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#101 Re: Terraformation » Venus » 2016-08-07 03:54:37
Karov,
I glad you showed up for your favorite topic. I am also glad to hear what you have to say about materials.
Which one of all 
? ... 'favourite topic'?
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Hall Weather Machine is doable, simple and VERY efficient OPTIC mechanism of the sub-class of the airbourne OPTICS.
(Sub-class because as a whole its combinatorics contains also orbital and statite and other varieties...)
Optic machinery is SO capable , it is cheap to produce and maintain and resolves a big mass of problems which otherwise require moving , spinning etc. of entire planets.
In fact maintenance could be easily done to actually RELY upon the influx of otherwise destructive energy i.e. the system to be homeostatic or homeoresistant.
Like carbon-water life but with orders of magnitude wider 'habitability domain'.
So, my favorite methods ( not topics ) are: [1] Optics and [2] Kinetics ( kinetic structures ) for provision of human habitable LAND - practically anywhere where there are the enough materials to build the surface. ( less then 100 metric tonnes per square meter of habitable LAND for all - structure, terrain, water, soil, air AND light! ).
Back to optics it is proven mathematically, that given a radiation source like our Sun , a SURFACE of acceptable, tolerable gravity could be illuminated, provided with traditional biospheric level of irradiation on distances between a few solar radii ( 5 mln. km ) and a few light years ( 10 MILLION TIMES "a few solar radii" ) - which renders not just the whole Galaxy, but the whole UNIVERSE illuminable to livable conditions ...
... by mere use of lenses and mirrors!
i.e. practically Archimedian level of sci-tech!
ALSO in the case of Venus, Mercury etc. with 'wrong' natural axial spin rate distributed and smart OPTIC systems like Josh Storrs Hall Weather Machine can finely control the day-night cycles point by point on the surface.
Thus the areas inhabited by humans can have 24h cycle, or any combination of light vs dark timing desired (say eternal night in the local "Las Vegas" or eternal tropical morning on the beaches ... whatever voted and decided ) , while the rest of the planet is kept under different, even under natural diurnal regime.
The aka 'luminosphere' or 'illuminosphere' ( if we use the terminology of Paul Birch ) thus becomes output of super-powerful and super-precise global Optic Machinery with sub-milimeter, sub-milisecond 4D resolution.
Void,
NO. Such machinery is NOT necessary to be too intelligent.
Not more intelligent then a LED TV CPU.
Even less.
===
I'm against using HWM on Earth. Things are ok here. "If it does not malfunction, do not touch it!"
BUT, for practically all the bodies in Solar System - the dozens of thousands to millions of planemos in the Solar sphere of gravitational influence ( Sun's Hill Radius ) ... and beyond -- it is almost undisputable for me, that OPTIC systems for managing natural fusor light shall be the healthiest-cheapest-stablemost-reliablemost... etc. etc. etc. superiority specs ... technology.
( Especially the smaller bodies, where the Luminosphere could be in fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_fog of bubbly machinelets i.e. also to serve as force-filed like mechanical atmospheric retention system. ... )
The major advantage of HWM-like on-planet Optics is that they can utilize on-planet materials for construction.
And replicator style ops to multiply exponentially for less then human lifetime effects / results. In fact a lot less then a human lifetime.
Say, the case for Mars -- few dozens of millions of bubbles production from local atmospheric materials and sunlight would have at least 1000 TIMES better radiation management specs then ANY "greenhouse gases" ... Practically instant effect.
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[2] on the other of my favourite topics - kinetic structures - it is also fundamentally so logical that I guess it practically can not be suplemented ... the logic is.:
- if the target body is too small to provide for decent natural gravity ( or it does not at all exist ) - then dissasemble it and built a rotating space habitat. ( Which you know could be of giant proportions - thousands of miles wide and zillions of light years long out of mere simple cheap carbon or Si-, Al-oxides ... )
or
- if the target underbody is too big - just overstructure it using 'orbital rings'. ...
- if it is 'good size' - just step onto its atmosphere.
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Thus Kinetics makes the LAND everywhere in the Universe , and Optics brings the light in everywhere in the Universe.
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AND these technologies are MORE stable indeed then the natural 'geological' stabilizers because they utilize the fluxes and gradients of nature BETTER!
#102 Re: Terraformation » Venus » 2016-08-05 15:58:22
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2331 … -habitable
&
http://gizmodo.com/theres-growing-evide … socialflow
---
On "Hall Weather Machine @Venus" - there is more then enough carbon and hydrogen on Venus to SRS (self-replicating automata) for production en situ of all the HWM needed.
