United Arab Emirates Wants To Build A City On Mars

UAE Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, unveiled the "Mars 2117 Project" on Feb. 14 during the 5th World Government Summit in Dubai. The announced the project with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

It will be interesting to see the technology that the UAE develops for its planned mission to Mars.

If anyone is able to build in an inhospitable, desert region and survive, it would be the Arabs.

http://www.space.com/35817-uae-city-on-mars-2117-project.html


The main components for a habitat on Mars is water , H20 and breathable Oxygen.

Hydrogen can be extracted from natural gas that is discovered while drilling for oil. Oxygen can also be extracted from natural in a similar method that is used to extract hydrogen. With the immense amount of natural gas that the U.S. has and is drilling for in the U.S. the source for all Martian based water and breathable oxygen needs would allow for a nearly infinite amount of water and oxygen to be transported to Mars for any habitat.

 

They certainly have the money--and it beats building yet more skyscrapers.

Sea Dragon would be perfect for them. Simple shipyard steel, and no composites--like those in the SpaceX ITS tank that seems to have failed: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/5ul1du/remains_of_the_its_composite_tank_in_anacortes_wa/

A quote:

Looks like it separated right along the seam.

I am going to interpret this as being a bad result for the test, since it failed in longitudinal stress, rather than hoop stress. A hoop stress failure will typically indicate that the vessel was efficiently designed, since longitudinal stresses are usually lower than hoop stresses. This is applicable to metallic pressure vessels, which is what my experience is in. It is also possible it was intended to fail along the seam, but usually, a good seam/weld will be designed to be a little stronger than the bulk material.

On the other hand--we saw from Mythbusters last night the raw power of metal and pressure-feds:

https://thehighfrontier.blog/2016/02/16/sea-dragons-skycycles-the-life-and-rockets-of-bob-truax/

Truax vindicated:



My advice.

Mr. Musk--give up on ITS. Push UAE for funding--build Sea Dragon in Mobile AL so Shelby can be your friend too.

We have a shipyard:
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x889a4fe695b94537:0xd4f97251e4007a86!2m19!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m13!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!3m1!7e115!4shttp://usa.austal.com/production-facilities-0!5sAustal+shipyard+mobile+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e1!2shttp://usa.austal.com/sites/default/files/page-hero/4%20JHSV%205%20Sept%202014_0.jpg&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBpIWtyK7SAhXF4yYKHVoxCJIQoioIczAK

We have steel:
http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/thyssenkrupp_no_more_calvert_s.html

We have Airbus
http://www.airbus.com/company/americas/us/alabama/

************************************************************************************************************************

Ofter to put a mosque on Mars as the first building on Mars. Get with Breakthrough Starshot. Have that Russian billionaire do the same with Sevmash and build Sea Dragons instead of Boomers. Forget lasers, just large concentrating lens-with lots of surface area--so as to use the sun's energy instead of superlasers.

Forget Texas

We're hungry here in Alabama--help us help you

 

If anyone can do this the UAE can do it......

Now what goodies does Mars have that we can plunder?

 

A question about Sea Dragon -- how was it proposed to prevent a large buildup of ice due to heat conduction through the rocket skin to the cryogenic fuel tanks while these were being filled in situ by electrolysis of sea water?

Heck, if you want to haul a big mass to Mars quickly, use Orion nuclear pulse propulsion (while breaking several international treaties).

 

A great big mass of rusted-out iron.

 

Haha that's so true. But what if you could use nuclear weapons to propel the ship and thus get rid of them?

 

So shows like Babylon 5 got it wrong, there's nothing worth it to mine on Mars?

 

I'm hesitant to say nothing, since Mars is a whole planet and that's a lot of stuff. But it's really hard to think of anything that could be there that would be worth the cost of extracting and sending to Earth. Nearly any pure elements would be cheaper to dig out of Earth; even the challenges of digging underneath the ocean or through the mantle of the Earth are lesser. And most really interesting or useful chemicals are produced or influenced by life.

