There are as many faces as there are emotions, each powerful for what it conveys. Yet we wear them as though for the first time, unaware of their power to affect those we love.
If our smiles are the heat of summer and tears the rain of spring. If our naked bodies wrapped in blankets are autumn preparing for winter, then we can embrace each season as an integral part of the cycle, and look forward to what each brings.
ECLSS
An Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) enables humans to survive in a semi-open (Fig 1) completely closed (BioSphere II, Lunar Palace) ecosystem. In a traditional model, all components vital to sustaining life are tracked by a network of system monitors. Careful estimations are made for the quantity of humans in the given environment for a particular period of time, against the resources provided. The amount of work they perform, the food they consume, and the number of hours they sleep all affect the duration and quality of the mission (see Wikipedia commons image, above).
In this linear tabulation of resource allocation and consumption each human actor or agent is treated as an IN and OUT box, a system which transforms one resource of a particular quantity into a bi-product which is either reused or discarded as waste.
To use this model for a massively scalable system (4-40,000 people) will result in an arduous, ultimately failing bookkeeping effort of tracking values such as the quantity of molecules of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, calories, Watts or Joules. Through this linear method, we will be less likely to discover causality. If instead we can build a model which considers the relationship between two or more systems, which are themselves maintained by a constant input of energy and mass flow against the natural progression toward system breakdown, then we will gain a better sense of what it means to scale a human colony in a totally foreign, inhospitable environment, from the first astronauts to arrive to a genetically viable human gene pool that can, of its own accord, carry the human species forward.
A rendezvous with Rama
In our imagination, humans in a distant future have gained the ability to travel vast distances in relatively short periods of time. An exploratory mission discovers a massive, abandoned space station in orbit about a planet which itself is not conducive to life as we know it. We attach a shuttle craft to the hull of the outpost, tens of kilometers in diameter, and let ourselves inside. There does not appear to be a single living creature inside. Nothing moves, not even automated repair and management systems.
Immediately, we ask, For how long has this outpost been abandoned?
To answer that question, we determine if the atmosphere is breathable for humans, and we remove our helmets. The air is dry, cold, and devoid of the smell of decay. There is an odor of machine oil and mechanical systems.
While completely sealed, and safely parked in a non-decaying orbit far above the drag of the atmosphere, this habitat is decaying. It is slowly degrading. No matter how well crafted, no matter how perfectly every nut, bolt, and weld is applied, eventually this artificial world will fall to pieces.
You can point to the systems which are no longer being maintained: water delivery, sewage removal, atmosphere recycling systems. The ship’s hull is continuously bombarded with radiation from the binary star system 1.5 AU from the orbit of the host planet. Each of these is breaking down due to a lack of maintenance.
As we explore the inner halls and chambers of this orbiting world we take note of the integrity of the structure. Are seals in tact? Are lubricants leaking? Do the doorways to passages open and close securely? Do motors yet spin and pistons yet pump? Or have all moving parts seized and become immobile?
While we tend to measure breakdown over time, we can also measure the disorganization of the structure, at the macroscopic and microscopic levels. Physical breakdown of a mechanical system can be described as a degree of current functionality in comparison to its original design parameters. In this alien outpost, despite the incredible technology employed, we do recognize the failure of some systems (once rebooted and encouraged to operate again), such that we are able to estimate their original function and design specification. The difference between full capacity and the current state is a ratio which can be described as a normalized function, from zero through one [0 … 1] where 1 is complete, working order and 0 is a seized, non-functioning machine, no longer providing the intended service, and thereby no longer supporting this habitat nor the inhabitants who once occupied it.
This breakdown, the unavoidable decline of all bounded systems can be described by the single variable entropy, or the measure of organization.
So let’s take a few steps back, to a time when the alien station was yet inhabited. We can safely assume that at that time there was a maintenance schedule, a system by which the entire structure was maintained through routine inspection, repair, and replacement. This could have been done by the macroscopic hands of the aliens (who appear to be of a similar stature to that of the human explorers), an automated array of robotic assistants, or by microscopic nanobots whose function is to maintain the integrity of all functional systems, at all times, such that no weaknesses ever develop, and no systems ever suffer from catastrophic failure.
