Funding for terraforming

Austin Stanley · 2006-01-31 14:06:59

Why going "up" ( from Venus to Mars ) , to need "considerably more" energy than going "down" from ( Saturn to Mars)?
I think we could even PRODUCE energy from the higher specific orbital energy of the mass falling from Saturnian to Martian orbit, and this extra energy to power the other terraformation needs...

Two reasons why it is "cheaper" energy wise. Primarily because Saturn has a gigantic gravity well, and Nitrogen from Titan has to escape that well to get to Mars. Even after adding Titan's orbital velocity, it still takes some 30km/s to break free of Saturn's orbit. Which is three times Venus's escape velocity of ~10km/s. And this disregards Titan's own gravity well, which is on the smallish side.

Secoundly, Titan's greater distance from the sun means that you must either accept a slower delivery time, or go faster. Furthermore, since Venus is so close into the sun, it can make very effective use of solar sails to transport it's cargo to Mars. Cargo from Titan cannot make as effective use of this.

This assumes in both cases that the cargo only has to intersect Mars orbit (ie, crash onto the planet). Cargo from Venus has to slow down and cargo from Titan has to speed up if you actualy want to go into orbit.

Hmmm. First, the density of the Titanian air is ~4 times greater than on sea level on earth. The PRESSURE is 1.5 times bigger. Even in heaviest spacesuit any human will be chilled by the -180C wind in minutes. The air IS poisonous - it contains 5-6% methane... Thus it is explosive indeed if leaks in O2 air in a habitat. But the disadvantages of such environment are compensated in great degree by advantages -- in that cold the water ice is hard as quarz, perfect constructional material... the deep cold means better and more efficient heat machines. Out-door superconductivity... etc.

The density of the air is irrelevent to most applications. It means that heat will be lost a little faster, line of sight is shorter, and drag is greater, but that's about it. The denser nature of the atmosphere isn't any more hazardous to people then water is.

Second, while Titan is very cold, such cold is not insurmountable. Modern insulation is very good at trapping heat. Sometime earlier I calculated that the amount of energy needed to warm a habitat in the face of a serious leak was trivial in comparison to other energy needs an outpost would face. Now, Titan cryo-suits would still probably need some active heating, but this is easily done as I pointed out, as Titan's atmosphere has methane which the suit can burn (with it's oxygen) for heat. Any comparision to "space suits" is irrelevent, as the two would be totaly diffrent in opperation. Indeed, suits designed to deal with vacume generaly have to worry more about getting rid of heat as the human body produces a great deal and vacume is such an effective insulator.

Lastly, the atmosphere is NOT poisonous. Neither Nitrogen nor Methane is toxic to the human body in the way CO2 is. Of course you couldn't survive breathing such an atmosphere, but it is not absourbed into the blood like CO2. CO2 is absourbed into the blood by your lungs, which can kill you. Kill you very quickly infact, at the concentrations it is present on Venus. Even a slow leak is dangerous, as when oxygen is at partial pressures where it is still breathable, the CO2 concentration could rise to the point where it's toxicity would kill you. Worse yet, the Venutian atmosphere no doubt also contains high concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) as well. Not only is it toxic in the same way CO2 is, it will also bind up the O2 in your lungs and blood and kill you at much lower amounts.

That's not to say that the cryogenic atmosphere of Titan isn't hazerdous. It is both very cold, and potentialy explosive. But it is a more managable hazard. A base could much more easily deal with a slow leak, by increasing heating to displace lost heat, and watching out for sources of flame, or possibly leave candles or other igniters out to burn it before it reaches dangerous levels. If a Titan outpost operates at 1.5atm or higher, the partial pressure of oxygen can be much lower than it is here on earth, and so the methane may not be as explosive as you might think as well.

karov · 2006-02-09 08:59:22

Austin,

Titan vs. Venus cheaper energywise is wrong!!!

Titan is 1 221 931 km from the centre of Saturn. The escape velocity off-Saturn from the Titan`s orbit is only 7870 m/s

So one spends energy to accelerate only to these 7.8 kms/s ( + of course the negligible escape velocity for Titan itself ) ... after that point on GAINS energy utilizing via recapture or else the energy of the descending material to the internal orbits... Falling from Saturn to Mars the nitrogen will gain 20.5 km/s -- hence your profit energywise is 6.76 times bigger than the investment. You are ahead with 576% -- very-veeeery good profit...