There's great scientific interest in the stuff on Mars, certainly. But while we might say scientific knowledge is priceless, when it comes to setting the budget we realize it's not.

 

And don't forget all the prothean stuff buried deep under the Martian soil.

 

Carl Sagan once proposed that it would be the best way for the world to use up its nuclear stockpile, I believe. Personally, I'd prefer it be used for that purpose outside the atmosphere and, if possible, outside the magnetosphere.

 

A smaller Orion was going to be launched atop a Saturn V--that can launch about 400 tons to the edge of the atmosphere.

Thing is--Pulse-Orion works best in an atmosphere.

I'd go for Sea Dragon to launch a good sized Orion up there--solar electric tugs to gradually get it up the gravity well to geosynch--where very little energy is needed to go circumlunar.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/30/us/trying-to-save-satellite-company-is-sending-it-to-moon.html
http://ccar.colorado.edu/asen5050/projects/projects_2004/mann/

The perfect mirror
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/162322-mit-creates-the-first-perfect-mirror

Nuclear Salt Water rockets will have smoother rides than pulse Orion--but more of a heating problem http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/robert-zubrins-nuclear-salt-water.html

As for Sea Dragon--the vibration--or maybe a shell can be used to get rid of ice.

UAE has the money.

Sea Dragon is simpler than ITS/BFR.

Allow SLS to launch high value Mars ships--and Sea Dragon to launch big dumb payloads like fuel and tankage for an insertion stage.

Shipbuilding can be dangerous
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-human-toll-of-naval-shipbuilding-is-staggering-1792237803

But it allows shipyard tolerances. Sea Dragon would be easier to build than many ships--it's just a tube/FLIP ship.

In other space news

Little Joe III?
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42289.msg1641390#msg1641390

http://news.sys-con.com/node/4022355
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-will-modern-moon-mission-look-like-180962317/
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/americas-next-spaceship-180952126/?page=2

Large station concept
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3181/1

New SLS video


http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/03/01/pbs-news-hour-video-returning-moon/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-will-modern-moon-mission-look-like-180962317/
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/02/26/nasa-begins-study-placing-crew-slsorion-launch/
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...ercial-space-group-endorsed-nasas-sls-rocket/
http://beyondearth.com/first-flight-hardware-ships-to-cape-canaveral/

Increasing Mars atmosphere
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42438.0
https://twitter.com/humansareawesme/status/836961705745858560

3D Print ship models
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29378.160

Buran
http://www.kosmonavtika.com/bibliographie/livres/couvertures/kbkhalioudi.jpg

About EELV black zones
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42270.0
https://blogs.nasa.gov/waynehalesblog/2008/11/19/post_1227110186508/
https://blogs.nasa.gov/waynehalesblog/2008/11/23/post_1227468711544/

MAF cleaning up after tornado
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/maf-tornado-strike-sls-critical-path/

 

Just so we're all clear here, I am under the impression you really like Sea Dragon. What with posting about it whenever you think a topic even sneezes in that direction (and many times when it doesn't).

 

Composites worry me--although there may be some good news for Space X:

In a discussion here--it was a lap band: "Production units wouldn't have the same lap join," https://disqus.com/home/discussion/...s_around_the_moon_in_2018/#comment-3185359967

Maybe things will work out for ITS. If so--then UAE might fund that instead of building rockets that might wind up being targets for bombers--if going to space is what the UAE actually wants.

 

The real value of Mars will probably be as room for humanity to expand d as a staging post to the rest of the solar system.

Mining whatever resources the planet has will make economic sense when we're already there. Sending materials from Earth will be costly and inefficient.

 

Pity we can't terraform Mars

 

Oh, I'm sure we will, to some extent.

The real question is should we. Or does protecting the environment only extend to Earth ?

 

Who says?

 

I said lol.....

I'm thinking with current technology whether we could or not?

As to whether we should, well if we plan to live there, I think we should.

 

There are UN treaties already in place.

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/intromoon-agreement.html

Of course, we all know who doesn't like the UN.

 

But the planets are ours to do with as we please. All except Europa. We're not supposed to land there.