@ (say) 100km height - ... all the infalling radiation could be controlled bi-directionally in intensity, color, phase, direction etc.
#103 Re: Terraformation » Mercury » 2016-07-21 07:03:28
The Sun could be mined for all volatiles needed.
In arbitrary abundance.
Otherwise for "open sky" way, easy.: http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 251#p40251
BUT no need to wait decades and to dump iceteroids from Outer SolSys...
... just mine the Sun!
Paul Birch* once calculated that by volume mining solar plasma is 1000 times more energetically yieldy, than to just capture solar light by unit of area.
Note that even hydrogen only is good to get water PLUS silicon, aluminum etc. from the crust.
* - see.: http://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/Supra … lanets.pdf ( pg.179, fig.9, 10.1 Mining Suns ).
btw, Mercury is VERY appropriate for production, launch and energy supply for ramscoop operation because it has no atmosphere currently.
#104 Re: Terraformation » Mercury » 2016-07-18 23:49:19
https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2922
these and such will be more then enough for keeping the inSOLation / illumination down or up to qualitiatively and quantitatively desirable levels in very high precision / resolution / 4D pattern.
even without using orbiting or statite Optics, but just aerostatically suspended.
See.:
#105 Re: Terraformation » Venus » 2016-07-16 01:34:30
http://www.worlddreambank.org/V/VENUS.HTM
see this. And the whole PLANETOCOPIA of Chris Wayan. Terraforming natural talent to level if ingeniousness!
The topic for less-then-Earth's water habitable planet very well developed.
btw, Question.:
Is a terraformed / habitable planet a habitat? or it contains habitats?
This is important in line with terraforming in general definitions.
Isn't it terraforming in general - production of ... land?
In the old sense of the word - human habitable land.
#106 Re: Terraformation » Martian Oxygen » 2016-03-07 05:50:05
Why not brute force evaporation?
#107 Re: Terraformation » Martian Oxygen » 2016-03-05 10:54:52
What's the decomposition temperature?
Dissociation energy per kg?
#108 Re: Terraformation » Bishop Ring Colony inside the Moon » 2016-02-23 00:24:00
A clear example of how seamless is the spectrum between "natural" gravity habitats and rotating ones.
A massive underbody counters the centrifugal force with its gravity and lets the maxium radius of the habitat to be proportionally bigger within using the same materials.
Imagine a combination of a Bishop ring and a Birch's band habitat around a massive underbody.
The former kinetically supporting the later.
The Bishop ring serving as orbital ring / toposphere / for the maglev-ed Birch band on top of it.
The first facing the underbody, the later - the stars...
#109 Re: Terraformation » Ice over the Moon? » 2016-01-07 15:33:13
Clean water for simplicity.
More exact calculations?
How dry is the regolith and how much is the total regolith and mega-regolith crevices / cavities volume?
#110 Terraformation » Ice over the Moon? » 2016-01-07 14:06:05
- karov
- Replies: 8
Well, the question-title is not about the ice in the perennially dark polar craters, but hypothetical question, about:
What IF in some magical way the Earth's moon is covered "out of the sudden" with, say, 100 feet ( 30-ish meters ) of solid water ice?
OK, lets be precise - lets choose exact figure of 30 000kg per square meter.
With retaining it's orbital and axial dynamic characteristics?
#111 Re: Terraformation » Gna terraformation ? » 2016-01-05 08:20:55
Sorry. The Habitats Spheres a-la-Birch are.:
6. SPACE COLONIES
Space colonies, indeed most forms of human habitat, will comprise (Fig 6.1):
The luminosphere provides the habitat with light and heat from the sun or some other source of energy. The atmosphere provides breathable air and is important in weather. The biosphere includes all life forms but not their non-living environment (in the literature, biosphere is sometimes given the wider meaning of an ecosystem). The geosphere is the landscaped surface of soil, rock and water, over a contoured base. The geosphere base is likely to be of a lightweight fractal honeycomb construction Below the base is the toposphere, supporting the whole habitat.
These are generic descriptions applicable to most forms of habitat, including natural planets like the Earth (where the geosphere is mostly solid rock, and the toposphere is the mantle and core).
http://buildengineer.com/www.paulbirch. … anets.html
incl. re: rotating space habitats
#112 Re: Terraformation » VY Canis Majoris » 2016-01-02 09:59:28
Instead of surviving the explosion just dilate it in time.
