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SpaceX Mars Mission and Funding Discussion

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Remember the biosphere experiment.

What Went Wrong?
As an attempt to create a balanced and self-sustaining replica of Earth’s ecosystems, Biosphere II was a miserable (and expensive) failure. Numerous problems plagued the crew almost from the very beginning. Of these, a mysterious loss of oxygen and widespread extinction were the most notable.

Catching Their Breath
Starting when the crew members were first sealed in, Biosphere II experienced a constant and puzzling decline in the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere. It was initially hoped that the system was merely stabilizing itself, but as time passed it became increasingly clear the something was amiss. Not quite 18 months into the experiment, when oxygen levels dropped to the point where the crew could barely function, the outside managers decided to pump oxygen into the system so they could complete the full two years as planned.

Obviously, Biosphere II was not self-sustaining if outside oxygen had to be added in order for the crew to survive. The reasons behind this flaw in the project were not fully understood until some time later. As it turned out, the problem had more to do with carbon dioxide than with oxygen. Biosphere II’s soil, especially in the rain forest and savanna areas, is unusually rich in organic material. Microbes were metabolizing this material at an abnormally high rate, in the process of which they used up a lot of oxygen and produced a lot of carbon dioxide. The plants in Biosphere II should have been able to use this excess carbon dioxide to replace the oxygen through photosynthesis, except that another chemical reaction was also taking place.

A vast majority of Biosphere II was built out of concrete, which contains calcium hydroxide. Instead of being consumed by the plants to produce more oxygen, the excess carbon dioxide was reacting with calcium hydroxide in the concrete walls to form calcium carbonate and water.

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + H2O

This hypothesis was confirmed when scientists tested the walls and found that they contained about ten times the amount of calcium carbonate on the inner surfaces as they did on the outer surfaces. All of the walls in Biosphere II are now coated with a protective layer, but oxygen levels continue to be somewhat problematic.


Walking a Tightrope
The designers of Biosphere II included a carefully chosen variety of plant, animal, and insect species. They anticipated that some species would not survive, but the eventual extinction rate was much higher than expected. Of the 25 small vertebrates with which the project began, only 6 did not die out by the mission's end. Almost all of the insect species went extinct, including those which had been included for the purpose of pollinating plants. This caused its own problems, since the plants could no longer propagate themselves.
At the same time, some species absolutely thrived in this man-made environment. Crazy ants, cockroaches, and katydids ran rampant, while certain vines (like morning glories) threatened to choke out every other kind of plant. The crew members were forced to put vast amounts of energy into simply maintaining their food crops. Biosphere II could not sustain a balanced ecosystem, and therefore failed to fulfill its goals.

Other Problems
Biosphere II's water systems became polluted with too many nutrients. The crew had to clean their water by running it over mats of algae, which they later dried and stored.
Also, as a symptom of further atmospheric imbalances, the level of dinitrogen oxide became dangerously high. At these levels, there was a risk of brain damage due to a reduction in the synthesis of vitamin B12.

And of course, there were inevitable disputes among the crew, as well as among those running the project from the outside.







[Home] [Earth: Biosphere I][Why Biosphere II?] [Biosphere Plans] [Grand Experiment] [What Went Wrong?][Lessons for the Future]

Contact WebMasters:
Erin Walker and Diana Carroll
 
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Remember the biosphere experiment.

What Went Wrong?
As an attempt to create a balanced and self-sustaining replica of Earth’s ecosystems, Biosphere II was a miserable (and expensive) failure. Numerous problems plagued the crew almost from the very beginning. Of these, a mysterious loss of oxygen and widespread extinction were the most notable.

Catching Their Breath
Starting when the crew members were first sealed in, Biosphere II experienced a constant and puzzling decline in the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere. It was initially hoped that the system was merely stabilizing itself, but as time passed it became increasingly clear the something was amiss. Not quite 18 months into the experiment, when oxygen levels dropped to the point where the crew could barely function, the outside managers decided to pump oxygen into the system so they could complete the full two years as planned.