From Venus youo need to overcome the venusian gravity well with these round 10 km/s PLUS the difference of 15.4 km/s "energywise" to climb the Solar gravity well from the Venusian to the Martian orbit... Pure loss of ~ 25 km/s in specific energy of the cargo...

The Outer system is better source of materials than the Inner, even if the materials are delivered in the Inner one, just because the Outer is "higher ground" and you can use the higher potential energy...

Regarding the Martian case of nitrogen-from-titan:

1. if we calculate on basis of 0.78 bars of nitrogen partial pressure ( the most earthlike conditions "atmosphere wise" ) , and roughly 1/3 territory and roughly 1/3 gravity than we see that we need , the earth atmosphere`s content of nitrogen mass on Mars should be delivered. These are ( the total mass of the Earth atmosphere is 5.1480x10exp18 kg) about 3900 trillion tonnes of nitrogen needed... Titan has this amount -- its area is ~ 82 000 000 km2 ( abouit 1/6th of the Earths area) , pressed by 1.5 bars on-ground by 1/7th of gravity -- roughly 1.75 times more gases around Titan , than around Earth -- 95% nitrogen + ~5% methane/ethane... Titan has about 8300 trillions of tonnes of nitrogen in its atmosphere. We need to syphone out just about the half ( 0.46 ) in order to have all the necessary amount of nitrogen on Mars... ( this hints that trading of usefull mass between the bodies is VERY usefull tool for terraforming... Titan with rarified atmosphere, would need some more illumination to become more Earth like, but this is another question...)

2. So, 4 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg of nitrogen descended to Mars from Titan with gain of speed from the kinetization of all this potential gravity energy, of ~ 20 500 m/s??? This gives us the figure of about 210 MJoules / kg of specific energy for the nitrogen cargo Titan-Mars... Totally -- ~ 8x10exp26 Joules...
Equal to the total Sun`s output for ~2.1 seconds, equal to the total energy the Earth receives from the Sun for 150 years, or about 2 million times the energy consumed by the World in 2001... Or ~ 5 000 000 tonnes of antimatter!!!

Syphoning the nitrogen for Mars from Titan would give us times more than the energy necessary for superfast terraforming... The N-from-Titan mode of Mars trraforming actually would be one of the biggest net energy producers in SolSys.

Rxke · 2006-02-09 13:42:21

Syphoning the nitrogen for Mars from Titan would give us times more than the energy necessary for superfast terraforming... The N-from-Titan mode of Mars trraforming actually would be one of the biggest net energy producers in SolSys.

Could that pay for the terraforming then?

After all, this topic is about how to fund it, and you might've just found a way!

SpaceNut · 2006-02-09 22:30:48

I agree that it would aid but most likely it would be a barter system at first between colonist but then again that does depend on how fast colonist are allow to go....

karov · 2006-02-10 00:59:31

Syphoning the nitrogen for Mars from Titan would give us times more than the energy necessary for superfast terraforming... The N-from-Titan mode of Mars trraforming actually would be one of the biggest net energy producers in SolSys.
Could that pay for the terraforming then?
After all, this topic is about how to fund it, and you might've just found a way!

Off course it would pay!!! Lets assume that 1 GJ costs $ 1 US, produced by the described Titan-Mars nitrogen-"dam" power plant... Than from the nitrogen syphoning we gain $ 800 000 000 000 000 000 US total. Lets assume that the process takes 100 years. Than the profit from Titan-Mars is EIGHT QUADRILLION Dollars a year! 1000 times more than the US GBP. In this conditional figures - the cost of one square kilometer of Mars terraformed would be MINUS 5 or 6 BILLION DOLLARS.

How to do this?

