There's all kinds of romance in spaceflight and especially if Sandra Bullock is part of it but there's not so much in making bricks ... unless you have a way to make them on Mars. (Science Daily: Engineers investigate a simple, no-bake recipe to make bricks from Martian soil)
One of the few of Donald Trump's ridiculous Executive Orders which Congress honored rather than falling to the ground hooting and laughing was budgeting to sponsor NASA going to Mars.
Apparently NASA has been researching brick making since the inevitable first question on getting to Mars is what will you do there but the first task seems it ought to be construction of someplace to crash. Shipping some type of habitat from Earth will be required to start but that would be impossibly difficult and expensive to sustain so astronauts need to go forth to become masons.
This is a brick made of Martian soil simulant compacted under pressure. The brick was made without any additional ingredients and without baking.
Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego
Presto, one Martian brick and it's made in a way NASA did not anticipate.
"The people who will go to Mars will be incredibly brave. They will be pioneers. And I would be honored to be their brick maker," said Yu Qiao, a professor of structural engineering at UC San Diego and the study's lead author.
- SD
The astronauts who do this will be the real adventurers and they have no time to waste on selfies. (Ithaka: When Adventurers Are Really Just Punks with Nothing to Do)
It turns out making bricks on Mars is relatively easy.
In fact, the UC San Diego engineers were initially trying to cut down on the amount of polymers required to shape Martian soil into bricks, and accidently discovered that none was needed. To make bricks out of Mars soil simulant, without additives and without heating or baking the material, two steps were key. One was to enclose the simulant in a flexible container, in this case a rubber tube. The other was to compact the simulant at a high enough pressure. The amount of pressure needed for a small sample is roughly the equivalent of someone dropping 10-lb hammer from a height of one meter, Qiao said.
- SD
Building a Martian settlement out of Martian bricks and then sealing it to be airtight will be immensely easier and less expensive than trying to ship a habitat from Earth. The science probably doesn't sound all that sexy but the potential is enormous.
One of the few of Donald Trump's ridiculous Executive Orders which Congress honored rather than falling to the ground hooting and laughing was budgeting to sponsor NASA going to Mars.
Apparently NASA has been researching brick making since the inevitable first question on getting to Mars is what will you do there but the first task seems it ought to be construction of someplace to crash. Shipping some type of habitat from Earth will be required to start but that would be impossibly difficult and expensive to sustain so astronauts need to go forth to become masons.
This is a brick made of Martian soil simulant compacted under pressure. The brick was made without any additional ingredients and without baking.
Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego
Presto, one Martian brick and it's made in a way NASA did not anticipate.
"The people who will go to Mars will be incredibly brave. They will be pioneers. And I would be honored to be their brick maker," said Yu Qiao, a professor of structural engineering at UC San Diego and the study's lead author.
- SD
The astronauts who do this will be the real adventurers and they have no time to waste on selfies. (Ithaka: When Adventurers Are Really Just Punks with Nothing to Do)
It turns out making bricks on Mars is relatively easy.
In fact, the UC San Diego engineers were initially trying to cut down on the amount of polymers required to shape Martian soil into bricks, and accidently discovered that none was needed. To make bricks out of Mars soil simulant, without additives and without heating or baking the material, two steps were key. One was to enclose the simulant in a flexible container, in this case a rubber tube. The other was to compact the simulant at a high enough pressure. The amount of pressure needed for a small sample is roughly the equivalent of someone dropping 10-lb hammer from a height of one meter, Qiao said.
- SD
Building a Martian settlement out of Martian bricks and then sealing it to be airtight will be immensely easier and less expensive than trying to ship a habitat from Earth. The science probably doesn't sound all that sexy but the potential is enormous.
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