create growth conditions in which plants, especially food plants, will grow effectively. Unless we are talking about genetic manipulation, which doesn't seem to be the case, we really have a technology problem, not a biological problem. I am not kidding when I say it may
be a practical solution for Devon Island to use plastic plants to simulate a harvest and focus efforts on maintaining adequate light, heat, humidity, etc.
I think we have a lot of work to do before an operational greenhouse (general term for all proposals) can be deployed. I see the altered light characteristics and low air pressures as the most threatening of all the potential problems.
Thanks for the soapbox.
RB
Reply-to: "Shane Smith"
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At the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens we have a 100% solar heated greenhouse in Wyoming.. We have found we can grow many crops in less
than ideal temperatures. It is important to note that some food crops require less heat than others. Also, some plants can tolerate lower night temps, so you don't necessarily have to design a structure that maintains 70 degrees F., 24 hours a day (although it would be nice to have that capability). We are also powered by PV's and are soon to add a wind component.
I agree that we mainly have a technical problem. I also agree that this research could be done anywhere. Perhaps we should be looking at a site that has a combination or compromise of logic and cost so that it can happen!
Some questions we might want to investigate -or where answers on the Mars environment exist, edify the less knowledgeable (myself included):
* How much solar heat could actually be utilized by a well-designed structure on Mars, so that supplementary heating can be minimized. * Just how many foot-candles (or whatever measurement you want) does the surface receive on an average sunny day? How much on a
dust storm day? * When light is a problem (i.e. dust storms or just not enough light) what would be the best and most efficient way to power supplemental lighting? * Has anyone figured out if a wind generator would work in a low pressure- high wind situation? My guess is yes. This may provide
a partial solution to both lighting and heat. Wind powered resistance heating and electrical generation might be worth looking at in some specific Mars locations (mouths of canyons?).
Shane Smith
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 21:44:09 EDT From: Tanstaaflz@aol.com Subject: [Civ-Culture] SHL habitat shielding challenge
[ To Mars Society Civilization & Culture Group ] [ from Tanstaaflz@aol.com ]
We have to bury our habitats for radiation shielding. At the same time, this apparently will create certain adverse conditions that
it will be a real challenge to address.
I found this text at:
http://www.monolithicdome.com/articles/under/index.html
"First, let us say, any home that is buried has to be super-well insulated. That seems like an oxymoron, but let me explain why. There are two reasons for insulating a home. The primary reason is to contain the heat, either to keep it out, or keep it in.. Because the primary reason is so primary we rarely ever bump up against the secondary reason. The secondary reason is to keep the interior surface temperature of the walls and
ceiling approximately equal to the interior air temperature.
Almost all of the underground houses that have failed,
have failed because they would condense water on the inside The water would be feed stock for mold and mildew to grow. The problem was not the gross
heat leaving the structure, it was the interior surface temperature that allowed the condensation. It takes a lot of insulation to keep the
surface temperature from dropping when a building is buried.
The pioneers built storages and shelters underground. First they built them with rocks, logs, and straw. Later they started building them with reinforced concrete, but they all suffered from same problem. They were always dank and damp and had mildew growing on inside them. It is no wonder; the earth's temperature tends to stay about 55 degrees F. If you take warm humid air, bring it inside, and run it up against a wall surface which is 55 degrees F it is going to condense.
Consider the glass of ice water sitting on the table. The ice water is obviously taking on heat from the room, and if there were millions of glasses of ice water it would cool the room. Since there are not very many, the heat from the room is attracted to the glass of ice water, the surface temperature of the glass is much, much below that of the room, therefore we get condensation on the glass. The condensation runs down the glass, onto the table, and makes water spots.
Now, consider the whole house as an ice water glass, the moisture in the air condenses when it contacts cool outside walls, and even though it may not be enough to run, it will be enough to feed mildew and mold. The only answer is to have enough insulation that the interior surface temperature of the wall is equal to that of the air that is inside the house. Even with super-insulated walls, it is sometimes necessary to dehumidify, simply because there is such an extreme in temperature from outside air to inside. At least, with dehumidification equipment, we control where it dehumidifies. If the walls are cool, the air will dehumidify against
the cool walls, creating the mold condition."
End of quote
- ------
So the challenge is insulation. How much, where, etc.
Do we wrap the habitats in a lot of fiberglass? Do we put a lot of thermal mass (bricks) on the inside of the pressure shell?