Either way, there is a cost to this maintenance, the work (w), or energy expenditure and mass flow to maintain the function (f) of the habitat. Organization (o) of this work requires management of information (i). As such, we have defined a means by which we can measure the status of a closed ecosystem:
Function, then, is a relationship between the Organization, Information, and Work attributed to the sustained management of the habitat, or its total functionality. While each of these could be measured in any of number methods, we will place each in a tightly bound relationship to entropy, such that entropy is the counterpart, the undoing of organization, information, work, and ultimately the function.
Now, we have a new means of monitoring the health of the physical parameters of an isolated habitat, as:
Where the ratio is a measure of the effort or energy required to ultimately maintain a self-contained ecosystem without ever having had to count the molecules of oxygen, water, or complex carbohydrates. In a newly built habitat, the entropy is low, therefore the maintenance is low as well. But as the habitat ages, or if catastrophe strikes, the entropy will be large, thereby requiring greater organization, information, and work to bring it back into compliance with sustaining human life.
We are relating the current state of the system to its design specification over the inevitable force of entropy.
Back to Mars
If we employ a normalized set of values, as discussed above, then the maths is quite simple, even as we scale this colony from 4 to 400 to 40,000 individual habitants. This is not to say we will not count molecules nor worry ourselves with the atmospheric pressure in the greenhouse, for our model is in fact based on data accumulated from close-ecosystem and bioregenerative experiments on Earth. But to find those non-linear functions of scalability, we must remove ourselves from the line-item bookkeeping which would otherwise overlook the economies of scale which will surely affect a growing colony.
The habitat itself is designed to sustain human life in an otherwise inhospitable environment. As such, we can model the human lives of the astronauts by making certain the habitat itself is functional. We have established a potential framework built upon four parameters which enable us, at any point in the run-time of our SIMOC model, determine the relatively “health” of the physical structure of the habitat.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the health of the human habitants for which the habitat was designed and built Like a structure which is built from concrete, steel, glass, and soil, humans are composed of building blocks. Water, oxygen, calories, protein, vitamins and minerals make up the fluid and solid systems of our bodies.
How do we bring such discreet elements into the SIMOC model without managing each and every molecule that supports the lives of the human inhabitants of the isolated colony? In much the same way as we did with the habitat, we can look at the construct of the human body, and what breaks down over time.
One can see the human body as an assembly of points of failure, critical systems which must be satisfied. Oxygen intake, carbon dioxide exhalation, water, calories, nutrition, and waste management are as mission critical to the human body as is a sealed, pressurized shell to a habitat.
If we see humans as the caretakers of the habitat, that is, the principal labor force responsible for its anti-entropic upkeep, and the habitat as the physical construct which enables the humans to survive in outer space, or on a remote planet, then we have created a positive feedback loop in which each unit supports the other.
What happens when automated or directed robot labor replaces the human maintenance engineer? The labor is shifted from one entity to another, but the total work required to maintain the habitat is sustained, and the total quantity of humans supported, given the immediate infrastructure is not changed. Rather, the caloric expenditure of each human in the habitat is shifted to other functions, and the economy of scale is realized.
From the passenger seat of this rented Opal, I watch seagulls contend for strings of seaweed and scraps of bait tossed overboard from a passing fishing vessel, the only one to enter Reen Harbour this Sunday morning.
Two dozen small ships are anchored here, in the neck of this natural safe haven. Some old, rusty buckets that have seen many storms; some new, clearly more for sport and weekend fun than generating income.
Michael, the principal guide of yesterday’s kayaking tour directed my attention to an otherwise elusive, black hulled, single mast sailing boat which is, he shared, simply gorgeous on the inside. The owner purchased the hull in another country and had it towed here, to Castletownshend, Ireland for an overhaul. A master craftsman, he has meticulously refurbished the interior to a degree that was best expressed by Michael as a whistle rather than words.