Erect on Titan towers made of foamed water ice hundreds of km tall to go above the atmosphere. Link them with Space elevator extending further of the Lagrangian piint of the Titan-Saturn system... Use ultracold beams of nitrogen atomic lasers powered by the net energy of the syphoning ( the centrifugal force beyond L1 and L2 - where BTW, the escape velocity is even lower than 7-8 km/s ). May the atomic lasers fire with 10 km/s and their laser cooled stuff to be at microkelvins -- snipering target with about 7000 km diameter - Mars is childish play with them. Hitting martian atmosphere and surface with 20-30 km/s the beam`s ultraqcold droplets instantly turn into directed flow of plasma -- i.e. electric currant... A cage of conducting cables orbiting Mars would be the static part of this GIANT MHD generator... Something like that. With atomic laser system Titan could sell nitrogen and other volatiles not only to Mars, but also to the Moon, Mercury, Jovian Gallileans, rotating space colonies...

Titan supplies the Inner system with not only atmosphere construction materials, but also the flux imports the necesary industrial energy.

I think terraforming efforts without trade of mass / momentum is UNTHINKABLE!

Using mass/momentum transfer loops we have the whole system, and beyond -- ALL this antimater produced to store the excess of power -- for powering interstellar spacecrafts, biospheres of worlds too distant from the Sun ( say -- a huge antimater powered "lamp" or "lantern" mounted on the Xena facing side of its moon Gabriel, or on Pluto facing side of Charon... although huge reflecting fresnel lences are better opition for insolatio of habitats up to several light years distance from the fusor primary )...

Such plan seems with impossible size, but the things are scaleable, and the steps of the leader of orders of magnitude could be climbed with exponential trends... A self-replicating system growing tenfold a decade is something proven, by the earthly creatures with even much faster pace...

holger2401 · 2006-02-14 15:26:28

Hello,
Actually, I wasn't inferring about property rights on Mars, simply as to where the funds for a potential terraforming project might come from.
Cordially,
EarthWolf

Inheritance taxes. Maybe 90 % :-) for all over 1 million $. Can be renamed to: "Terraforming for mars-tax". Planetwide of course. The only way to avert it for the wealthy is to resettle to mars with all their assets.

karov · 2006-02-14 16:54:25

I think the assumption that terraforming will be governmental business is not right. No funding FROM Earth for terraforming... Earth do not needs terraforming.

Inheritance taxes -- what inheritance of immortal richmen?

Commodore · 2006-02-14 22:58:25

Concerning Titan vs Venus as a nitrogen source...

While it might require less energy to go from Venus to Mars, we can't readily access the surface, making construction of any large atmospheric structure a difficult floating import operation.

Titan doesn't have this problem. There’s everything needed to support on site construction and the population to run it. Any extra juice needed to escape the Saturian gravity well is readily available from several other moons that are more than half water ice, were we’ll probably set up shop as well anyway.

samy · 2006-02-15 01:34:50

While it might require less energy to go from Venus to Mars, we can't readily access the surface, making construction of any large atmospheric structure a difficult floating import operation.

While yes, it would be a floating import operation, I am not convinced it would be significantly more difficult than any Titanian environmental challenges.

MarsDog · 2006-02-15 02:04:37

I think the assumption that terraforming will be governmental business is not right. No funding FROM Earth for terraforming... Earth do not needs terraforming.

The greatest incentive is in terraforming Earth.
US global Empire multinational companies will eventually see profit in it,
and provide the funding.

Other bodies in the Solar Sytem will have to wait for technological advances.
Once self replicating construction robots become available,
It is just a matter of time.

karov · 2006-02-15 04:00:09

Concerning Titan vs Venus as a nitrogen source...
While it might require less energy to go from Venus to Mars, we can't readily access the surface, making construction of any large atmospheric structure a difficult floating import operation.
Titan doesn't have this problem. There’s everything needed to support on site construction and the population to run it. Any extra juice needed to escape the Saturian gravity well is readily available from several other moons that are more than half water ice, were we’ll probably set up shop as well anyway.