By siphoning out the star in controlled manner, distillation and coalescing the mass into useful objects - habitats and power infrastructure.
Paul Birch have estimated that mining the plasma flesh of a star gives you three orders of magnitude denser energy then just harvesting it's EM radiation.
This star would burst out anyway. I.e. it has the energy to eject most of its mass outta her gravity well.
...
#113 Re: Terraformation » VY Canis Majoris » 2015-12-31 03:45:10
Mining out the star would provide for lotsa stuff to build with AND will prolong its life to trillions of years.
#114 Terraformation » "Barky" 'toposphere' » 2015-12-27 10:44:54
- karov
- Replies: 0
Inspired by notions about thawing icy worlds inhere :: http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7333
If we use the taxonomy of Paul Birch's :
'toposphere' is an over-the-'underbody'-structure which gives surface gravity / acceleration / - be it tension one in rotating centrifugal habitats or static or kinetic one utilizing natural gravity wells.
'lithosphere' - includes the hydrosphere, too - and comprises the 'land' and 'water' of the habitat. Indeed it is THE habitat, because for humans habitat = walkable surface with gravity of 1-ish Gee under 1-ish Bar of breathable air. Water bodies interrupting the land are necessary for multiple reasons - irrigation, water source, leasure, aesthetic, transport... BUT per se, technically speaking water surface is NOT a human habitat - boat is, raft is, island is ... but NOT the water itself...
'atmosphere' - it is clear = the air blanket over the litho(hydro)sphere. For keeping it in place even in most cases it is not necessary to deploy a solid-state matter roofing ( paraterraforming ) - it is enough to install two cold traps : ONE at the top of the troposphere and SECOND at the base of the exosphere. Which is quite easily achievable by good old Optics.
'luminosphere' - the system providing light towards the habitable land/water down ( or up ).
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In case of a world - planemo which to be used as 'topospheric' 'underbody' - with too high proportion of ices which would thaw and form a global ocean, the correct 'lithospheric foundation construction' method would be instead of thick solid 'rocks' on top of less dense ices to be used less dense then water materials, but possessing comparable, or higher compression strength - similar to normal rocks or better.
The same way the Earth ocean floor solid rocks and continental cratons FLOAT over the more thermally plasticized denser mantle material, or a raft floats on lake, or kinetic toposphere hovers the habitat by 'inertial levitation' over the inhospitable surface or 'surface' of a unterraformable natural underbody as gas giant, brown dwarf, star or ... neutron star or blackhole ... :
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The ice-tops could be: woodlike meta-materials, foamed or fractally highly dendritic silica/alumina/carbon, bubbly coral-like or resin or plastic-like organic materials or combination of all ...
... all of them could be produced by SRA ( self-replicating automata ), or even GMO 'bio-robots' like bigger versions of the monocellular maths colonies on Earth 1b+ yrs ago.
The ices of the icy worlds are , as I noted , all dirty. The organics/rocks etc. are either close or at the surface or if body big enough to be gravitationally differentiated - under an internal liquid ocean. No matter how deep the 'dirt' is - it is accessible by 'roots'.
Visualize , say, Calisto encapsulated in a woody-corally bark - miles thick. On top of it more usual stuff - seas, lakes, rivers, fjords, ... soil, stones, sand, dirt, mud, ...
The atmosphere with embedded aerostatically several layers of Optic machinery administering electromagnetic radiation in such a way so to maintain paradisicle / heavenly / conditions onto the land and water and also providing other 'services' ( per instance global and interplanetary Li-Fi coverage, refrigeration of molecules to be kept into the troposphere and of ions to not leave the exobase, magnetic-plasmoid 4D effects , ultra high-resolution telescopy, global laser defense, momentum exchange for transport ... ... ... etc. etc. - you name it ).
The planemo 'luminosphere' shall be aided by orbital or rather statite Soletae swarms - to cover deficiency and/or to deflect excess of natural fusor / star light.
The whole system of add-ons = life-like and adaptive, thus you could have, say, :: ... tectonics, exchange between the surface and the deeps, pseudo-tidal and hydrological currents ... all what a natural habitable world has PLUS much extra.
Quite small seed-drone could deliver the SRAs which :: to grow the bark, let the roots melt down right through the icy crust, to fume-out the aerostatic optics of the lower luminosphere ... so in few decades the planemo to be ready for colonization.
There are OFICIALLY recognized estimates for MILLIONS of planemos per fusor. IAU admits thousands and thousands of 'dwarf planets' in KB alone ...