On the Moon, the regolith is a very poor thermal conductor, with a temperature of -4 F or -20 C.
On Mars, we can expect the subsurface temperature to be 50 degrees F colder than on the Moon. We can expect dry Martian soil also to be a poor thermal conductor. But what about permafrost areas?
A lot of unknowns here.
I think we have to get a team with an architect involved and do some computer simulations.
We don't need clammy, moldy, mildewed walls.
So in designing habitats, there seems to be more to consider than just a strong pressure hull.
Peter
[ To Mars Society Civilization & Culture Group ] [ from "Derrick Davis"
Actually, I was counting on the condensation. No moving parts. Good reference Peter, thanks.
In our discussions of habitat design, one of the favored designs (dome team discussions) included an interior balcony garden reaching out towards the outerwall (which acted as a condenser), with decorative (deliberate) waterfalls here and there, and the water would be decending down the outer wall into a "pond" near the base (part of the CELSS?!). This closed the loop for the water cycle by providing a zero power, no
moving parts condenser. We were actually planning on the outer "hanging garden" to be humid.
When I climbed Masada in Israel, near the top I got to
rest in the cool of a (then dry) water cistern. The walls were coated with a clay, unique to the region, that repels water. Mold and mildew have no chance because water cannot be retained in the coating of the wall. While I would not expect us to import that unique clay, I would expect the ability
to seal the inside to deliberately catch the condesation.
Granted, this is only for the "garden" not neccessarily the "farm", and definately not the rest of the hab.
Since I spent three years actually working in a WWII era rock quarry tunnel converted into office space, let me comment here as well. The outer tunnel walls were severly mildewed and extremely "dank". The office spaces had outer walls that were about one meter from the tunnel walls themselves. Semi-dehumidified air was forced into the offices and drawn out to the tunnel edge where it was taken back into the air handlers. The tunnel workers never saw the the tunnel walls, just us techno-rats chasing cables. As far as the workers were concerned,
the wall of their office was dry and comfortable. Most of the water in the tunnel was from the ground and not the air, on Mars this should not be
a problem.
A significant problem with buried structures is ventilation. If the air circulates freely, then there will be less chance for the mildew to start. The homes and structures cited in the reference had pathetic ventilation at best. Many of the new "Earthship" designed buried homes are designed very open internally, with lots of natural air flow.
Onboard the carrier, the ship is designed for most spaces to have 95% recirculated air. We have lots of condensers that only the maintenance people get to see (and us inspectors). The condensors
are ugly, but the rest of the ship is comfortable becuase of it.
Having spent some time in caves and storm drains also,
the better the ventilation, the less mildew.
>We don't need clammy, moldy, mildewed walls. >So in designing habitats, there seems to be more to consider than just a >strong pressure hull. > Absolutely. Aero-gel (areo-gel perhaps ;) could be used, blown glass-fibers, painted on sealant (mars produced). A wide variety is available.
Summary, 1) cool outer walls will encourage condensation. 2) IN SELECTED AREAS we can use this to our ADVANTAGE 3) ground water seepage should be a non-issue 4) insulation can prevent the condensation in some areas 5) separation and ventilation can mask the outer hull condensation 6) ventilation can reduce or eliminate the condensation on the hull itself. Have you ever used the hot-air hand-dryers in a washroom?
7) put on your thinking caps for this one - This is not an obstacle, but a challenge.
Ad Martem, Derrick
I've been thinking about the FMARS grey water system. Two good candidates for a bioregenerative system that has to be "turned on and off" quickly and used for only a portion of the year might be:
1) algae - Start with a small jar of active algae, transport to site, add to grey water processor/algae growth chamber, turn on lights and aeration pump, and the algae will radidly reproduce. The algae can then be dried in a drier and either (possibly) consumed as a food suppliment or may be shipped home with the crew.
2) edible grasses (wheat, rye, alfalfa, etc.) - Grasses also grow quickly. If the grow bed is covered with a screen the grasses can be easily clipped, and (possibly) eaten raw or dried and handled like the algae above.
another subject: CELSS TEST CHAMBER
The most difficult problem in building a hermetically sealed (leakless) chamber, besides the expense and difficulty in getting a chamber to truly be sealed (and it must be to get good data), is to keep the external temperature steady so that the internal temperature can be "easily" controled. Here are three suggestions:
1) inside a controled environment (existing building) 2) underground - below frost line 3) underwater - This one also is good to determine if there are any leaks in the chamber.
