The year is 2039. The place is Hecates Tholus Colony, western pyramid construction site. Your uncle Mike has lived on Mars for the last 10 years. You are here visiting him, taking some time between highschool and the College of Architecture to "find" yourself. What you have found is nothing like you had expected. And what interests you now, as you watch the work progress, is the choice of building materials. Back at Zubrin, the Capitol, most of the older building are made of brick. Here at Hecates, almost half a planet away, there are no bricks in sight. What are they using? You get closer to the work and one of Mike's friends see's you. Hi! he says. You respond with a "Hi" of your own and a puzzled look.
He notices and asks "What is it?" You say "That's my question, "What is it?" "Oh" he says. Thats Marscrete. You were probably expecting bricks. With brick construction you have the problems of making them, transporting them, and finally, sticking the bricks together. At Zubrin they used locally produced polyetylene to do the sticking. The polyethylene had to be made, transported and delivered to the work surface. Frankly, all that requires resources we could better use elsewhere, especially out here at Hecates. We use a simple mixture of rock, sand and water, which at Martian temperatures becomes a frozen material thats stronger than concrete. We use standard concrete forming methods and tools with only a few modifications.
You look dubious. "But aren't you building with ice? Won't it melt?" Mike's friend shakes his head and says "Back on Earth, even in the 19th and 20th centuries, people were building ice Palaces and Hotels. Of course Earth is much warmer than Mars, so they had to rebuild every year on Earth. Here, because its so much colder, Ice is more or less permanent. You only need to keep the direct sunlight off, and vent excess interior heat."
You still have questions. "Wouldnt it be cold?" Just then someone calls your name. You look up. It's uncle Mike.
Hi!
"Come with me",he says, "I want to show you the City Center"
"See ya later Bob" and you walk with Mike to the entrance which turns out to be a longer walk than you thought. The entrance is huge. "It's huge!". Mike chuckles. "The weight balances the internal pressure, and the mass stops radiation, and evens out the temperature. Inside its still below freezing, but not much. Inside the interior buildings, its just like you'd expect for humans, 65 to 68 degrees."
You are amazed at what you see. The pyramid ceiling soars high overhead. A picture postcard village nestles below. And in the center of the lake which dominates the City Center is an Ice Castle. As you sit with your uncle at a table by the lake, sipping hot cocoa, skaters zip by. Children play in a winter wonderland. And you smile. Mike explains "It was the Mars society in Georgia that made it possible you know. Beginning in 2001 they helped me study the strength properties of ice-crete. I tried to have a friend test them at a College where he taught in West Virginia. But Grad student labor was in short supply that year. So I put out the word that I needed cylinder molds and testing equipment and they came thru. I tested cylinders of ice-crete right in our family deep-freeze. Then we wrote up the results, one thing led to another and here we are!"
(Note to the reader: If you would like to help uncle Mike test ice-crete please email him at mike1mars@aol.com and tell him. He'll let you know what he needs.)
Currently Mike is making beams rather than cylinders. Its easier to form them without major seggreation of the aggregate and water. A dryice and alcohol bath was used in conjuction with the family deep freeze.
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all rights reserved mike kretsch 2001 2002 2003 2004
