Rocket Red - Uranium Power Corporation?
Interesting, I know that ELH is a little confusing these
days,so as we wait for Salty's Flare I thought I might
respond to your post, and your moniker !
Take care Rocket man, hope you enjoy !
The Ultimate Wildcat
Imagine drilling and producing a 5000' well in
weather so cold that produced water freezes instantly.
Imagine not knowing anything about the rock layers,
the temperatures or the pressures you might encounter.
Imagine doing this in a near vacuum, requiring power
to be supplied by solar or nuclear generators, not gas
or diesel engines. And the equipment must be
lightweight and compact enough to transport 40
million miles through space to drill on Mars.
NASA’s previous interest in drilling on Mars was
limited to obtaining core samples. However, that
changed with a startling discovery made by the Mars
Global Surveyor about 2 years ago: Water may lie in
porous rock layers near the Martian surface. Research
suggests there is a layer between the basement rock
and the Martian cryosphere, a region of ice below the
planets surface similar to Earths permafrost, where
substantial amounts of water may exist in liquid form.
This is also the most likely place to find microbial
Martian life forms.
If there is a water source on the surface of Mars,
manned missions to the planet become much more
feasible. Besides providing something for the astro-nauts
to drink, electricity from solar cells can seperate
water into hydrogen gas for fuel for the return trip and
oxygen to breathe. Upon discovering the possibility of
water on Mars, NASA quickly formed the Mars
Drilling Project and bumped up the planned launch
window from 2020 to 2007. The European Space
Agency's Mars Express orbiter is scheduled to arrive
at the Red Planet in late 2003 to gather data from
ground-penetrating radar, which will supply valuable
information about the depth of the cryosphere for the
drilling project.
Brainstorming
Conventional drillpipe and drill collars would be too
heavy (about 50 tons) to transport to Mars, but a
composite coiled tubing unit might work. NASA
scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories have
been investigating robotic drilling, casing while drilling
and laser drilling as potential alternatives. Virtually any
liquid based drilling fluid would be very difficult to
work with at -85ºF. Drilling fluids would need to be
heated and kept in pressurized tanks. (Any liquid
would boil in the 0.1 psi Martian atmosphere). One of
the hole-cleaning suggestions was to use air, which
also could power the drilling motor at the end of the
coiled tubing. However, compressors to raise Martian
air from 0.1 psi up to drilling pressures may be too
bulky for transport.
The drilling experts suggested landing the mission
near one of the polar ice caps so chunks of the frozen
carbon dioxide could be thawed to create high-pressure
gas. NASA scientists immediately rejected
this, as future astronauts could not survive the -285ºF
temperatures there.
NASA scientists also would want to save the drill
cuttings, as they would contain valuable information
about the Red Planet's history. Using a regular bit and
shale shakers would make this much more difficult.
NASA said coring probably would be preferable for
capturing and transporting rock samples. The drillers
mentioned that although this would take less energy
than conventional drilling, it would be much slower
because core tubes often become stuck, coring bits dull
quickly, and extracting the cores would require
frequent trips of the drillstring, which is not good for
coiled tubing.
The well construction experts described the pros
and cons of various lift systems like electric submersi-ble
pumps and compressed-gas jet pumps. Several
questions were raised:
Can the liquid or compressed air system that is
used in drilling be adapted to produce the well
afterward?
Will the rock be stable, or will the inside of the
well tend to collapse during use?
Will some form of casing be needed?
How corrosive is Martian groundwater likely to
be to equipment?
Will the water be clean, or carry sand particles
that would erode pumps?
What is the underground temperature gradient?
At what depth will the temperature and pressure
be high enough for liquid water?
What water-handling equipment will need to be
heated to prevent freezing?
NASA responded that it does not yet know the
answers to any of these questions.
Educating NASA
Drew Hembling, a completion engineer for Saudi
Aramco who participated in this late-night brainstorm-ing
session, said drilling on Mars might be possible by
2007. “They have a lot to do before they spud their
first well, but in many other areas, they're almost ready.
Take thermal systems, for example. For decades,
they've built equipment to resist everything from the
deep cold beyond Pluto to the heat of space shuttle
re-entries. They have the best people on this planet
working these problems.”
Hembling added a chief benefit of the discussions
was educating NASA about the complexity of drilling
and producing. “Members of the Mars Drilling Project
now have a much better understanding of the
challenges facing this mission,” he said. |