#115 Re: Terraformation » Gna terraformation ? » 2015-12-24 14:48:45
Void,
I am aware of your intentions for the hall weather machine, and solar reflectors.
Because it is the cheapest (as investment) and lightest (as mass needed) of ALL possible options tapping into natural MIGHTY 'river' of energy, harvestable for billennia without sophisticated failure-prone machinery needing hands to maintain...
I am curious, have you ever tried to replicate the greenhouse effects of Venus, or use super greenhouse gasses in your projections?
Hall Weather Machine IS A super-greenhouse gas - in fact 1000 times better the CO2. Why would we need anything else?
ALSO it is from universally ubiquitously abundant materials, it is smart and (potentially) self-replicating.
It is positionable as statites in-space ( forced orbits ) either...
I would think this would greatly improve the heating effects.
Improve?! With orders and orders of magnitude weaker effects? 
Also why to poison the nice breathable atmosphere with complex unstable compounds?
It also might suggest a very large surface ocean planet, but perhaps one without large waves, or dangerous storms. Tropical?
No need to be oceanic. Just cold within. With lithosphere mounted on sculpted icy 'toposphere' underneath.
Imagine less then ice/water dense 'rocky' continents.
Dissolved minerals in the water as a source to build your floating islands?
All external system ices are dirty. Very dirty. Typical comet is a third ices ( mainly water, but also alkane, ammonia ...) + a third rock (pulverized, dust, frozen mud ) and a third petroleum ( kerogene )... Even on/into very well differentiated big body there is plenty of 'dirt' enough to build decent 'lithosphere'
#116 Terraformation » Gna terraformation ? » 2015-12-12 02:48:43
- karov
- Replies: 3
1.5 times Earth mass on 300 AU.
with average density of say 2.5 ( 2.3 if pure water for this mass ... ) it will have the following physical characteristics .:
from http://www.transhuman.talktalk.net/iw/Geosync.htm .:
Diameter = 18 380 km
Density = 2.76 g/cm3
Surface Area = 1061 million square km
Roche Limit = 2400 km (nearest possible natural satelite)
Surface Gravity = 0.73 Gs
To Orbit Velocity = 8.08 km per second
Thrust to orbit time at 3G = 5.9 minutes
Escape Velocity = 11.4 km per second
-
Geosynchronous orbital distance = km, or miles (from surface of planet)
Geosynchronous orbital velocity = km/s , or miles per second
-
Bear in mind that if (most probably ) this appears true ( http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.2687 ), i.e. approx. a million planemos per fusor , then there will be THOUSANDS of such size Sol-bound planemos.
-
Tech? - A plasmoid kept-in-place kinetically-rigidized cloud of 5 and a half millions of km diameter will focus on "Gna" as much natural Solar light as to achieve Earth level of average areal insOlation.
YES, I mean https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2922 ... with non-aerostatic ( of course ) but photonic statite "machinelets" soleta cloud
This
http://orbitsimulator.com/formulas/hillsphere.html
hill sphere calculator, tells us that the Sol-Gna L1 point would be ~3.5 AU from Gna - over half a billion km distance , hence the statite kinetic structure Soleta Cloud would NOT be necessary to be very tight or too organized, but just the cumulative effect of the "machinelets" which could be spread over many millions and even dozens of millions of km with huge average distance between the units - each of them riding their own solar photonic stream for simultaneous position navigation and redirection onto Gna.
5.5m km wide optical "device" aperture corresponds to quite modest amount of mass necessary for rough materials to be built the whole Cloud of the 'luminosphere'.
The Cloud in combination of (say) solaser could be used to provide for multi-directional photonic thrust multi-reflection "tramway" between Innermost SolSys, Gna and other destinations ...
This - http://nathangeffen.webfactional.com/sp … travel.php , gives is idea about travel constant acceleration/deceleration travel from Inner SolSys to and from Gna.:
Approx. Only month and a half / 7 weeks / at 1g , max. velocity of 7-ish % of light speed.
btw, 1+ bln sq.km surface area ... at 50/50% water/land distro gives over half a billion sq.km. ( more then the total Earth's surface ) of land.
Enough for 15-20 'full size' continents.
#117 Terraformation » 2014 mu69 » 2015-09-08 04:49:05
- karov
- Replies: 0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_MU69
43 AU from the Sun
Radius ~20km (-ish) or 3.35×10exp13 m3 (-ish)
@(say) 1.5 metric tonnes (MT) per m3 = 50 trillion MTs.