Please explain why "less energy to go from Venus to Mars"? The figures tell us other thing! Saturnian gravity well at Titan`s orbit is shallower than the Earth`s LEO( with ~4.5 km/s or more than 50% less) !!! To go out in heliocentric orbit from Titan`s surface needs less than 8 km/s. From Venus - ~ 10 km/s
From Venus to Mars you need extra ~15 km/s
From Titan to Mars you GAIN ~15 km/s

karov · 2006-02-15 04:14:19

I think the assumption that terraforming will be governmental business is not right. No funding FROM Earth for terraforming... Earth do not needs terraforming.
The greatest incentive is in terraforming Earth.
US global Empire multinational companies will eventually see profit in it,
and provide the funding.
Other bodies in the Solar Sytem will have to wait for technological advances.
Once self replicating construction robots become available,
It is just a matter of time.

Yes, the Earth will deffinitelly neeed changes in order to stay habitable for humans.
From "US multinationals" - remove "US", for them USA is nothing different than any other place, the Multinats are everiwhere, they constantly shift the node of their outsourcing, most of their money are out of the scope of the big old governments... the nations are just playing ground and markets for them. When they have the oportunity to go off-world out of the cage of the souvreinities, than the whole planet becomes only their playground, cause they escap totally independent.

I agree that the SRS ( self-replicating systems ) is the key -- than the word enormous becomes just a several "bites" / replication iterations away... Many people do not realise the power of the exponentiality -- Once you have robot / system which multiplies tenfold in a year , you are just several decades from reshaping whole stellar systems, since they contain 10exp - dozens of kg of matter on average... Processing several quadrillions of tonnes of any material ( harvesting, packaging, infra-system trasport ...) of the above discussed nitrogen-for-Mars task , would take just several decades for a modest , very feasibly productive SRS... In the 70-ies NASA tried to make 100 tonne SRS for Moon utilization...

karov · 2006-02-15 04:38:14

Funding for terraforming?

I`d say that I think -- the funding of the space industrialization projects would be more like most of the nowaday "off-plan" real estate developments -- the futures clients will pay and will bare the risk untill completion. With overall economy doubling every on average 30 years, comparativelly soon the terraforming funding is available, BUT becaue is far cheaper to build artificial space coloinies, and due to the fact that all these moons and planets are not so much numerous, not so much capacitous for population, I think the future generations will leave them in "natural" state as valuable tourist destinations or "national" parks... Even in the fastest pace of terraformation of say 4-5 decades per astronomical body -- the SolSys has only ~ 2.5 times more land than earth in the circle of the Saturnian orbit: Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Moon, the Gallileans and Titan... With wrong gravity all of them except Venus... Who is going to pay for real estate with wrong gravity and expensive to maintain soletas??? You? I wouldn`t buy... I`d buy land on/ in 1000 miles wide -- millions of km long rotating tube , not terraformed but "heavenized" from inside... which takes only 50 tonnes per m2, and could be built incrementally and simultaneously inhabited... and which construction commenses and goes when you put your deposit of 40%
As I repeat all the time to say: the amount of CO2 on Venus is enough to be built DOZENS of THOUSANDS of TIMES the total Earth`s area in "heavenized" earth-like environment ( making it into carbon-fiber rotating single space colony...), and the less than one times the earth area original solid venusian surface to be terraformed ONLY as an insignificantly small ( ~0.00006) part of the product / profit... As a simple analogy: Almost all people tend to say that they would love to have a villa in the mountain, but more than 3/4 of the world population lives in the flat low lands... The planets and moons are logically the same as the mouintains on Earth - place to go to vacation, not to live there! And almost every of them is unique in natural features and beauties - staying in US and other earth places for the purposes of that analogy - imagine that Mars is the Grand canyon, Jovian Io is Yellowstone, Pluto is Antarctica, Mercury is Sahara --
Do you want ( and does it worth the investment ) to see these places urbanized???
For population of baseline humans exceeding many trillions, doesn`t they worth more in natural state as vacation sites and tourist destinations, having so huge market???

We shoulda regard the big difference between the tech feasibility and the economical logic!

Austin Stanley · 2006-02-15 06:08:45

Austin,
Titan vs. Venus cheaper energywise is wrong!!!
Titan is 1 221 931 km from the centre of Saturn. The escape velocity off-Saturn from the Titan`s orbit is only 7870 m/s
So one spends energy to accelerate only to these 7.8 kms/s ( + of course the negligible escape velocity for Titan itself ) ... after that point on GAINS energy utilizing via recapture or else the energy of the descending material to the internal orbits... Falling from Saturn to Mars the nitrogen will gain 20.5 km/s -- hence your profit energywise is 6.76 times bigger than the investment. You are ahead with 576% -- very-veeeery good profit...
From Venus youo need to overcome the venusian gravity well with these round 10 km/s PLUS the difference of 15.4 km/s "energywise" to climb the Solar gravity well from the Venusian to the Martian orbit... Pure loss of ~ 25 km/s in specific energy of the cargo...

