Want to Colonize Mars? Aerogel Could Help
In a new paper in Nature Astronomy, researchers propose that a material called aerogel might help humans one day build greenhouses and other habitats at Mars' mid-latitudes, where near-surface water ice has been identified. The study was funded by Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Aerogel is a Styrofoam-like solid that is 99% air, making it extremely light. It's adept at preventing the transfer of heat as well, making it an excellent insulator; in fact, it's been used for that purpose on all of NASA's Mars rovers. Moreover, aerogel is translucent, allowing visible light to pass through while blocking ultraviolet light's harmful radiation. Most aerogel is made from silica, the same material found in glass.
In an experiment conducted by lead author Robin Wordsworth of Harvard, 2-3 centimeters of silica aerogel allowed light from a lamp tuned to simulate Martian sunlight to heat the surface beneath it by up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius) - enough to raise temperatures on the Martian surface and melt water ice.
"The study was meant as an initial test of aerogel's potential as a Martian building material," said second author Laura Kerber, a geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Kerber participated in a 2015 NASA workshop to identify the best places on Mars to send astronauts. "The ideal place for a Martian outpost would have plentiful water and moderate temperatures," she said. "Mars is warmer around the equator, but most of the water ice is located at higher latitudes. Building with silica aerogel would allow us to artificially create warm environments where there is already water ice available."
Also at Harvard, Scientific American, and CNET.
Enabling Martian habitability with silica aerogel via the solid-state greenhouse effect (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0813-0) (DX)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:22PM (2 children)
Density(and thus mass) being very small is great for shipping to mars, what with the Tsiolkovsky equation being such a big deal.
But! Getting physically large volumes into space is also hard due to the aerodynamics of rocketry. Also it's fragile, and acceleration seems like launch turbulence could be super destructive Is the plan to fabricate the aerogel on mars from some base ingredients? This paper describes only the photodynamics of the material and its suitability on that front.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 16 2019, @10:00PM
My initial though was "Wouldn't the UV degrade it?", but since the summary said "most aerogel is largely silica", that seems unlikely. And it also seems reasonably likely that it would be made on site. Otherwise multiple panes of glass might be a better option (with the glass made on site). It seems to be the same principle. The advantage of aerogel is that it's really light.
That said, even glass gets "sunburned". I tried to find a link, but all the links pointed to glass created by lightning strikes or meteor strikes. Mars would seem to be a place where glass would get "sunburned" quickly, since the atmosphere doesn't filter out the UV. So you probably need to figure on replacing it every few decades.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @12:06AM
Just prepare it on Mars from low volume high density precursors.
See also "open source" aerogel resources [aerogel.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:23PM (1 child)
What do they do with the Aerogel to allow heat to flow inbound but not outbound?
Does the translucentness allow it to be used as a greenhouse or is there something else going on here?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:29PM
The same thing they do with glass that allow heat to flow in, but not out. Both allow visible forms of radiation to come in, but block the flow of not-visible radiations, like infrared. So, yes, a greenhouse, exactly.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:35PM (5 children)
is closer to 99% vacuum on Mars. Vacugel?
But as the source article says "In future work, it will be important to investigate the ease with which traditional silica aerogel manufacturing techniques17 can be adapted to conditions on Mars. "
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:44PM (4 children)
Oh that was my question, I missed that line of the paper.
Since you answered my question, I can answer yours.
I think the air is just at STP, and they're 99.8% air by volume, so at martian pressures, the weight would be lower, but it would still be 99.8% air, just... less air in the air?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:55PM
LOL - cute - I like it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @12:20AM (2 children)
Actually it will be higher, even if only infinitesimally so.
The volume of fluid it contains does not matter as long as the aerogel is sunk into a fluid of the same density.
But Archimedes guarantees the silica sponge will be pushed against gravity (for some reasons they call it buoyancy) with a force equal with the weight of the displaced fluid - he even introduced a bill and made it a law. So, the denser the fluid, the higher the 'apparent weight loss'.
Since the density of Earth's atmosphere is higher than the Mars'es...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Touché) by ikanreed on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:29AM (1 child)
I mean, as long as we're "well technically"ing, gravity would be substantially lower, so bouyancy would be a relatively small effect compared to 9.8 m/s/s vs 3.7 m/s/s
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:46AM
You have a point, sir.
Should teach me right about nitpicking before considering the obvious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday July 16 2019, @10:12PM
if the temperature increased by 150F, that would be 83C
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:22PM
Don't aerogels disintegrate when they get wet? That isn't a problem in a dry environment, but using it to build a greenhouse seems like asking for trouble.