Leak rates in controled environmental chambers are hard to detect and even harder to locate! This project might get expensive ... Maybe it is better to simply look at the data that has been and is being generated by government and university projects. On the other hand, we definitely DO need to experiment with various composting/waste-processing/soil-bed-reactor/grow bed systems, as well as lighting sources, air exchange/purification units, sensor net, heating/cooling systems, airlocks, etc.
Agricultural info/data relating to pressure, light, temperature, and nutrients can be obtained by building small (several plants size) chambers which could be built anywhere. This would be a good "class project" for schools - EDUCATORS TAKE NOTE!
Terry R. Kok - Starlight Technology biostar_a@yahoo.com
--- "Dean Calahan, FoB"
Another thing we have to think about when constructing any closed system is that the materials used to construct the environment will interact with the environment. For example, the concrete used in Biosphere 2 interacted with the oxygen (in the form of CO2) to form calcium carbonates, depriving the atmosphere of O2. Plastic/fiberglass/epoxy (like in FMARS) will surely outgas a number to toxic compounds. Stainless steel isn't bad and glass is best - both very expensive when we're talking about large containers. In any case, this interaction needs to be accounted/planned for in the design of the ecosystems.
- Terry at biostar_a@yahoo.com
[ to Mars Society Arctic Base TF & discussion ] [ from Curtis Snow
At 16:08 -0700 2000.04.27, Terry Kok wrote: >...Plastic/fiberglass/epoxy (like in >FMARS) will surely outgas a number to toxic compounds...
I would hope this has been taken into account in the time line for this summer`s work
the hab material(s) should be allowed some time to "outgas" before it is taken to the arctic...IMHO anyway
"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem." --Thomas Szasz
[ to Mars Society Arctic Base TF & discussion ] [ from Kmicheels@aol.com ] [ see end of message to unsubscribe ]
In a message dated 4/27/00 6:53:24 PM EST, curtis@baloney.com writes:
<< the hab material(s) should be allowed some time to "outgas" before it is taken to the arctic...IMHO anyway >>
The hab will be sealed at the factory to prevent toxic
out gasing to the interior.
kam
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 22:29:51 EDT From: Tanstaaflz@aol.com Subject: [Civ-Culture] RCY - New subtopic
[ To Mars Society Civilization & Culture Group ] [ from Tanstaaflz@aol.com ]
To all,
Earth Day and seeking synergy between Mars activists and the moderate majority in the environmental movement are in the news
and on our minds of late.
I have added this category to the list kept at:
http://members.aol.com/tanstaaflz/civculture_home.htm
RCY - ReCYcled, reused, reassigned materials (under general heading INDUSTRIALIZATION)
- - using mining tailings - - using manufacturing waste - - durable reuse of temporary packaging - - designing items for secondary as well as primary use - - designing things for easy disassembly - - saving embodied energy to slow the growth of power
demand - - reusing processed waste to slow the consumption of
fresh material
The last two points give the reason to pursue the preceding ones
For example, in mining, the tailings are enriched in everything else (not extracted) and thus a better source of everything else
than fresh material. Often, in the process, material will have been sieved several times and so the tailings can be sorted into piles according to particle and pebble size. Thus tailings will be the place to go for well characterized and uniform aggregate for cement concretes or sulfur concretes, or
even soil for non-hydroponic agricultural use as well as uniform granules or pebbles for hydroponic use.
Recycling of all kinds is a way of reusing energy already spent, and thus slowing the growth in energy demand. Getting in this habit from the gitgo will allow the settlement to diversify industrially and entrepreneurially that much faster from any given starting point.
For reds, this means that we will be grabbing land and
resources with maximum efficiency and deliberate slowness without penalty to maximum improvement in our way of life.
Broken glass, metal machining scrap, plastic scrap, human wastes, inedible biomass, packaging -- everything can be put to use. There can be pricing incentives to use already processed materials, or steep fees for using fresh materials.
One thing that works to produce "shantytown" results is non-uniformity of discarded material. We can make sure that all packaging for goods brought from Earth meets certain uniform standards so that we can count on a steady quantifiable and well qualified and homogeneous supply
of packing stuffs for whatever use we will put them.
We can insist that tailings be sorted by sieve size.
We can adopt plumbing protocols so that different types of waste water go in separate easily identified drain lines so that they can
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