Paul Birch estimated about 40 MT per m2 of habitat living area for all the "hardware" in "spheres" as follows: toposphere - the shape structure, lithosphere (sculpted fractal hollow relief), hydrosphere ("seas" and "oceans" of several meters deep - visualize https://www.google.bg/search?q=maldives … 24&bih=648 ), atmosphere - ( earthlike of 1 Bar N2-O2 mainly), luminosphere - magnifying soleta of nano-thin metalized sheets (aluminium?) . Ok, lets give more generous 50 MT/m2.
= ONE TRILLION square meters of habitable heavenly 1G (centrifugal) LAND.
= one million square kilometres prime realty. ( a Bishop ring size or a really long spaghetti habitat , or most probably something in-between)
LUMINOSPHERE -- at this distance it is under a Watt per sq.m. natural insolation.
It would be necessary every square meter of LAND to be provided directly or indirectly (for "natural" and industrial energy supply plus inefficiencies, wastes ... ) with about 1000 times wider photonic capture optics.
i.e. the soleta area must be in the order of 1 billion sq.km. or 1 000 000 000 000 000 m2.
A circle ( or square, or swarm / cloud of vacuum bubbles ... or whatever ) with diameter of 40(ish) thousand kilometres must tap and focus all the solar light on the habitat.
Soleta of solar sail material would be about 0.1-1 g/m2
A tonne covers a sq.km.
A billion tonnes the whole thing only.
@50 MT per 1 sq.m. of habitat floor ( LAND ) area this corresponds to only 2% of the initial mass to be invested into luminospheric hardware.
( Freeman Dyson have calculated that - but I do not know his base for habitat areal density , looks similar - that such way, via simple optics a habitat can be run with Earth-level of natural stellar light insolation on distances from several fusor / stellar radii (deflector soleta) to several light years ...)
#118 Terraformation » Superhabitable » 2015-08-08 02:22:03
- karov
- Replies: 3
OK,
It appears to "terraform" a world is a little bit of a low ball...
(google for "superhabitable" )
http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.2392
So, now, please, lets consider how to "superhabitabilize" Earth?
#119 Terraformation » Auroral illumination? » 2015-07-29 14:55:47
- karov
- Replies: 0
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v5 … 14619.html
I mean for terraformed / or naturally outright habitable / brown-dwarves' planets ?
http://www.space.com/30087-alien-aurora … 7610706465
million times brighter then Earth's aurorae!!
is this enough to support photosyntheisis? How bright an illumination would it provide?
#120 Re: Terraformation » Paraterraforming Pluto » 2015-07-22 06:17:40
I ran a few calcs on the potential size of the fissile fuel resource of a Kuiper belt object, based upon data provided here: http://www.knowledgedoor.com/2/elements … licon.html
In bulk solar system material, there are 0.009 uranium atoms and 0.0335 thorium atoms per million silicon atoms. Kuiper belt objects are 50% rock by mass. As most of this is silicon dioxide, I have taken silicon to be 23% of the mass of a KBO.
Running the numbers, I found that 1 tonne (1m3) of KBO material contains on average 2.1x10E20 atoms of uranium and thorium. One fission yields 3.1E-11 joules of energy. So 1m3 of KBO material contains 6.6GJ of potential fission energy.
A 100km diameter KBO would therefore contain 3.45E15 GJ of fission potential energy, or 9.6E8 TWh. If converted to electricity at an efficiency of 33%, this would yield ~300million TWh of electric power. The human race uses ~15,000TWh of electricity per year for a 7billion population. The UK uses ~350TWh per year to support a 60 million population. If outer solar system denizens used 10 times more electric power per capita than the UK, then a 100km diameter KBO would sustain a population of 1 billion for 5100 years.
So fission could provide the main energy source in the initial stages of KBO colonisation, but would ultimately need to be replaced by fusion.
Thanks, Antius. I was JUST to mention that - without the more detailed calculations, giving comparison with Earth volcanic rocks.
The (averaged) KBO material thus will have energy density of roughly 1/4 of (standardized, idealized, generalized) coal.
Hence - practically UNLIMITED resources in fission energy.
Fissi-bles and H/He/Li - lighter fuse-ables simultaneous occurrence/abundance gives pretty good incentive/prospect for another sort of 1940-1950es nuke-tech -- bombs.
They have literally a zillion energy and propulsion and engineering apps.
