New Mars Forums

Calliban,

The scale height decrease is compensated for by the greater area. On small bodies atmospheres need to be modeled with wedges rather than columns; it is no longer a thin layer over a sphere, but a sphere surrounding a smaller sphere.

As talked about before, a few microbars of oxygen should be enough for handling micrometeoroids. If a magnetic field can get us that far, it could prove a pretty useful pre paraterraforming step. At the least, we're going to want to avoid clathrates where we build, so some level of volatilisation will be necessary. Hopefully we can retain it.

There are advantages to constructing centrifuges inside asteroids and dwarf planets. A centrifuge inside that tunnel would give us 30 hectares on the outermost level, with plenty of rad shielding and without the risk of destabilising wobble. Ideally it would be aligned with the axis of rotation of the body itself of course, otherwise we'll be losing energy constantly, though that may not be a major cost. Rotating at 4.2 RPM for 1g on the outer level. Could extend it throughout the entire body as energy allows, giving a very long, narrow city.

Ammonia and ethane are under discussed. Not as lifting gases, but as means to alter buoyancy. A ballonet filled with ammonia is lighter than air; compress and condense that ammonia into a tank to collapse it, and it becomes heavier than air. Ethane is slightly heavier than air, so the range of possible lift would be less. Methane would I think be too tricky to condense to be viable.

There's a good argument for hybrid vehicles, or rather, for electric transmission, even without plugging them in. The efficiency losses are AFAIK outweighed by the ability to optimise the engine for power generation. Certainly at the least it would allow for trucks to use petrol, spreading the impact of fuel shortages instead of having a mad scramble for diesel.

Hmm. What implications does this have for CO2 atmospheres closer in? The triple point of co2 is around 300K. Perhaps areoforming minor worlds like the smaller moons (and Ceres) is more viable than we thought?

See also lunar KREEP. There's Potassium and Phosphate up there. Tbh I'd expect lunar rocks to have what we need, since it's made of the same stuff as Earth's crust and what would have boiled away. Iodine remains a potential difficulty; on Earth it is concentrated by various means. Mars and the ocean worlds might have it.

Worth considering that plants could accumulate elements that are at very low concentrations. Maybe we plant forests explicitly for this purpose.

Mars may end up being the cheapest place to get elements such as copper and tin and silver for in space manufacturing. Ores only form on planets with hydrogeological processes that can concentrate them. That means Earth and maybe/likely Mars.

In the meantime, we'll have to haul them up from Earth, but fortunately Luna can provide nearly all the mass we need. Maybe even meteoric nickel-iron. And unlike Mars, it has a possible business case for mining, tourism, research, and orbital support services. Which are the reasons humans live in inhospitable Terran environments today. Though, given his haste, Musk may have a Fallen Angels scenario on his mind, where the bulk of humanity turn against space travel and there are only the people up there already to carry the flame to other worlds. A few thousand people should be viable genetically at least, especially given how highly selected they'd be. He may also have an Elysium scenario in mind too, given the talk of using orbital datacentres for the next great economic leap...

Once we have manufacturing on Luna we can start sending sollettas and iron nanorods to Mars, warm the place up somewhat before we get there.

The private rape gang inquiry, organised and ran by Rupert Lowe MP (Great Yarmouth), is turning up and gathering quite a bit on the atrocities committed against native British girls - not just grooming and rape, trafficking also - by organised Pakistani community networks. It's... quite a lot. Not just the fact that so many in that community knew and facilitated it -- if we were to imprison or deport everyone who bears some responsibility, we'd almost certainly be accused of ethnic cleansing. But perhaps worse for the state is that it wasn't merely neglecting its duty to protect these girls, but actively assisting the rape networks and ensuring the girls could not be removed from their grasp. It's existential; the state is rapidly losing legitimacy and will have to rely solely on raw force if they don't pivot and root this rot out (they will not pivot and root this rot out).

Maybe half of copper use can be substituted with aluminium. Cabling appears to be doable, motors and transformers not really. That still leaves a massive shortfall if the entirety of humanity is to be brought up to a western standard of living, quite apart from any additional electrification... there are resources, but the grade is really low, so I won't be surprised if it ends up overtaking nickel in value.

Silver has settled somewhat, or at least is creeping upwards *relatively* slowly compared to its spike; I expect it will end up around $2.80-3.00 per gram. Quite a bit more than the $0.8-0.9 I paid for 54g back in 2013 that I need to sort out my access to (BullionVault).

FWIW the copper prices mean the pre 92 british copper coins (actual copper) are worth 2.5-3x their face value. Of course, meddling with the coinage is illegal in Britain. Key part there being "in Britain".

Looking over at Iran, wondering when the panic buying starts. Filled up my tank just in case. There were people there with containers to fill, petrol not diesel, so you're capped at 30L unless you notify the fire service. Diesel has no such limits because a spark won't cause an inferno.

In domestic news, looking forward to the Manchester by-election. Not unlikely Reform take it, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Fun times, though St George's Day could be funner. Depends on how many more girls get raped by dinghymen between now and then, perhaps.

Britain, the country of the Henry Hoover and creator of The Best Plug In The World, should be all over this. Amongst other ruggedised simple equipment.

I have suggested before that hexagonal blocks would be a good design for a Lunar city. Can fit a circular pressure wall sandwiched between two layers of radiation shielding, and the blocks tesselate so the city can be expanded without creating expanses of empty space between blocks. Some blocks allocated as parks. Can be different heights -- imagine a central block being redeveloped with a tower.