This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
News

Waiting for More Martian Secrets

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
February 7, 2013
Filed under , ,

CuriousMars: Drilling For Martian Secrets, SpaceRef
Two powerful laboratories inside the Mars rover Curiosity are being readied to process the first powdered samples of subsurface Martian rock obtained by the rover’s drill during the most complex series of Curiosity operations since its Sky Crane landing last August.
Marc’s note: This is the latest in-depth story about Mars exploration from Craig Covault. This weekly update is part of the CuriousMars series of stories Craig is writing for SpaceRef.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

8 responses to “Waiting for More Martian Secrets”

  1. Saturn1300 says:
    0
    0

     The powder from the mini drill test is clumping.Static electricity maybe.Might be hard to get through screens.Might just fall apart into dust though.
     They have found sulfates.If they could find ammonium sulfate,there would be fertilizer for Mars crops.NPK has been found.There is nitrogen in the atmosphere.I wonder if crops can be grown in the reduced Sunlight.Some sort of  concentrator.If not it will take a lot power to run the grow lights needed for a base.A food crop can come in 2-3 months.Then the food brought along,can be used for emergency supplies.The Moon has strong Sunlight however,so much better.Will nitrogen have to be taken to the Moon?  

    • SpaceHoosier says:
      0
      0

      I’m wondering what the lack of a Martian magnetic field (lots of solar radition) would do for the crop-growing prospects?

      • Paul451 says:
        0
        0

        Don’t forget the cold. A greenhouse on Mars will leak heat like crazy, the atmosphere is apparently just thick enough to convect heat away. Probably cost you more energy to keep it heated at night than to just bury it and use grow-lights during the “day” cycle.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
          0
          0

          I think the key will be retaining the heat (it is called a greenhouse, after all).  If the growing soil is suspended above the actual ground (as with hydroponics), and the walls and roof are double-walled (or triple-walled) plastic with the proper one-way frequency transmission characteristics, we can trap the infrared and visual light inside as much as possible and not let them just freely leak out at night, minimizing the heating requirements and heat loss.

          In the long run, I have a feeling that keeping the dust (that will inevitably leak in from the air locks) off of the plants will be a bigger problem, followed by maintaining the atmospheric integrity inside the greenhouse.

          So much to do… But it’ll beat living on two-year-old MREs.

          • Paul451 says:
            0
            0

            Night-time winter temperatures are below -100°C. In a true vacuum, that might be manageable since you are only losing heat by radiation. (Indeed, dumping excess heat is usually the problem.) But on Mars, the atmosphere is just thick enough to conduct/convect away heat from the greenhouse at a vastly higher rate than radiation alone. Double or triple or quadrupal insulation isn’t going to solve that problem.

            Compared to heat loss, dust is trivial problems. Even pressure containment is going to be easier to solve (such as by having an outer zone of pressurised Mars atmosphere. Losses are restored with a pump (a really good pump, but a pump nonetheless.))

            “But it’ll beat living on two-year-old MREs.”

            Historically, fresh fruit was always a morale booster for explorers. I believe it is on the ISS too.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
            0
            0

            Paul, I put a lot more value on controlling the frequency transmission characteristics of the walls than their insulating properties.  But once again, instead of debating theories, we should be testing the real thing, first in an analogue, and then in the actual environment.

            As for fresh fruit, I agree absolutely.  Plus, scurvy is still a genuine threat to explorer’s lives.  It has never been “cured” or eliminated; we just understand our dietary needs better than in the past.

            And, fruit trees aren’t going to grow either hydroponically or in “doctored” regolith.  It will require significant volumes of proper growing soil (and everything necessary to maintain it), and we’ll need to test the limits of gravity, air pressure, temperatures, etc. that each selected fruit tree will tolerate.  I don’t foresee very much of that going on in an Orion spacecraft, so I guess it will have to wait until we actually reach Mars or get back to the Moon.

            Of course, there’s no reason why this research and testing can’t be done in the absence of people.  I think we’re at the point where we could successfully design and fly a pilot plant build-your-own-ET-garden kit with multiple experiments.  Then we can answer basic questions, like: if you’re going to grow apple trees in a greenhouse on the Moon, do you start with seeds, shoots, or baby trees?  I think basic questions like that need to be answered before we design a mission based on decisions that we are literally going to have to live with.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      Actually, I think the biggest problem, aside from perchlorate and similar plant killers, is the fact that we’re talking about regolith, not soil.  Soil has microorganisms which are a necessary part of a living ecosystem, and its has insect life and worms, etc., which aerate the soil, again which is necessary to plant growing living ecosystems.  Whether we’re talking plants or animals, there must be a multi-level ecosystem.  You can’t have life living on a single level with no food chain.  Everything feeds on something else, and the “substrate” must be aerated.

      Basically, with regolith, if you can clean it up and fertilize it, you’re still going to be limited to what could just as easily be grown hydroponically, which is not to be belittled, but who can live on lettuce and tomatoes?

      This is another area that it’s been known for decades was in need of  much more R&D, but no one has actually done the work.  The important point is that, whether on Mars or the Moon, you need soil to good grow most food crops and you can’t turn regolith into soil by simply adding and subtracting chemicals.

      One nice thing about soil, though, is you can “grow” it.  Starting with a little bit of healthy growing soil (with all the goodies in it) you can gradually add “dead dirt” (without the goodies) and the “living” system will spread itself from the live into the dead, making more good live soil.  And suitable “dead” stuff, I suspect, can be made from regolith suitably cleaned up.  But this needs to be actually tested at the pilot plant level (and then, hopefully, in greenhouses on Mars and the Moon (or would they be redhouses and grayhouses?)).

      On Earth, a soil farmer is one who grows crops in soil.  On Mars or the Moon, a soil farmer might be the name given to one who “grows” the soil itself.

      The question of taking nitrogen to the Moon is yet another undone R&D issue.  If it turns out to be necessary, would it be better to take nitrogen gas or look for a solid substance from with it could be extracted that’s easier to transport?  It seems to me that if we end up needing to take nitrogen gas to the Moon, as well as hydrogen gas, which hasn’t yet been ruled out, then a lunar base is going to remain an overly expensive and vulnerable proposition.  (Yes, there’s ice at the poles, but reaching it, extracting the hydrogen from it, transporting it to where it’s needed, and storing it are all big challenges yet to be addressed.)

      I don’t think there’s anything in all this that we can’t do, but it all has to be tested, and suitable processes and equipment worked out.

  2. Saturn1300 says:
    0
    0

    There are spot magnetic fields.One 27x stronger than Earths.I do not know if it would deflect radiation or if for other reasons a base could not be there.Too bad that Curiosity is not in one of these spots.Growing food for the first people will be hard.An expandable module might be good.A fission reactor will probably supply all the power needed.The cold loss will be like ISS.They  have that covered. I guess food for the entire mission would have to be carried. The cost of taking one there might not be worth it. Building one from local materials would be hard to make air tight. How many grow bulbs would be needed? They are light weight,but take up a lot of space.They don’t last forever either.