BUT I still insist/defend/argue that SOLAR and GRAVITATIONAL are simpler/better/cheaper/higher grade thermodinamically ... etc., 'cause Pluto is pretty much an INNER SolSys planet (planemo) enjoying quite abundant solar irradiation.
#121 Re: Terraformation » Paraterraforming Pluto » 2015-07-20 15:16:22
The sun is so weak as to be all but useless as source of energy.
No it's not. Pluto is on average 40 times further then Earth from Sun.
Hence for Earth level in-solation with natural light you need concentrator of 40-ish times the diameter of Pluto.
Which is easily achievable by converting a modest asteroid/ cometary nuclei mass into concentrator soleta hardware.
BUT, for mostly cold minus-Celsius desert bespred with oases Earth-level irradiation is very very much excessive.
With IR output control, greenhouse W-machinelets blanketing and tuning the incoming and outgoing radiation perhaps we'll need dozens of times less total photonic energy flux.
I.e. roughly the diameter of Earth. Enough. As shown above on the comparison picture.
... The Plutonians will build their cities as spherical pressure vessels of ice, insulated and decked on the inside to provide the most possible living space for the minimum exposed surface area.
You're right. In 6% gees really really massive "igloos" can be water-ice built. Or printed.
This solves the problem with the "oases" too. Cause oases could be thus domed/roofed/indoor spaces.
Which will further decrease the illumination needs.
Visualize the "terraformed" Plutonian "outback" as (quote from Alan Stern from 2004)::
The surface is bright and covered in a fresh, pinkish snow. People commonly think that it would be dark on Pluto because it is so far from the sun, but it is actually about as bright as dusk here on Earth, with enough light for you to very easily read a book and see what's going on around you.
but with illumination multiplied by (say) 10.
The surface covered by/the bottom of/... (say) 0.15b O2 + 0.1N2 = 0.25 Bars total, atmosphere. With average temperature of (say) minus 50-70 Celsius (200-220K).
Dry, cold, very clear.
Warm clothes would suffice.
The liquid hydrosphere cycle - plumbed into warmblooded biosphere.
Beautiful. As much of original Pluto as possible.
Do not forget that rotating and supramundane habitats are by far superior in any imaginable parameter from ANY planet - natural or artificial / terraformed or not.
Hence, terraforming will be more an art, like monumental architecture and sculpture.
#122 Re: Terraformation » Paraterraforming Pluto » 2015-07-20 12:02:14
Yeah, I think the scarce photonic resources from capturing aperture of 10-ish thousands of miles could be used so pinpoint oases to be maintained sprinkled like global archipelago while the atmosphere around them and above few km to be kept almost cryonic.
N2 partial titan-forming would be also huge leap ahead.
#123 Re: Terraformation » Paraterraforming Pluto » 2015-07-20 02:19:42
The "roof" can be complex Hall Weather Machine. Or combination of HWM with "utility fog" - the HWMachinelets can be zipped together active/reactivelly. Atmosphere contained in such 4D tessellated multi-layer-ed bubble with diameter of several times the solid-state planetary one shall focus/manage enough solar radiation to create remotely earth-like conditions.
The temperature of the atmosphere can be regulated to be under zero Celsius. Say minus 30-40 C. Thus the water-ice lithosphere won't melt down and the natural beauty shall be preserved.
Enriching the atmosphere with O2 will expose all these burnables to fire, so they've got to be sequestered. Perhaps underground. Or in self-replicating micro-tanks.
Liquid hydrosphere component should be "plumbed" - into biosphetic tube-age.
The biosphere could be "warm-blooded" plants. Indeed we have literally infinite variety of possible and even available organisms to mish-mash-up a working ecosystem with.
#124 Re: Terraformation » Terraforming Generalized » 2015-06-13 05:49:36
At the end "terraforming" is all and only about creation of LAND.
Even here, even now, even in the deepest chasms of time. Like boats/ships, bridges/tunnels, multi-story buildings, polders/terraces ...
LAND in sense of SURFACE where humans can do all human things.: to walk/sit/lie/run/jump ... to grow/recreate. It is a surface which is flooded over with atmosphere, which has tolerable temperature range/s, which is long term and tolerably healthy for breathing... SURFACE where the full human life-cycle can take place.
It's true that much of Earth is not really human-habitable.
