New Mars Forums

If you added Uranium and denser elements, sinking to the core, sufficient to increase gravity to that of Earth; the right mixture of radioactive materials could heat the whole planet to a comfortable temperature.

Where to get very dense and radioactive elements ?
We might get lucky and find the remnants of a supernova, somewhere in the Oort cloud, drifting in from interstellar space. Even the Sun is thought to have an Iron core.

 
$ 20,000,000,000,000,000,000      =      20 Million Trillion Dollars ?
Borrow it from the Chinese govenment ?

The effort to make Mars a greenhouse, swamps of Florida, wiithout a roof ?
Add more mass to Mars, solar reflectors etc.

The sky is the limit, may be impossible in this century, at any cost.

Roof and insulate well, that we may be able to afford.

The technology needed is self replicating robots.
Lot of solar cell generated power to build comfortable accommodations for the settlers.

Safety first, using the best technology will prove quickest.
 

I see it as an issue of expanding in an expedient, cost effective  way.
Near Earth first because it is quick and various projects overlap.

Time is money. Control from the Moon enables other projects.
"with the Russians claiming that the answer to all our energy problems is tied to having bases on the moon, it’s clear that the big sell for the next space race has begun."

The idea has merit, just dock into a re entry station, like a subway transfer station.
Maybe even decelerate into an evacuated ramp from space to Earth.
Instead of a heat shield, use a linear motor to brake.
 

Smart Japanese become Engineers.
Smart in USA become Lawyers, needed to control the Global Empire.

US uses Foot Slug System while Japan uses the Meter Kilogram System.
Slugs got US to the Moon at high expense but the future is lower cost Metric.

Better cars from Japan, soon better rockets also.

Mars plus Sun escape is only 39 km/sec,
Optimistic gravity assists from gas giant planets might give 50 km/sec total.
Cannot think of a way to get more from within the solar system.

Substitute  liquid hydrogen in place of icy objects and try for thermonuclear ??
need 1 Giga Kelvin  at least http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion

from: http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/gases/gases.htm
u^2 = 3RT/M  T=u^2 M /3R     R=8.31
50,000^2 * 2 / 3 * 8.31 = 200,561,572 °K is only 20% required temperature.
If you has 2 objects colliding at 50 km/sec fot a total of 100 km or 802,246,289  °K
Not enough, so need fusion as a starter in a hydrogen bomb.

But some velocities are considerably greater
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect … press.html
 

Sorry, Made mistake

Cubic meter water weighs 1,000 kg  not 1 kg

So temperature raised 1,000 times more, by 9.7 °K  ?

Will recheck water level also

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2.88 cm seems correct = 1/3 (100^3 / 3397^2)

Volume = 4/3 pr^3
Surface = 4pr^2

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Impact deep and vaporize some of Mars to escape velocity ?

Strength of hydrogen bond increases with pressure, according to expert opinions.

True, can guess at strain rate.
10^-15 would be considered a solid = 30 million years.

Extrapolating one graph gives around 50° K for that figure.
Have not found any measured data for low temperatures at 1 TPa.

However such high pressure exists only at the bottom center,
reducing strength requirements.

Worst case is angle of repose, 1.5 to 1 slope giving 300 km base.
Will calculate energy to freeze, cool the ice, and keep it cold after.

http://www.geocities.com/marscatdog/
 

water latent heat of fusion = 334 (kJ/kg)
Heat capacity (solid 0 °C) =  2.06 kJ/(kg·K)
Water freezes at higher elevations, but need energy to lift it there.

Insulate top with styrafoam/aereogel combination ?
Bottom, just absorb the geothermal, as Antarctic ice does.

Will plug in numbers later.

"The minimum temperature that liquid water can exist without ever freezing is -21.985°C at 209.9 MPa; at higher pressures water freezes to ice-three, ice-five, ice-six or ice-seven at increasing temperatures"
taken from: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/explan2.html#Pmelt

Greenland is melting. Hide the extra water where ?
Solar energy is greater in the tropics, easier to do than cool Greenland.

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Function of temperature; the question is over what time frame ?
Bedrock creeps over geologic time.
Trying to learn the answer.

Simpler, direct transfers, can calculate time,
but complicated slingshot encounters and a lot of possibilities.
When things are lined up, Iapetus slingshot towards Titan could give a boost.
Closest approach at sum of their radius.

For example, theoretically, you could destabilze an collide the whole solar system
with slingshot momentum transfers. Take an asteroid, do momentum transfers with other bodies, untill the whole solar system collides into itself.

Earth's orbit diameter has resonance with Jupiter, which is stable.
But what would it take to have Earth ejected from the Solar system ?

For simplicity assume equilateral triangle, rising from sea level.
2/sqrt(3) * 100 = 115 km base at sea level.

Appoximate form for ice fields is a parabola. Very shallow near melting.
How low temperature for what size base ?
Trying to find out.

Countries in drought could use an ice mountain ramp range, even if well insulated.
Think of the precipitation and rivers that would flow from it.
Space tourism, downhill skiing ? put on your spacesuit first.
Only 8 meter drop in sea levels, so New Orleans would need smaller dykes.
If you built 12 of these then Earth would gain extra 4% land area.

"The best graphite epoxies I know of (Amoco 'Thornel' type T40 carbon fiber + type
1962 epoxy) have a compressive strength of 250,000 psi and a density of
0.06 lb/cubic inch.  Thus their scale height is 4.16 million inches (106 km)"
For 1 billion dollars 111 mile high tower is given:
http://yarchive.net/space/exotic/tower_launch.html
http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/ … carthy.pdf

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see for scale height equation and explanation:
(bottom area is 2.718 times area of top for the scale height)
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Tran … /Methods/1
Amoco T300/ERL1906: 1930 MPa / (1827 kg/m^3 x 9.80665 m/s^2) = 107,793 meters
steel: 125 MPa / (7800 kg/m^3 x 9.80665 m/s^2) = 1,635 meters
Ice:            20 MPa / ( 920  kg/m^3 x 9.80665 m/s^2) =  2,218 meters

So scale height for Ice is comparable to steel
Advantage of ice is that it floats, while steel sinks towards Earth's center.

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Looks like 2 ways to build ramp to space:

(1) use very high strength materials for slender 20:1 base/height structure
(2) Giant low slope ice ramp
 

numbers from here:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjec … oons.shtml

Plugging here:
http://home.att.net/~ntdoug/smplhmn.html

5437.185110416846  -  1706.704095229685  = 3730.481015187161  m/sec

"Low-thrust transfer
It can be derived that going from one circular orbit to another by gradually changing the radius costs a delta-v of simply the absolute value of the difference between the two speeds"

Slingshot off Iapetus would give lower number.

Idea is to build a large ice ramp along the equator,
starting at Pacific Ocean sea level, slowly rising to 100 km.
Evacuated tube with linear motor for propulsion.

Ice is considerably stronger when cooled, maybe 10 times at 150 Kelvin.
Ice ships were almost used in the second world war

http://www.google.com/search?client=ope … 8&oe=utf-8

As a bonus, if you build a big enough ramp,
lower ocean levels, and New Orleans is saved !
Billions for dykes or ice ramp to space ?