Best products from r/Colonizemars

We found 14 comments on r/Colonizemars discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 9 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/Colonizemars:

u/ryanmercer · 1 pointr/Colonizemars

I haven't a clue there. I've just built stuff on Earth haha and know plywood and siding square footage adds up pretty quick for a structure which would be the similar case with a mold.

Personally I've always imagined something inflatable for living areas at first like Bigelow is testing on ISS. Once we had a good handle on excavating and manufacturing some sort of concrete or brick from local materials I'd imagine buried barrel vault type construction like Zubrin seems to like in some of his books, although I did some math on that once (in this sub I believe), I'll see if I saved it.


Edit: hmmm I can't seem to find it but here's a comment along the ideas

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https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/4qg9i9/bill_nye_warns_about_problems_colonizing_mars/d4sv0r5/

> I never see the lack of a magentosphere getting brought up.

It's not an issue. You aren't going to be living/temporarily living in clear nylon inflated bubbles. Yes, you'll absolutely pick up more rads if you are living in an unshielded habitat but shielding it is going to be quite easy if you have even modest mechanical means of moving regolith.

Worst case for a non permanent mission, the areas of the habitat you spend most of your time in have the water stored in the walls and ceiling.

Quick shielding for more permanent living you take a strong, but light, material like Nylon 6 with you ultra-light metal poles. You place the poles around the habitat you then weave the material between them (think 'under over') and then spend your first few days using modestly powered Martian wheelbarrow to scoop and move regolith between the material and the habitat with the exception of shielded doors. Again, have some of the water stored in the top of the modules for the hours the sun is overhead. OR make a simple machine that fills sandbags, the sandbags would require more material (fabric/plastic) but would likely be quicker than carting regolith around.

More long term shielding, your habitats are largely underground OR you use regolith as a component for making bricks and stack bricks around the hab modules.


For a short term mission I'd do something like what I laid out here with LEGO with the modules being inflatables then I'd come in with poles, sheeting and loose regolith to get in-hab rad exposure similar to what you'd get on Earth. For fun I have about 18.5 m2 of PV panels displayed in the model which would provide about 1415w at high noon and the tanks are actually landed ahead of time largely empty containing ISRU units to generate/capture usable things from the atmosphere. Probably WAVAR for one of the ISRU units which upon landing could quickly be used for starting soil washing experiments and/or hydroponics, if near the northern polar region you could take your time harvesting water ice for melting, you could also have some of the water from the WAVAR going to a second ISRU purely to make oxygen and hydrogen, you could also have one making monopropellant hydrogen peroxide for the return mission and/or return samples.


As far as atmospheric depletion, exactly what /u/Pimozv said

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Edit 2: another relevant comment of mine

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https://www.reddit.com/r/Colonizemars/comments/551o13/as_much_as_everyone_hates_burning_man_man_he_had/d88fg39/

> and sending builders?

Companies might. A lot of the habitats are likely going to be inflatable in nature at first. If you can assemble a tent you'll likely be able to assemble a habitat. Later you can relatively easy make bricks from local materials (almost entirely from the regolith) and build vaults/bunkers under ground and then cover with regolith, pressurize them and they'll eventually seal themselves off thanks to the temperature... moisture from exhalation and what not will seep through any cracks and ultimately freeze You could also go in and paint some sort of sealant. Above ground you'd use a sealant or put an inflatable inside the brick structure. I suggest reading Zubrin's books The Case for Mars and Mars Direct: Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future and his fiction, but scientifically accurate book, How to Live on Mars which is a guide written in the future for those that are on their way to Mars. His fiction book First Landing is also worth reading, it came out before The Martian and involves an entire crew trying to scrape by on Mars.

u/rexnerdorum · 1 pointr/Colonizemars

Fantastic list! Thank you! I have heard of half of these, but the only one I have read is Troy Rising, which was absolutely fantastic. I hope for the best for Ringo. I have added all these to my list of books to buy.

The Virga series by Schroeder ( https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Virga-Candesce-Sunless-Countries-ebook/dp/B07FM89THB ) is one of my favorites (it's ~mostly~ hard scifi).

u/binarygamer · 8 pointsr/Colonizemars

While your statement is broadly true, the article OP linked doesn't fall into the lobbying category. The author is a retired philosopher who has a different view of how space colonization should be carried out.

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Here is the author's 140-page book on the topic:

> Humans live relatively short lives and, to survive, require large amounts of food and water, very specific climatic conditions and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. We can create colonists that have none of these shortcomings.

> Morton argues that we should treat the end of the human race in the same way that we treat our own deaths: as something sad but ultimately inevitable. The earth will perish one day, and, in the end, we should be concerned more with securing the future of intelligent beings than with the preservation of our species

u/SyntheticAperture · 14 pointsr/Colonizemars

As someone left of center and an environmentalist.... Free markets and enlightenment values have lifted humanity out of squalor and superstition into modern day lives of plenty and comfort. Check out Steven Pinker's works if you don't believe me.

As long as we bring both to Mars with us, we'll be fine.

u/Ivebeenfurthereven · 4 pointsr/Colonizemars

Woah, far from a snappy title there... But I think I see what you're getting at. How to achieve industrial self-sufficiency?

I think people badly underestimate the current limitations of additive manufacturing (3D printing). It's a neat new invention that's brought down the price of some specific scenarios, but they're a very, very long way off self-replication when you consider motors, electronics, bearings and chains etc. Difficult to get structural strength from a 3D-printed part, they tend to be brittle and crack along the print lines. Not sure I'd want to trust one with a critical load-bearing part replacement, like Mark Watney's Mars airlock. SpaceX have possibly cracked this with their printed rocket components but that's an insanely expensive bit of kit - the raw materials are also way expensive and need a spec that'll have to come from Earth - this isn't going to be able to make parts that everyone in the colony has access to.

Personally, I always liked the adage about "with a milling machine and a lathe, you can build a milling machine and a lathe".
Given the mass of metal and its insane structural capabilities when machined and welded by easily-trained workers, I'd suggest mining, refining, and fabricating parts onsite is going to be essential. Here's a fascinating book about building a metal shop from scrap, starting with a foundry and moving on to more complex machinery. If I had to survive after the collapse of civilisation I'd want that book. I think the same applies on Mars.

So:

  1. survey Mars for metallic near-surface ores
  2. build colony nearby this, and water ice
  3. mining equipment - eg. automated backhoes - will prove essential
  4. set up simple workshops, homemade welding gear, etc.
u/dftba-ftw · 8 pointsr/Colonizemars

If you haven't already read Red Mars, the series is a scientifically in-depth narrative about the colonization of mars.