Re: Mars Questions
- From: IsaacKuo <mechdan@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:23:20 -0700
On Aug 20, 2:03 pm, shellys <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The situation: There are domed cities, but outside the domes, Mars is
pretty much the way it is now, no terraforming. The cities have an
underground component, sort of cities below the cities where life
support systems and the worker class live. Air in the underground and
under the domes approximates Earth's. People outside the dome, on the
surface, wear environment suits. I don't get technical as it's not my
specialty, but the suits have full life support to sustain them for a
few hours, with air tanks, etc., nice and lightweight.
1. I have a bad guy on the surface and he needs to kill the people in
a transport carrier that is parked in Daedalia Planum.
Do you mean like a wheeled or tracked surface vehicle, or a
rocket ship that can "fly"? I'll assume the former.
The transport
is secure and has life support. The people are probably in their
suits, but most likely don't have their helmets on. He has a weapon
that can fire rounds that will pierce the carrier. Can he blow it up?
If he shoots holes in it, what would happen?
The atmosphere of Mars is very low pressure, so roughly the
same thing happens as if the vehicle were in a vacuum. Air
leaks out. It's audible, but it's not so loud as to overwhelm
talking. Any people directly in the path of the rounds will
leak blood. Any people not directly in the path of the rounds
can put their helmets on and survive.
Since the inside of the carrier has breathable air, the bad
guy can potentially kill them all if he can start a fire within
the cabin. Fires in enclosed spaces are nasty no matter
what planet you're on! Assuming he doesn't want to count
on fortuitously starting an electrical fire or something, he
could use some sort of incendiary rounds.
2. The bad guy then goes underground to destroy a partially built
underground city that had been destroyed during a cave-in. Some
tunnels remain, but most of the breathable air has been expended. The
original cave-in was caused by an explosion. I didn't specify the type
of device used, but at that time, there was Earth-like atmosphere down
there. I figured the concussive force of the charges brought down the
dirt like an avalanche. Most of the victims suffocated. And since
there was oxygen in the air, there could have been explosions and fire
damage as well as shrapnel from the metals being used in the
construction. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
This is going to depend on the nature of the local dirt or rock the
tunnels are dug in. Obviously, if the tunnels are dug into dirt,
then they need to at least have been lined with some sort of
structure to hold up the dirt above. We don't have much hard
data about what's below the surface of Mars, so you have a
lot of latitude for deciding whatever you want.
For this final act of destruction, what kind of device would do the
trick, since the atmosphere is mostly gone or reverted to what's
natural for tunnels under Mars? Would it need to be some sort of pulse
device? Sonic? Something I'd never think of?
Since the natural atmosphere of Mars is so thin, you can
more or less ignore it for these purposes. Whatever
destruction could be transmitted through atmosphere would
have been transmitted a thousand times better by the
old atmosphere during the earlier explosion.
It's actually hard for me to figure out how much more destroyed
this already destroyed city is supposed to get. Is the bad
guy trying to destroy evidence? Or take out some people
hiding in the ruins?
3. If a person in an environment suit falls on the surface and somehow
cracks his oxygen tank, would it explode?
No.
Plume of air escape?
Yes, unless it has self sealing safety features. More
plausibly, a person would have two oxygen tanks rather
than just one. Two cylindrical tanks are a more
convenient fit into a "backpack" than one, and it's
a nice bit of safe redundancy anyway.
One problem with self sealing safety features is
that the safety feature could itself fail in an
unpleasant way--sealing shut the "leak" you
WANT to have (the one leading to the person's
suit).
The hose attaching it to his suit is also nicked?
This would leak gas also.
I know he'll die of lack of oxygen, but I'm interested
in what would happen to the suit, tank, and his body.
Nothing spectacular. But the interesting question
is whether the leaking gas creates visible "plumes".
Besides being a nice descriptive detail, it can have
a major impact on how easy it is to find and patch
leaks. If it doesn't naturally form a visible "plume",
I think adding a bit of water vapor to ensure a
visible plume of condensation is a good safety feature.
Similarly, in Question 2, what would the bodies be like when found
days later by people trying to excavate the site? Most of them were in
regular work clothes if they were in sections with air. Others would
have been in environment suits, some of which would have been
breached.
Since Mars is relatively cold, the bodies would be
freezing cold. However, the air is very thin and the
temperature wouldn't change immediately. Thus,
the bodies would be frost damaged (as opposed to
a freeze drying effect, which would preserve the
bodies very well with very quick freezing). Other
than the frost damage during the initial freezing
process, the bodies will remain preserved by the
cold for a long time.
Isaac Kuo
.
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