Thursday, May 18, 2017

Menu planner update - significant errors discovered

A Reddit user over in r/ColonizeMars (u/3015) caught multiple errors in my menu planning sheet. (thread) These affected power, area and volume calculations. I've corrected these errors; the sheet is updated anywhere it is linked.

The per-person volume is still about 45 m³. The sheet now tracks 'tray' area and 'floor' area separately, with estimates of floor area required for a set of ceiling heights.

Most important is the power requirement for lighting. This increased significantly, from 5.7 kW per person to 22 kW per person.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Project Destiny: Habitats and Food, part 2

This is a topic post referring to Purdue University's project Destiny.
Here is my introductory post for the series.
The subject is section 7, Mars habitats. By necessity, section 8 (Food Production) is also discussed.

Due to the broad scope of this section, I've broken it into three separate posts. This post discusses living spaces. Part 1 discussed life support.

 Headline results:
No net change to costs. Per capita living space increased by 2.3x, while per capita hydroponic space about doubled. I present two alternatives to the 'cylinder farm' approach, each with pros and cons. Basalt fibers would be used as rockwool insulation to reduce heating requirements.

Details after the jump.


Project Destiny: Habitats and Food, part 1

This is a topic post referring to Purdue University's project Destiny.
Here is my introductory post for the series.
The subject is section 7, Mars habitats. By necessity, section 8 (Food Production) is also discussed.

Due to the broad scope of this section, I've broken it into three separate posts. This post discusses life support.
Part 2 discusses the actual structures and habitable volume.

 Headline results:
 $265.52 billion in savings (74.5%) by using industrial equipment instead of legacy ISS hardware. By using an integrated biological life support system with advanced air composition management, nutrient cycles are almost completely closed and a straightforward route for makeup mass is available from Martian resources.


Details after the jump.