Heinlein strikes again

[Chris Zakes]

In "Red Planet" the humans live in domed colonies on Mars.

"Each was a hemispherical bubble of silicone plastic, processed from
the soil of Mars and blown on the spot. Each was a double bubble, in
fact; first one large bubble would be blown, say thirty or forty feet
across; when it had hardened,the new bubble would be entered through
the tunnel and an inner bubble, slightly smaller than the first, would
be blown. The outer bubble "polymerized"--that is to say, cured and
hardened, under the rays of the sun; a battery of ultra-violet and
heat lamps cured the inner. The walls were separated by a foot of dead
air space, which providedinsulation against the bitter sub-zero nights
of Mars."

This isn't quite the same technology, it uses a special canvas
impregnated with concrete that is first thoroughly soaked in water and
then inflated somewhat like a kid's bounce-house until it hardens, at
which point you have a permanent structure. But the Red Planet domes
are definitely what it reminded me of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb1pdvvoVoQ

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

You can find complaints as far back as Socrates about how things aren't like they
were in "the good old days" and how the world is going to Hell in a handbasket.
Either Hell is a lot farther away than we thought, or that handbasket is moving
*really* slowly.

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013, Chris Zakes wrote:

> In "Red Planet" the humans live in domed colonies on Mars.
>
> "Each was a hemispherical bubble of silicone plastic, processed from
> the soil of Mars and blown on the spot. Each was a double bubble, in
> fact; first one large bubble would be blown, say thirty or forty feet
> across; when it had hardened,the new bubble would be entered through
> the tunnel and an inner bubble, slightly smaller than the first, would
> be blown. The outer bubble "polymerized"--that is to say, cured and
> hardened, under the rays of the sun; a battery of ultra-violet and
> heat lamps cured the inner. The walls were separated by a foot of dead
> air space, which providedinsulation against the bitter sub-zero nights
> of Mars."
>
> This isn't quite the same technology, it uses a special canvas
> impregnated with concrete that is first thoroughly soaked in water and
> then inflated somewhat like a kid's bounce-house until it hardens, at
> which point you have a permanent structure. But the Red Planet domes
> are definitely what it reminded me of.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb1pdvvoVoQ
>

I wsa reading "Red Planet" again a few weeks ago, and I thought that
passage was about glass. Maybe "soild of Mars" made me think sand and thus
glass. Keep in mind that silicon is sand, silicone is what goes into
breast implants.

Of course, Heinlein did talk about making things out of glass in other
books. "Farmer in the Sky" definitely talks about buckets and other items
made from glass, simply because it's something that can be worked and
except for heat, the needed material is on the planet. I think he talks
of glass elsewhere.

That said, one of my favorite books is "The Starship and the Canoe" by
Kenneth Brower about George Dyson building big kayaks out of modern
material, and his father Freeman and his attempt to build starships with
Project Orion.

Those kayaks were made by making an aluminum frame, then covering with
canvas, and the whole thing waterproofed by epoxy. That sounds kind of
similar to this new process (of course, there was also ferrocement boat
that might have gotten mentioned in the book, but which definitely was
within George's vicinity). I think Heinlein's concept of glass or a glass
like substance is that it could be "blown", making a whole structure that
has no joined surfaces, so the whole thing is airtight (until they add the
door).

There's a new Woody Guthrie book out now (yes, I actually did read "Seeds
of Man") that has something to do with adobe construction, something that
had the advantage of being airtight compared to a wooden structure
(especially useful when the dust storm blows sand through the cracks in
the wood) and adobe is something that requires little manufactured items.

The real issue with "exotic" building materials is that most people live
in areas where there are restrictions and building codes, so they can't be
unique and ahve to spend money on a standard type of building. One reason
all the communes got away with geodesic domes and other unusual structures
was that they were away from civilization.