I won't argue with you about the mechanics, your knowledge of the physics involved is obviously greater than mine. However, it remains very simple to deliver Nitrogen from Venus. As I said before, that close in to the sun a solar sail works very nicely, and can gather the energy it needs to make the transit virtualy for free from the solar energy.

The same can not be said for an object in out at Titan. Even if the energy to get out of orbit is smaller, that energy is much harder to come by. That far our from the sun solar sails are a poor option, and solar energy is also weak. So the energy necessary must come from some other source, most likely nuclear. Even if the energy required is less, or even a gain in the end, Venus can get that energy for free while Titan can not.

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As for generating energy from the transfer of mass down the gravity well, frankly I don't see this as possible. Your system is pretty fantastic to begin with, and even if it worked, there is still the issue of how you would power the laser back at Titan.

Even if you could generate such a huge amount of energy, that doesn't mean you could sell it. It has to have a market, and if Mars could afford to by that much energy at that prise, it wouldn't have a problem with funding it's terraforming.

It is a neat idea though. Even if an atomic laser couldn't generate energy, it would be a neat way to transport nitrogen and would add heat to the martian system.

While yes, it would be a floating import operation, I am not convinced it would be significantly more difficult than any Titanian environmental challenges.

The issue here is that while a floating base may or may not be difficult (I'm inclined to think it would be VERY difficult, but I won't argue that now), but that there is very little material in the Venutian atmosphere to build such a base with. Since the surface of Venus is basicaly unreachable, all you would have access to is the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur in the air. Not the best building blocks as it were. All your metals, glues, plastics, and what not will have to importeded from someplace else. Venus even lacks supplies of hydrogen, which is critical for rocket fuel, plastics, glue, and most importantly water.

Titan on the other hand has ready access to practicaly any element you could want, and if it isn't there, the other moons are easily reachable as well. Venus has to go all the way to Mercury or Earth for it's supplies.

karov · 2006-02-15 11:48:37

However, it remains very simple to deliver Nitrogen from Venus. As I said before, that close in to the sun a solar sail works very nicely, and can gather the energy it needs to make the transit virtualy for free from the solar energy.

[b]No it won`t be 'very simple'. How you extract the material to LowVenusian Orbit at least. You can`t use solar sails directly from the surface ( solid or cloud ones ). You can`t use synchronous beanstalks on Venus... First you should shoot out these quadrillions of tonnes of gas out of the earth-like gravity well. Pure loss of energy - which could run entire civilization for centuries. In the Titan source case you gain energy. Solar sailing is good thing I like it, but gravitational power is simpler and almost 100% efficient. Just find way to couple with the stream of falling from Saturtnian orbit gas and to harvest its kinethic energy. The earth`s nowaday power dams make it almost to 100%. Stream of plasma could be utilized with magsail / MHD generator... simply a ring around Mars , superconducting -- it could be directly the pipe of the antimater generating plant. Mars wouldn`t buy the cheap energy from Titan alone, lots of projects become feasible and work with such plentifull source, which BTW is not the only one. In the simpler scenario -- Titan and Mars are ruled by one and a same polirical force or union of such. Solar energy is not concentrated enough -- the gravitational is better for moving objects around. Trading of volatiles gives you: the very volatiles need + power + transport + storage...[/b]