It is the owner’s intend to sail to Iceland, but recent poor weather has kept him here for a few weeks more. I was shocked to learn of this intent, for the boat appears quite small, with a square stern and equally vertical bow, it does now appear to the layman’s eyes the kind of ship one would take into then open, northern seas.
I slept here last night, in this rental car, after my second guided paddle for the day. Michael, his partner Caroline, and Patrick are passionate about their line of work, as they take customers onto the water two times a day, five, six, sometimes seven days a week. They carefully interweave the experience of exploring this harbour by kayak with history, biology, and a lesson in mindfulness training.
Michael suggests that we let go of all that we brought with us. In a tag-team fashion, Michael continues, “find your child’s imagination again,” for in that place lie the ghosts of history come alive in the silhouettes on-shore and the unknown treasures in the depths below.
We paddled through pockets of brilliant bioluminescence, pockets of phytoplankton that have by day stored the sun’s energy in order to release it again at night. Caroline shared that some 90 percent of the ocean’s lifeforms are able to produce visible light. The reasons for this communication are not yet fully understood.
The wake of a kayak, the twist of a paddle, even the flick of fingertips across the surface of the water invokes a magical light show. Michael snatched a net of seaweed and demonstrated how one could invoke a cacophony of illumination, hundreds of points of light popping on and off again.
We returned to shore just after midnight, but I was reluctant to exit my boat. I could have remained adrift ’till sunrise, content to watch, to listen, to take innumerable more deep breaths. The chilled, salty air of the coastal Irish night drew me into the comfort of my borrowed comforter which this morning continued to hold me tight.
The windscreen is littered with raindrops from the most recent ladened clouds. I have rolled the side windows up and down a few times already in concert with the passing clouds. The sun has shone but for a few minutes, only to retreat again to its own safe haven, a harbour for a celestial body relatively unknown in this land.
What is this fascination with faster, easier, better?
I have heard it said that biology is lazy, that all creatures pursue that which requires the least energy expenditure. Perhaps entropy is the true guiding force, the omnipotent, intelligent designer, the deity which laughs when we grow to despise all but the very softest lap of luxury.
Have we not learned from our ancestors? Civilizations collapse when wealth exceeds labor.
How readily we forget, how easily we fail to recall, it is a challenge which grants us a sense of accomplishment, not arrival to the destination unencumbered.
Research has its moments of upset, intrigue, and thrill.
But for this past six months these moments are lost to the effort of writing.
Proposal followed by proposal, I am a salesman with a briefcase full of ideas. Some new. Some old. Some revised. Some bold. If my visions for a better tomorrow are a good match to your funding of today, then we will enter into a partnership in which I am paid to investigate, experiment, and to play.
As summer presses spring into a cooler memory, I find balance between the increasing heat and discomfort in the city with nights and mornings on the edge of the Superstition Wilderness.
Just one hour from downtown Phoenix, no matter if I arrive at dusk, well after sunset, or midnight, I am always eager to step out of my Subaru onto the rock of the turn-out where I frequently car-camp. The sound of crickets welcomes me to sleep. Birdsong wakes me to the rising run and immediate warmth that it brings.
With daytime highs at 105F, the nights here remain cool. Boots on my feet by 6 AM, I walk cross-country, navigating between needles, hooks, barbs, and stones easily overturned.
With every step comes a surprise, something new to discover and observe. I join wrens, hawks, lizards, chipmunks, rabbits, spiders and coyotes on the trail. There are homes made among the rubble of old mine shafts, in the hollow spaces of saguaro, and spanning the paths in hope of catching a small passer by. I fetch a light stick to tease a spider from its home, but it retreats back into its den when my large figure looms. A pair of hawks ride thermals, changing direction with effortless adjustment to the feathers on the very tip of their wings. A quick dive and recovered altitude suggests a potential meal escaped their talons, for now.
The only sounds are those of the breeze, a distant jet, and the rustle of needles, leaves, and stones under lizards feet as creatures scurry at my approach, or to stay cool against the warming sun. The aromas of creosote and cactus blooms mix with the ash of last night’s fire and I am, for this morning, at peace.