Yes, indeed "how much" has strict, precise quantitative answer. It is almost none for Earth. None for most if not all other environs we know... We build homes, produce shelters, we wear clothes - almost ubiquitous human trait except in the most equatorial zones. We build life-support supply lines - bringing in towards the human organisms the life essentials - conditioned air, food, water, artifacts ... The whole human civilization is centered indeed onto solving the transport problem of certain organisms embedded in and environment from which the necessities/wealths to be sourced / produced / brought in and illths sequestered/ removed / destroyed / carried off. The Earth as natural environment gives this "for free", but in very very excessive way. It packs 10exp27s of kg.s of mass in tiny volume in order to create even tinier surface area of land. It uses millions of times more water to create unstable and ssub-optimal "air-conditioning" over minor part of the partial land surface outta all surface...
But I think terraforming as generally understood does mean creating human-friendly earth-like planets (or minor planets if you prefer). No doubt the term could be extended to clusters of asteroids.
sticking to planets gives very little room for available "topospheres" onto which land to be built. Narrow intersection between denssities and masses from the universally abundant and available chemical elements. OK, yes, planets ARE abundant and we have 1G curvatures / iso-gravities with thousands and thousands per each of the more then trillion Milky way's suns alone. In inner SolSys we have 5 such within light minutes radius - Venus, the Earth, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. 80% of these require total overhaul or outright building from scratch of LAND at the 1G 4D boundary.
If the term "terraforming" is extended to "clusters of asteroids", "stars" etc. exotic underbodies and rotating topologies then paradoxically:
- turning most of the Main asteroid belt (except the biggest bodies) or the bulk of exported Venusian atmosphere ... into hundreds of Bishop rings, millions of bubble-worlds, a topopolis or topopoli ... will give us many times the Earth surface (indeed millions of times the Earth surface in terms of the best of the best Earth surface spots of LAND repeated) - with specs = the optimal for human habitation
VS.
One "terraformed" Mars which forever will remain sub-optimal.
Perhaps "how much" terraformed a place is must be indexed on the multi-dimensional combinatorial map of habitability. With absolute figures. Thus will occur that Mars is infinitely less terraformable then cosmic dust/meteoroids/asteroids/comets BOTH in quantitative and qualitative aspect. Because Mars is one and it is with bleak chances / conditions to become well terraformed and MOSTLY because it is beautiful and rare as it is, it won't be terraformed. Nobody sane wants to build up or to level the Grand canyon, right?
I accept surface water is not an essential but it is a by-product of creating a human-friendly temperature zone over much of the target-planet, since ice melts or steam condenses in that range.
working on grander scales makes you loose the finer control and effects. It is as inefficient as using great point source of radiation for heat and illumination.
Also, terraforming is not just about creating a functional habitat - it is also about creating a beautiful home, or if you prefer one that works well with our individual and mass psyhcology.
Agree. But here we hit another important point. Home? Environment? are these the same of different things? The most beautiful decoration of our present day homes on Earth are landscape features which DECREASE the overall habitability. Mountain ranges, oceans, deserts ... we do need good views. We psychologically may even need to know that our homes are in the midst of vast wildernesses ... This is all matter of wealth and imagination.
Again, paradoxically, the most stunning vistas / panoramas out of the home's windows comprise really deadly environments. Then aesthetically MORE terraformable would be worlds like.: imagine a dome with pocket of air 100 miles within Enceladus or Charon type of planet - tens of miles wide, miles high, with beautiful and rich mmesh of cave-like stalactites and stalactones ice srtructure, the Land - a raft millions of acres wide, amidst a bottomless black sea full of fluorescing life, OR a 100mi wide Virga within the rings of Saturn-like body...
Home is the focus of our civilization, the major trait of mankind. What specifies / defines us as species is the fact that we change portions of environment around us to suit our specs then vice versa. Like www.plantlab.nl approach to "agriculture" which mimics the mankinds one towards the universe. Homes - which substitute the uterus - we can install practically everywhere. The more wealthy and powerful we become the more every- and anywhere we'll be able to. Because if the environment is kinda-sorta "second-stage" of home, or rather first stage, then our growing capabilities (within the strict boundaries of modern day numan-ness) would make easier and easier to place Homes in any environment. Visualize - homes = cells, environment = multicellular organism or ecosystem of such. Macro Life. Self-replicating. Growing. Evolving.
In a Edem environment a home is jus a tent, or the skyclad, in arctic it is with more protective features and functionalities.
Surface water also has great utility in allowing heavy goods, particular raw materials to be moved long distances around a planet and kind provide hydro-energy, otherwise not available.