Michael

[Joel Polowin]

On Mar 10, 7:55 pm, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Mar 2013, Chris Zakes wrote:
> > In "Red Planet" the humans live in domed colonies on Mars.
>
> > "Each was a hemispherical bubble of silicone plastic, processed from
> > the soil of Mars and blown on the spot. Each was a double bubble, in
> > fact; first one large bubble would be blown, say thirty or forty feet
> > across; when it had hardened,the new bubble would be entered through
> > the tunnel and an inner bubble, slightly smaller than the first, would
> > be blown. The outer bubble "polymerized"--that is to say, cured and
> > hardened, under the rays of the sun; a battery of ultra-violet and
> > heat lamps cured the inner. The walls were separated by a foot of dead
> > air space, which providedinsulation against the bitter sub-zero nights
> > of Mars."
>

> I wsa reading "Red Planet" again a few weeks ago, and I thought that
> passage was about glass. Maybe "soild of Mars" made me think sand and thus
> glass.  Keep in mind that silicon is sand, silicone is what goes into
> breast implants.

Sand is (usually) (mostly) silicon dioxide, as is glass. The
composition involves two atoms of oxygen for each atom of silicon,
and the structure (for the most part) has each silicon atom
surrounded by a tetrahedron of oxygen atoms.

Silicone plastic is quite a different material, generally consisting
of chains of silicon atoms alternating with oxygen atoms, with
carbon-based groups filling out the remaining two bonds on each
silicon atom.

The text *does* clearly say "silicone plastic", though if it was
really made from Martian soil they'd have had to go to some
trouble to get the carbon-based parts of the material. The
fictional Mars of that book did seem to be a lot richer in useful
components than what turned out to be there in reality.

[Bill Higgins]

On Mar 10, 11:08 pm, Joel Polowin <jpolo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 10, 7:55 pm, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
> > On Sun, 10 Mar 2013, Chris Zakes wrote:
> > > In "Red Planet" the humans live in domed colonies on Mars.
>
> > > "Each was a hemispherical bubble of silicone plastic, processed from

> > > the soil of Mars and blown on the spot. [...]

> > > be blown. The outer bubble "polymerized"--that is to say, cured and
> > > hardened, under the rays of the sun; a battery of ultra-violet and
> > > heat lamps cured the inner.
>

> > I wsa reading "Red Planet" again a few weeks ago, and I thought that
> > passage was about glass.

[...]

> Sand is (usually) (mostly) silicon dioxide, as is glass.  The
> composition involves two atoms of oxygen for each atom of silicon,
> and the structure (for the most part) has each silicon atom
> surrounded by a tetrahedron of oxygen atoms.
>
> Silicone plastic is quite a different material, generally consisting
> of chains of silicon atoms alternating with oxygen atoms, with
> carbon-based groups filling out the remaining two bonds on each
> silicon atom.
>
> The text *does* clearly say "silicone plastic", though if it was
> really made from Martian soil they'd have had to go to some
> trouble to get the carbon-based parts of the material.

Heinlein's work at the Naval Air Material Center in World War II
included work with plastics, at the time a cutting-edge technology. I
know he tested methyl methacrylate aircraft canopies (also known as
acrylic or plexiglas), and that there are faint traces in his postwar
fiction of his newfound knowledge of plastics.*

So his mention of silicones, UV polymerization, etc. may be part of
his wartime expertise. But he may just as well have picked these
ideas up from reading postwar accounts of plastics.

> The
> fictional Mars of that book did seem to be a lot richer in useful
> components than what turned out to be there in reality.

Maybe so. But Mars has CO2 in its atmosphere, and water available in
certain locations, which means carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; so with a
source of energy, one could in principle manufacture plastics. I'm
not saying it would be economical to do so...

------------
* From *Rocket Ship Galileo*, chapter 6: "The helmets were 'goldfish
bowls' of Plexiglas, laminated with soft polyvinyl-butyral plastic to
make them nearly shatter-proof." Also, when "Misfit" (1939) was
revised for book publication in 1953, its spacesuit helmets changed
from "transparent duralite" (whatever that is) to "a transparent
silicone."

--
Bill Higgins | "I work and live in the country of physics,
Fermilab | but history is the place that
hig...@fnal.gov | I love to visit as a tourist."
| --Steven Weinberg

[Chris Zakes]

That always amused me, because my dad worked for Rohm and Haas--the
company that first marketed Plexiglas--for most of his life.

>Also, when "Misfit" (1939) was
>revised for book publication in 1953, its spacesuit helmets changed
>from "transparent duralite" (whatever that is) to "a transparent
>silicone."

Duralite, obviously, is something both strong ("dura") and lightweight
("lite".) Probably another name for transparent aluminum.