Your Office in the Woods
When we think of car camping, we often picture a tent or open air sun shade, cooler, cook stove, folding chairs, and mountain bikes atop an SUV or minivan. Car camping allows ready access to beautiful, even if not terribly remote places.
But for me, car camping is what I do when I need to quickly get away from the insanity of the city, even if I continue working. With 4G mobile data, the speeds are sufficient for email, web research, multi-channel conference calls, and the upload of draft film edits. So, why sit in a stuffy office in a stuffy building with stuffy people when you can instead be working from your favourite campsite?
Exactly. So, all we need is power.
To work from the primary car battery is not a good idea. Yes, it functions, but standard lead acid batteries are designed for short, high amperage discharge to start your car, not the continuous drain of a low-wattage cell phone charger or laptop power adapter. While AGM batteries are becoming more common, and deliver both the power to start your car and consistent supply for electronics, concern remains for monitoring your battery to make certain you can start your car again. If you are all alone in the middle of the National Forest, running your car every 2-3 hours might be ok. But if in a campground, the fumes are annoying, the sound obnoxious. Why not go solar?!
This photo essay is how I converted my 2000 Subaru Forester into the ultimate camping car with a continuous supply of 110V power, day or night, supplied by 100% renewable nuclear fusion—the sun.
Parts
Each of the following are available from Amazon, save the battery and 12V power socket which I purchase from a local auto parts dealer:
Design & Planning
What these photos and this essay do not convey is the amount of time spent in measuring, sketching, measuring again, and planning the layout of this project. One does not just drill holes in the roof a car, even a 16 year old car, without some careful consideration.
I likely spent equal time in Ace Hardware, working with one of the helpful employees to find the best way to accomplish the task at hand, as I did implementing each task.
This project required 3-4 hours a day for 5 days, or roughly 20 hours start to finish.
If you can find a way to bring the cables from the solar panel into the car interior without drilling holes, by all means do this. You thereby avoid potential water damage and of course, drilling holes in the roof of your car.
On my prior 2003 Outback Sport, I was able to do this because the solar panel I applied was lower wattage and therefore used thinner electrical cables. With this 100W panel, I stuck with the suggested 10g wire which with its thick insulation was pinched by the opening and closing of the rear hatch. So, drill holes I did.
If you must drill holes, remove all interior panels required to lower (or remove) the ceiling panel, allowing access to the metal of the roof, where the holes will be drilled. In selecting the location of the holes, I took into account the cross bar which I most certainly wanted to avoid, the placement of the panel and where the power leads terminate, and the physical constraints of the water proof adapters employed for the task.
I used a multipurpose hole saw which adapts to a drill bit. Let is spin at nearly full speed, press lightly, and be ready to catch the whole contraption before it punches through if you did not remove the interior panel. Else, you may accidentally drill through that too.
I experimented with a number of water tight fittings at the hardware store before I discovered these nifty right-angle adapters which have both a removable plate for helping the wire make the bend, and a water tight fitting which when turned, closes around the wire at the end. The silicon rubber ring is a separate purchase. I had to ask the manager to look when the clerk was unable to find what I needed. Ultimately, they had the right one to both fit over the threads of the threaded fitting and seal to the roof of the car. I did not use any adhesive, and it is 100% water tight against the car wash, garden hose, and weather.
Of course, you want to select the hole saw to match the diameter of the threaded nut as close as is possible.
You will also note that I used a metal hack saw and 120 grit sand paper to reduce the depth of the threaded nut to a minimum profile so as to not press against the upper (hidden) side of the roof panel, allowing the thick solar cable to bend over the widest arc possible.
The final installation is both professional in its appearance (if you consider plumbing parts on the roof of your Subaru to be professional), low profile for minimum air resistance, and water tight (see above, left). Once the cables are routed above the ceiling panel and down the interior of one of the two rear beams, you are ready to replace all the interior panels.
The mounting of the solar panel will be specific to your vehicle. I found a way to use the existing roof rails (above, right) in which I drilled holes and inserted bolts from the bottom up. Using lock washers, I was able to fit thread dowel nuts onto the bolts, creating a surface onto which the panel brackets rest. When the wing nut is tightened, the panel is completely snug, not the slightest vibration.
