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kataklasm | 3 months ago

One major issue with transportation in the Martian environment is the extremely abrasive dust and the sharp rocks. Pretty much every rover has had the issue that the wheels deteriorate very quickly and dust gets into every nook and cranny, eventuelly destroying important movement-related mechanisms. As to their movement speed, that's mostly down to the movement being manually commanded and with the light delay of about 20 mins (one-way), you can only command the rover to go so far before involuntarily hitting an object.

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Mistletoe|3 months ago

This doesn’t bode well for any human base there does it? We will have these same abrasive dust problems on human movers and machines.

keyringlight|3 months ago

I recall reading that a major candidate for any early colony is in lava tubes, dust on the would be one factor, but radiation shielding is another. Either you have to ship materials from Earth and build them, consume whatever is available and useful locally, or make use of whatever Mars-nature provides. If you can get away with lighter materials to build below surface then it seems better compared to more durability/shielding requirements above.

adrianN|3 months ago

Humans are better at cleaning than robots.

pfdietz|3 months ago

The dust on the Moon will be even worse.