Obviously, Biosphere II was not self-sustaining if outside oxygen had to be added in order for the crew to survive. The reasons behind this flaw in the project were not fully understood until some time later. As it turned out, the problem had more to do with carbon dioxide than with oxygen. Biosphere II’s soil, especially in the rain forest and savanna areas, is unusually rich in organic material. Microbes were metabolizing this material at an abnormally high rate, in the process of which they used up a lot of oxygen and produced a lot of carbon dioxide. The plants in Biosphere II should have been able to use this excess carbon dioxide to replace the oxygen through photosynthesis, except that another chemical reaction was also taking place.

A vast majority of Biosphere II was built out of concrete, which contains calcium hydroxide. Instead of being consumed by the plants to produce more oxygen, the excess carbon dioxide was reacting with calcium hydroxide in the concrete walls to form calcium carbonate and water.

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + H2O

This hypothesis was confirmed when scientists tested the walls and found that they contained about ten times the amount of calcium carbonate on the inner surfaces as they did on the outer surfaces. All of the walls in Biosphere II are now coated with a protective layer, but oxygen levels continue to be somewhat problematic.


Walking a Tightrope
The designers of Biosphere II included a carefully chosen variety of plant, animal, and insect species. They anticipated that some species would not survive, but the eventual extinction rate was much higher than expected. Of the 25 small vertebrates with which the project began, only 6 did not die out by the mission's end. Almost all of the insect species went extinct, including those which had been included for the purpose of pollinating plants. This caused its own problems, since the plants could no longer propagate themselves.
At the same time, some species absolutely thrived in this man-made environment. Crazy ants, cockroaches, and katydids ran rampant, while certain vines (like morning glories) threatened to choke out every other kind of plant. The crew members were forced to put vast amounts of energy into simply maintaining their food crops. Biosphere II could not sustain a balanced ecosystem, and therefore failed to fulfill its goals.

Other Problems
Biosphere II's water systems became polluted with too many nutrients. The crew had to clean their water by running it over mats of algae, which they later dried and stored.
Also, as a symptom of further atmospheric imbalances, the level of dinitrogen oxide became dangerously high. At these levels, there was a risk of brain damage due to a reduction in the synthesis of vitamin B12.

And of course, there were inevitable disputes among the crew, as well as among those running the project from the outside.







[Home] [Earth: Biosphere I][Why Biosphere II?] [Biosphere Plans] [Grand Experiment] [What Went Wrong?][Lessons for the Future]

Contact WebMasters:
Erin Walker and Diana Carroll

Fascinating experiment and useful results. Was the point to replicate a potential Martian bio dome? Or was it to have a complicated environment and see what happens? If the latter then the experiment was a great success (lots of learning).
 
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Update: a friend told me that The Explorers Club posted on their Facebook page (I don’t have a Facebook account and refuse to look at that website) the following:

“We apologize but due to unforeseen circumstances, we have to cancel tonight's lecture - "SpaceX - Making Life Multiplanetary". We hope to have the event rescheduled in the future, and will update everyone via email and on our social media channels as information becomes available.”

If only they would have posted that on their homepage where the livestream was stated would be available.
 
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Followup to the above about the film...

I posted this on another forum shortly after the above post:
-- begin --
Pacing was a bit too slow for me. Was interesting to hear of the origin story and of what John Allen embarked on before (e.g. building a ship). I wish there were a more focus on the missions themselves. I did actually take a tour of Biosphere 2 over a year ago (which was fascinating) so I did like seeing all footage inside and out. I'd also done some reading about it before.

I wish they explained why they pumped in the oxygen (I know why) and explained the lung that they briefly mentioned. We got to go in the lung on the tour and it was explained. Also, the movie didn't talk at all about the 2nd crew. They just jumped into briefly taking about the Steve Bannon takeover and ousting of previous management,

Too bad I wasn't following this project back in the day of the two missions. I recall hearing about it on the news before back then.
-- end --

Firefox/Pocket today had recommended Eight Go Mad in Arizona: How a Lockdown Experiment Went Horribly Wrong for me.
 