All of this took a significant amount of careful measurement, so take our time, check all measurements twice, and do it right the first time.
Mounting the panel itself was a bit tricky. I used the brackets ordered along with the panel, but in a way they were not intended. Designed to attach to the side of the panels, I drilled new holes along the ends, again carefully measuring so as to fit perfectly to the bolts which press through the roof rails. The only messy effort is the need to make the holes in the mounting brackets slightly oblong so as to accommodate the angle of the panel when it lowers onto the bolts.
The hinge serves two functions: to allow the raising and lowering of the panel for work on the wiring or cleaning the roof without removal, and to angle the panel to face the sun. I now carry a short wooden stick which readily props the panel to approximately 45 degrees. Eventually, I would like to attach a metal “kickstand” with a set of angles built-in.
The final product is solid, low-profile, and even allows for full use of my roof rack, unobstructed.
In the rear-left (driver side) cargo pocket I drilled holes to route the positive (+) and negative (-) electrical cables from the panel into the interior space, to the AGM motorcycle battery. The charge controller is mounted to the wall of the pocket (which was a bit tricky, given that no glue would stick to the vinyl). I used T-nuts designed for wood working, applying 3 small screws per T-nut but careful to not strip the forced threading in the thin plastic wall of the pocket. Again, this is specific to my installation. The new 12V power socket was affixed using the same T-nuts and a total of 6 small screws, 3 per T-nut.
In the rear-right (passenger side) cargo pocket I mounted a standard, household A/C socket and toggle switch connected by 18g wire to the Morningstar 300W inverter mounted on a slab of wood (cut to fit neatly in the bottom of the plastic bin) just above the spare tire. The wire from the inverter to the socket is standard 14g as required in home wiring.
The end result is A/C power from either side, or both, whenever I need it.
The AGM motorcycle battery is ample (without the sun up) to provide one full charge of my Apple PowerBook Pro. Seems low, but when I run the numbers it makes wattage sense. It is incredible how much power is stored in Lithium-Ion batteries but at 1/10 the physical volume of the AGM. For now, it serves its purpose perfectly, providing power to get through the evening hours and into the night with my laptop and cell phone charging, a low-wattage LED work light. By day, I have all the power I need.
I now have a completely separate electrical system which leaves my car’s primary battery to start the car. Should it ever die, I simply run a cable from the original rear power socket to the new socket I installed, positive-to-positive, negative-to-negative (parallel wiring) and I can charge the dead battery from the rooftop solar PV panel.
“Some stories only make sense in retrospect, the looking back giving foundation to where we now stand. This is the first of what will hopefully be a series of essays to describe the path from a Good Sam’s campground in 2011 to in some way, helping develop the first community on Mars.” –kai
It starts long ago, beneath a stair case in the basement of our family home in Columbus, Nebraska. Friend Jason Zach and I covered the underside of the stairs with plywood, cardboard, a dead monochrome CRT, and myriad electronic components, wires that stimulated Radio Shack switches, piezoelectric sirens, and LEDs and wires that went nowhere. In that spacecraft, we journeyed across the galaxy, venturing to the shores of distant planets whose inhabitants had never before seen humans. Jason was an expert marksman, never afraid to attack. I was keenly interested in obtaining samples, studying the cultures, and welcomed Jason to cover my back.
Many years later, while camped at a Good Sam’s, in Seabrook, New Hampshire on August 2011, I returned to that child-like sense of belonging to a distant place and time. As described, I believed I gained some insight as to how isolated communities might evolve on space stations, Mars and asteroid outposts, even among the stars.
Later that same year, I returned to Holden Village, an isolated village in the Cascades of Washington State. In those months late in the year, the retreat of summer saw the last of the guests depart down the sixteen miles to Lake Chelan. Those of us who remained, counted by dozens, shifted our daily routine from that of a more finite task to general support of the village. Files had to be stoked in order to heat the buildings, snow shoveled, and the water driving the hydro-electric generator kept from freezing, else the electricity would fail.