The same can not be said for an object in out at Titan. Even if the energy to get out of orbit is smaller, that energy is much harder to come by. That far our from the sun solar sails are a poor option, and solar energy is also weak. So the energy necessary must come from some other source, most likely nuclear. Even if the energy required is less, or even a gain in the end, Venus can get that energy for free while Titan can not.
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Don`t forget the utilizable dynamics of the system of Saturn. The other Saturn-Titan Lagrangean points. Syphoninig of N2 means that you gain energy from the centripetal and other energies. From Titan one could stretch a cable perhaps million km long toward and oposite to Saturn, far away from the titan`s hill sphere. The material will pour out itself generating energy for the atomic lasers... one small step to climb before to descend long slope.. As you said you still have the other moons -- lots of energy from deorbiting them. The specific orbital energy of such satelites exceeds 300 MJ/kg... How much energy you gain with kilo of solar sail at Earth or Venus? How much thousands of square KILOMETERS do you need to have the same energy as from descending to an orbit with 10 000 km lower a tonne of any material in the Saturnian gravity well? And all this just via using tethers - 1D structure, than the thin 2Ds of the sails...
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As for generating energy from the transfer of mass down the gravity well, frankly I don't see this as possible. Your system is pretty fantastic to begin with, and even if it worked, there is still the issue of how you would power the laser back at Titan.

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It is possible -- see how much %s of the world electric production is hydro-power. Mass transfer down a gravity well is the best way to produce usefull energy in that universe. The most abundant and ultimate. The fusing hydrogen suns are mere candles compared with the black hole mills of mass-to-energy. The hydrogen fusion, often commersialized as panacea for our power hunger is inefficient it gives us only 1% of the mass/energy as radiation yield. The transformation of that radiation through heat to electricity -- leads to further 4/5ths of this 1% losses... The natural fusion of the suns as source of energy is like the wood-fuel fires of the cavemen... "My" system is scalable -- one could begin with web-fiber thin tether , establishing firm link between two or more potentials in a gravity field and incrementally to increase the capacity. Imagine: the yellowish ball of Titan, pierced with 2 mln. km long cable , going like radius toward the gas giant... It takes energy to climb the first several thousand of km of this cable in the both directions ( off- and to-planet ), it produces more energy to run a thing further the cable -- classical sence of syphoning. Imagine that the cargo is put on maglev train containers -- you accelerate it up from the Titanian grav.well, but after the L1 and L2 point , the cargo should be decelerated - thus producing energy. The atomic lasers would be powered again with this simpler, most efficient, least transformative, most abundant source -- you don`t need sun or nuclear

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It is a neat idea though. Even if an atomic laser couldn't generate energy, it would be a neat way to transport nitrogen and would add heat to the martian system. /
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The atomic laser can carry energy. At mars or else client`s site - just turn it into plasma and let it flow through magsails. Combination magsail-antimater factory is good. BUT, Best is to use the SolSys transport network of reciprocating drivers / receivers ( P.Birch`s MOmentum exchange LOop NETwork - MOLONET ) as a giant storage of all this energy , with very high efficiency ( the energy stays in one form - kinethic, no change from one form to another, no losses) and very long terms of storage -- like really giant frictionless flywheel. In order to visualise it -- imagine an asteroid - close to it approaches spacecraft. The spacecraft harpoons it and the linear motion turns into circular - the spacecraft hanging over the asteroid on the tether... after several days it cuts the rope -- pure momentum exchange... Or imagine two railguns firing into one another...
Even if it apperars that the SolSys interplanetary medium is too dense to allow use of microkelvin atomic lasers for such long distances -- still we could pump under 1000-10 000 bars the N2 in Freitas style nano- and micro-tanks and to fire the volatiles reliably packaged with dosens and hundreds of km/s along interplanetary distances...

