Thread: An artificial living crater

The idea is to plug up a mercurian(martian gravity) crater with glass so it can be air filled etc...
My result is
1- it's possible to use the energy of the sun to grow plants etc...
2- the weight of the crater top can be perfectly balanced from the air pressure...
3- It's possible to use water in the crater top to protect the crater from the wrong radiations...


Is it a good idea?...

Reuse of valuable resources is important on other planets and moons. Plants are good for changing CO2 to O2 but would need a lot of water. Soil chemicals would have to be replaced, maybe with dung? Lots of solar energy though.

Originally Posted by Cyberia

Reuse of valuable resources is important on other planets and moons. Plants are good for changing CO2 to O2 but would need a lot of water. Soil chemicals would have to be replaced, maybe with dung? Lots of solar energy though.

Some pictures show ice water near Mercury's Poles, it has been estimated to about 10^12 m3 of water that is a good value for more than thousands of little craters...
It's really interesting!
(Initially the crater soil can get rich by planting forests that need a poor soil...)

Surely water needs to be reused...

It's a neat idea.

Fittingly, we'd manufacture glass on site by floating it molten on a pool of mercury, then shading it to cool.

sounds like a biospehere

Originally Posted by jash

The idea is to plug up a mercurian(martian gravity) crater with glass so it can be air filled etc...
My result is
1- it's possible to use the energy of the sun to grow plants etc...
2- the weight of the crater top can be perfectly balanced from the air pressure...
3- It's possible to use water in the crater top to protect the crater from the wrong radiations...


Is it a good idea?...

So if I understand correctly, there would be a layer of water above the glass ceiling? Would that be an effective radiation shield? It does sound like a very interesting idea, yes. There would certainly be engineering and ecological challenges- but I suspect that this plan is workable with modern technology. We just need the energy and motive to go there.

There's a fellow at Lockheed Martin who figured out who to pressure cook water out of ordinary moon rock, so no shortage of water on that gravity well. And.... once you've got water, O2 is very easy to obtain from it.

The trouble is getting all the other nutrients needed for plant growth, which of course depends on the plant, but usually involves stuff like nitrogen and carbon.

Originally Posted by TheBiologista

there would be a layer of water above the glass ceiling? Would that be an effective radiation shield?

Yes, water's quite good at blocking that kind of radiation.

But we'd need double glazing, sandwiching the water. Then what if it freezes or boils? Failure would be real bad. Think of all those gaskets we'd be checking and replacing. Who wants the job?