In those crisp, cold, mostly dark winter days that followed, Holden was a true Village. While a hierarchy of command remained, we became more egalitarian, sharing in the responsibilities of maintenance, even survival should a heavy snow storm bury the pathways and building exits or make impossible a medical evacuation. It was then that my interest in village (communal) living was again stimulated, and the journey to Mars re-ignited.
For five months in 2012 I worked as a photo journalist and documentary filmmaker in Palestine, where a sense of isolation from the world was applied not a mountain village, but the confines of geopolitical boundary that has the power to contain people from birth to death. I witnessed first-hand how the skilled craftsmen and capable artisans were the backbone of an economy of trade and negotiation in place of the familiar currencies of exchange. I learned how much individuals depend upon each other, especially in the challenging times.
I was building a sense of what it meant to live with the challenge of an isolated environment.
On an isolated ranch in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 2013, I lived for six months—up to six weeks without face-to-face contact with another human being. In those months I gained from the challenge and ultimate reward of true isolation; a chance to discover who I am without the influence of others, without opportunity to attribute my success nor place blame on the actions of others.
In 2014 I joined MarsCrew134 at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) as the seventh member of an isolated, Mars analog crew. We lived for two weeks in the confines of a simulated Mars lander, a two-story vehicle just large enough to contain individual sleeping quarters, two airlocks, kitchen and crew commons, toilet and shower, lab, and minimal storage. We departed the structure only while wearing a spacesuit, the visor scratched and needing replacement; the radios dodgy at best. The crew came from six countries, representing seven nationalities and more than a dozen languages spoken. It was not always easy, and at times far from fun, but we made the best of those two weeks, focused on our research, data collection, and surviving the simulation. We came away friends for a life-time, even now traveling far to see each other again.
It was then that I became invested in a study of village life. In part because I realized that is where I felt most at home; in part because at least for the first generation, that is how humans will once again live when we finally place boots on Mars.
This week I submitted a proposal to the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) for the research and development of a mathematical model of a scalable, isolated model of an off-world community (SIMOC).
Now we wait …
When we live in fear, we see only failure.
When we fail, we protect ourselves.
When we are protected, we feel afraid.
And we spiral down,
down,
down,
until we have pushed the one thing we hold dear
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Today I spent the entire day working with my hands. This is the first time I have done so in many years, for without a workshop and tools, my creativity has primarily been expressed in the digital world of film and computer programming.
In my parents’ driveway and garage, the same driveway and garage where I spent every evening and weekend through high school and college tinkering, inventing, and building, today I worked to mount a 100W solar PV panel to the top of my Subaru Forester and install a battery, charge controller, inverter, and A/C power strip. Another day to complete the project, it was a welcomed respite from time at my computer.
The kind of satisfaction that comes with dirt beneath the fingernails, a scraped knuckle or two, and the taste of sweat when the sun hits noon cannot be duplicated in any other way. My brother joked, “Oh?! Are you going DIY now?” knowing full well how much I scoff at that term.
I find the return to Do It Yourself a much needed counter movement to the automation of just about everything. Yet at the same time, I find it somewhat humorous that simply doing things on your own—from the repair of a washing machine to the preparation of food now requires a 3-letter acronym. Funny. Sad. Interesting too.
My grandparents’ generation knew nothing of automation, outside of the vehicles they purchased with parts manufactured and assembled. Everything they consumed, save bread, was grown on their land. All buildings constructed, repaired, maintained with their own hands. No one was hired to do the work. And no one was rewarded for a DIY job well done. It was the norm, the necessary foundation on which everyone involved in agriculture lived.
My parents’ generation did not desire to work as hard as their parents, to be encumbered to physical labor in the same way. Packaged, disposable goods combined with increasingly sedentary jobs in city centers reduced not only the time spent, but the skills associated with doing it yourself.
And now, come full circle, we recognize what was lost in that transition from too much physical labor to too little, for the kind of gratification that comes from having accomplished something on your own, with your own two hands, cannot be replaced by purchasing the equivalent product. It never will.