The issue here is that while a floating base may or may not be difficult (I'm inclined to think it would be VERY difficult, but I won't argue that now), but that there is very little material in the Venutian atmosphere to build such a base with. Since the surface of Venus is basicaly unreachable, all you would have access to is the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur in the air. Not the best building blocks as it were. All your metals, glues, plastics, and what not will have to importeded from someplace else. Venus even lacks supplies of hydrogen, which is critical for rocket fuel, plastics, glue, and most importantly water. /
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Carbon - create diamond carbogel filled with local N2 or vacuum. HIghly dendritic -- floating , but impossible to get sunked - like SiO2 aerogel, in the non-O2 atmosphere of Venus the carbogel can`t burn. Carbogel rafts hundreds of meters thick with infrastructure and armathure will be as stable as lithosphere.... Carbon is the best material both for compression ( diamond ) and for tensile ( graphenes) applications... Metals and rocks is far less easier to "mine" from 60 km depth with only <500 degrees celsius max. than from solid or semi-liquid planetary interiors or kilometers deep underwater -- a combination of aerostat and submarine, could bring solids for processing upthere over the clouds. Yes the Hydrogen is a problem -- but we have some in H2SO4, traces of water... and don`t forget the mantle water reserves. It is impossible venus to`ve been lost it -- the Earth mantle has at least 10 times more water than the hydrosphere. In the depths the water is sealed. Venus lacks of tectonics, and has quite thick litosphere ( perhaps cause the venusian lighter rocks cover weren`t impacted out to form a giant moon as ours...) It is difficult to mine any mantle, but say 20 km long needle-shaped iron asteroid impactors, accelerated via the R.Forwards way of Solar gravity assist to hundreds of km/s will throw above surface quite of the guts of Venus, bleeching good part of the hidden water -- once it is in the atmosphere - distile and collect...
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But I agree this would be pauper living. The Outer system is VEEERY rich. The logical site for all the production. You have all the materials, and all the energy -- the ready goods falling down the Inner system produce further extra energy. The transport cost from the Outer system to the Inner is effectively NEGATIVE. If you order a car to the Pluto or Xena factories, they deorbit with several nanometers some of their moons to produce the necessary energy, make the car -- and sending it through MOLONET the falling product , comes to the Earth or the huge rotating colony together with all the "petrol" for the whole exploitation term of the vehicle...-------------[/i][/b]

Commodore · 2006-02-19 18:23:34

Concerning Titan vs Venus as a nitrogen source...
While it might require less energy to go from Venus to Mars, we can't readily access the surface, making construction of any large atmospheric structure a difficult floating import operation.
Titan doesn't have this problem. There’s everything needed to support on site construction and the population to run it. Any extra juice needed to escape the Saturian gravity well is readily available from several other moons that are more than half water ice, were we’ll probably set up shop as well anyway.
Please explain why "less energy to go from Venus to Mars"? The figures tell us other thing! Saturnian gravity well at Titan`s orbit is shallower than the Earth`s LEO( with ~4.5 km/s or more than 50% less) !!! To go out in heliocentric orbit from Titan`s surface needs less than 8 km/s. From Venus - ~ 10 km/s
From Venus to Mars you need extra ~15 km/s
From Titan to Mars you GAIN ~15 km/s

I was refering more to the idea that someone mentioned to use solar sails, which would get there from much less energy.

Just saying that the Saturnian system is much more furtile overall.

karov · 2006-02-21 03:55:36

Better use the solar radiation energy en situ in the Inner system, where the gravity is deep and the insolation plentiful. The Outer system matrials also contain much energy, better to use it and utilize the extra.

I think: The plenty of orbital nergy in the Outer system produced as by-product of the bringing down of the masses will pay-off the terraforming, ALTHOUGH the terraforming may occur to be unwilled in economical sence. So miniature object like the planets to occur to be much more valuable as tourist destinations in present state, than as living areas terraformed...

srmeaney · 2006-04-16 23:29:41

Hello,
I've read a few papers and a novel in which terraforming has been an issue. My question is: Where would the funding for a terraforming project come from? Since terraforming would take generations, I imagine that interest for private investment would be rather lukewarm without the anticipation of a quick return on the money invested. Would the money have to come from funds donated by national governments with interest in a terraformed Mars, perhaps like United Nations dues?
Cordially,
EarthWolf

This is why I support Mars being the territory of a New State without Citizens.
Government: Space Commonwealth (Multiplanetary Planetary Government)
Population: 10,000,000 (Colonized over a hundred year insertion window)
Cost: 15 billion-billion (Terraform & Colonize)
Timeframe: 200 years (100 years to terraform to near earth conditions)

karov · 2006-04-17 02:18:13

No Mars terraformation on such high price. How these $15 000 000 000 000 000 000 USD ( or $ 100 000 USD per square meter!!!!!!!! ) will compete with the space colony construction cost which will cost only about 40-50 tonnes of dirt cheap material/mass?