No need. See.: www.et3.com
Transhumanising of people may make the habitable range greater e.g. giving people artificial gills would make huge parts of our planet - in seas, lakes and rivers habitable.
Lets no get in here cause this will burst the topic into infinity. I'll just add that transhumanising is by definition REVERSIBLE. To adapt to an environment, to change your body and mind plans = nothing more complex then to put shoes, socks, skies on your feet, coat on your back, skuba, to board a boat or airplane ...
However, we start where we are. Mars is "doable" - it can be made a lot more Earth-like with existing technologies e.g. nuclear reactors to heat the regolith and increase the gases, particular oxygen, in the environment or by spreading black ash over the poles to increase infrared absorption.
Perhaps using such deep 20th century tech on sub-optimal worlds shall become specific kind of monumental art.
There is plenty of planets ( planemos ) - about a MILLION per each of the more then a TRILLION stars ( fusors ) in our galaxy alone.
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 - a billion billion bodies. Divided on 10 billion humans it is 100 MILLION planets in the Milky way per human being.
At $13k GDP per capita p.a. - or $100k-ish in wealth, evenly distributed.
10 000 000 US cents per human.
10 Milky way planemos per $1 cent!
#125 Re: Terraformation » Terraforming Generalized » 2015-06-11 08:51:12
karov wrote:"terraforming", "to terraform" - production of (about) 1G surface flooded under (about) 1 Bar (breathable) atmosphere
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is that OK?I wouldn't say so. I think it would be to produce, through human action, an earth-like planet (not a facsimile). So - a planet in an earth like temperature age, with substantial surface water and with sufficient oxygen/density in the atmosphere to allow humans to breathe without artificial equipment.
I think the assumption is that 1/3 gravity will be sufficient for the colonists (maybe with weighted suits).
Okay.
<< Through a human action >> what about fully automated SRS ( self-replicating system ) (or replicator-constructor) ?
<< earth-like planet >> Planet? Or environment in general? "Terraforming" a meteoroid swarm, host of small bodies ( under planemo threshold of rounding itself under self-gravity) or even pre-stellar nebulae or proplyds ... into artificial planets OR rotating habitats is more like terraforming "empty space". Orrrr ... using fusors ( active stars or stellar remnants ) as supra-mundane habitats underbody is NOT planetary terraforming per se, if we stick to "planetary chauvinism". Imagine the Sun with several million layers with Earth-optimal or supra-optimal trillion Earth-surfaces equivalent of walkable area -- is then the Sun terraformed or not, simply because it is not a "planet"? Or smaller planemos with natural surface gravity of several %s gees - with stuck in them conical habitats ... are they terraformed, or terraform is the inner surface of the embedded rotating habitat?
<< temperature >> - temperature ranges are (baseline) human-centric. Many non-Earth-like environments are livable by humans for different (sufficient) periods.
<< substantial surface water >> -- not necessary AT ALL!
<< athmosphere >> -- OK, human breathable but this gives us a myriad / zillion of gaseous and LIQUID coctails combinations!
<< surface gravity >> -- depends on what is the (long term) healthy (unaided by prosthetics) gees are. "(about) 1G" - I meant the (long term) liveable by unchanged and unaided humans min. and max. - 0.3 to 3G ??
Also:: with all factors combined - atmosphere, gravity, temperature, etc. etc. in fact most if not all of EARTH itself is not human's habitable. We are aided by tech to survive even in our urbanized / homes space - clothes, glasses, shoes, heating, aircons, walking sticks ...
So human-habitable would have ( similar to the philosophy of http://www.plantlab.nl/ for plants - modify the environment to fit best the specific species, but not the vice versa - modify the organism to be tailored to the environment - which is the easier and most robust approach ) the outlook of REALLY VAST combinatorial space of all possible combinations of environment factors / specs /, like a mountain which slopes provide for nearly infinite number of human-habitable environments and a single peak of optimality amidst an infinite flat fields of deadliness. Perhaps slightly individual.
This will give us an "one look up table" tool to review, weight, assess environs vs optimality and modication-ness and aided-ness of humans.:
0.2 Gees, -100 Celsius, 90 mB partial oxygen, 5 Bars OR 2.1 gees, +50 Celsius, 250mB O2, 0.5 Bars ... medium is deadly for naked human in minutes, but slightly aided with 1 000 000 BC level of technology is OK.
Each environment thus will have ADDRESS in the massive multi-dimensional manifold of all possible spaces.
Address for naked, unmodified, un-aided human or for ... other variations. ...