…essential steps needed towards creatIng a long term self-sustaining colony on Mars
  • Power production equipment that can reliably function on the surface of Mars long term and produce many orders of magnitude more power than we have ever produced on that planet in the tiny rovers.


New research on what would be the best power generation technology on Mars

https://scienmag.com/solar-energy-is-superior-to-nuclear-for-powering-crewed-mission-to-mars-show-scientists/

Quote:

The winner: a photovoltaic array that uses compressed hydrogen for energy storage. At the equator, what the team calls the “carry-along mass” of such a system is about 8.3 tons versus about 9.5 tons for nuclear power. The solar-based system becomes less tenable [that’s an error; should be ”more tenable”] closer to the equator at more than 22 tons, but beats out fission energy across about 50% of the Martian surface.

“I think it’s nice that the result was split pretty close down the middle,” Berliner said. “Nearer the equator, solar wins out; nearer the poles, nuclear wins.”

Such a system can employ electricity to split water molecules to produce hydrogen, which can be stored in pressurized vessels and then re-electrified in fuel cells for power.
The results of that study surprised me but it makes sense; instead of taking heavy batteries to Mars, batteries that would be charged during the day by a photovoltaic system, take an electrolysis system and fuel cells.

This of course assumes adequate supplies of water.

My approach, assuming a working fleet of Starships, would be to take both types of power generation systems; nuclear and PV/fuel cells, and some batteries for backup.

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. Without reliable power, Mars colonization will fail.
 
OR 100x the solar panels. That's shrink the 15 years down to 1.5 years (18 months), down to 1.8 months. Or another 10x to get down to 5 days.

I hear there is a LOT of unused real estate on Mars. Getting the panels there, or manufacturing them in situ might be a challenge ...
Not to mention keeping the dust off them. (That's a problem that hasn't yet been solved for a single square meter of rover panels, let alone many square kilometers' worth, although things have been tried.) It's possible that space-based solar, beaming solar power from orbit to ground via microwaves, may make more sense on Mars than on Earth. The microwave receivers on the ground would be relatively dust-proof, or at least far easier to maintain than kilometers of ground-based solar panels. NASA did a study on it a while back: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19900016856/downloads/19900016856.pdf
 
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Given the thin atmosphere and much lower gravity, what is altitude of a low orbit in Mars? and stationary orbit ?
Areostationary orbit is about 17,000km above the surface. The lowest reasonably sustainable Mars orbit is around 160km, similar to Earth. (Lower atmospheric density, but also lower gravity, so the atmosphere extends out proportionally farther.)
 
I’ve always been of the opinion that Elon initiated the Starlink program with the long term goal of providing Earth to Mars and Mars to Mars comm. A secondary benefit will be generating a lot of revenue to partially fund Mars colonization.
Kinda of the other way around. Starlink was primarily conceived as a way to fund Starship development. It was a second, completely different revenue source for SpaceX (worldwide Internet/telecom provider) that also had the nice feature of being able to use SpaceX primary revenue source (orbital lift) at cost prices.

When complete, Starlink will be about 10x revenue of current SpaceX orbital lift (ignoring the extra revenue from Starlink launches) and be profitable on its own. That extra profit center is nice, but it also gives a solid customer for Starship while the rest of the world figures out how to take advantage of it.

Martian comms isn’t going to use Starlink architecture for a looong time. Starlink is a planet wide comms system. Mars will have a single fixed city for quite a while.
 
Elon probably goes ahead with projects when there is synergy with other projects. Mars is certainly top of mind for him so Starlink is necessary. But I don't think he would have gone ahead with it unless it also happened to fund Starship and provide the internet to Africa etc.

Boring Co is another project. Not sure Elon would have done it if it didn't solve earth traffic AND mars housing.