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Meteorite Impact

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manny kung edited this page Jun 26, 2018 · 5 revisions

Meteorite Impact

Revised : 25 Jun 2018

How does mars-sim account for the likelihood of the meteorite impact?

Beginning in v3.07, we implemented a rudimentary model of meteorite impact.

We made a few liberal assumptions on the size of impacts per NASA's studies.

For instance, a typical meteorite landing on the surface of Mars has the following characteristics :

  1. Average impact velocity : 1km/s
  2. Critical diameter : .0016 cm
  3. Average density : 1 g/cm^3

Steps :

  1. Calculate the probability of impact per square meter per sol on the settlement for each settlement.

  2. Calculate the penetration length of the incoming meteorite on the wall of a typical building vs. a greenhouse that has a transparent rooftop.

Note that any observable impact will inadvertently increase the stress level of the settlers at the site of the impact (a building).

  1. Calculate a composite score based on a settler's natural attribute of courage and emotional stability and adjust the stress level accordingly.

In future, we would like to implement various equations of the probability distribution of different sizes of meteorites.

In doing so, we will no longer assume that the size and impact speed of the meteorites are homogeneous.

Stay tune.

REFERENCES

  1. Inflatable Transparent Structures for Mars Greenhouse Applications 2005-01-2846. SAE International. http://data.spaceappschallenge.org/ICES.pdf

  2. 1963 NASA Technical Note D-1463 Meteoroid Hazard http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19630002110.pdf

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