MarsDog · 2006-04-17 03:15:37

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.

karov · 2006-04-17 12:23:36

You`d need roughly to triple the planet`s mass without to change too much its radius. Possible on paper -- just add two martian masses of the densest elements ( uranium, platinum, osmium, uranium... ) -- densest in order this pouring in of mass to not blow off significantly the new body... Having in mind the arverage density of these of about 20 kg/litre -- and the average martian one -- of ~3 tonnes/m3, than after adding two martian masses of uranium or else the volume would increase only to 10/7ths the present one, i.e. the new radius would be only about 1.126 times bigger, giving only factor of 1.27 of weaking of the surface gravity due to increased radius Vs. 3 times strenghten due to the triple mass. The surface gravity of 3-in-1 Mars would be thus -- 0.87 gees or ~90% the Earths...

But heavy elements are rare to find and energyconsuming to produce ... better to use something entirely artificial as nucleonic construct or kinda exotic matter - SuSY particles, etc... preferably bosonic in nature in order easier to be deposited in there. ( For example if someone finds way to turn the regulary protons into their mirrors or way to collect dark matter ) ... The gravity of such body is almost suddenly more than doubled -- than the very increased pressure will cause interesting activation of geological processes... and warming, planetary magnetism and volcanism -- equal to instant compression -- the planetary differentiation will be restarted and amplified, the outgassing serious... I`d call your thickening approach -- invisible impacting...

About, the supernova - the Solar nebula is result from supernova. The heavy elements are as much as they are... The Supernova event is much more "implosive" and "fallback" one than spraying lots of radioactive waste in the space...

The Sun doesn`t have iron core. All bodies bigger than several Jupiter masses are completely convective. Even the Sun -- regarding only the core as the body, and the upper convection zones as "atmosphere" --...

Problem! The scale height of the atmosphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_height
vs. the escape velocity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity may make the atmosphere retention problematic although the higher value of gees.

MarsDog · 2006-04-17 19:18:08

escape: v = (2GM/r)^1/2
M = 4/3 * Pi * r^3 * density
Force gravity at surface = G * M/r^2

=======================

Assume Mars 3 times Dense as Earth (Dmars = 16.5 Dearth = 5.5)

for same surface escape velocity:
Dearth*Rearth^2 = Dmars*Rmars^2
Ratio of radius: sqrt(1/3) = 0.577 times Earth
Mass = (0.577)^3 * 3 = 0.577 of Earth
g = Density * r = 3 * 0.577 = 1.731 times Earth

for same gravity g at surface:
Dearth * Rearth = Dmars * Rmars
1/3 = 0.333 times Earth radius
Mass = (0.333)^3 * 3 = 0.111
surface escape = density * r^2 = 3 * (0.33)^2 = 0.33 times Earth

Atmosphere close to surface, so escape at the top of atmosphere only slightly lower. The scale height in your link assumes constant gravity, independent of radius. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_height

========================

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200310 … _sys.shtml

Heavy elements may also have a tendency to increase in concentration in a supernova remnant, similar to the solar system, or the ore in a mine.
The lighter elements get blown faster, leaving the dense behind.

Shockwaves from 2 supernova or black hole activity might accenuate the process.
Velocity at same temperature is inversely proportional to square root of mass.

srmeaney · 2006-04-18 20:09:12

No Mars terraformation on such high price. How these $15 000 000 000 000 000 000 USD ( or $ 100 000 USD per square meter!!!!!!!! ) will compete with the space colony construction cost which will cost only about 40-50 tonnes of dirt cheap material/mass?

More like a hundred dollars per cubic meter of atmosphere.

ps space station take time to construct. time is cost as much as dollars.
space station for 1 million colonists take lot longer than time to send 10,000,000 people one way to mars.

MarsDog · 2006-04-19 17:14:45

space station take time to construct. time is cost as much as dollars.

You would expect compound interest on your investment.
More than 5 years is long range planning.
So very few space projects are economically viable in the short term.

Immediate return is in reputation and public relations.

srmeaney · 2006-04-21 07:35:18

space station take time to construct. time is cost as much as dollars.
You would expect compound interest on your investment.
More than 5 years is long range planning.
So very few space projects are economically viable in the short term.
Immediate return is in reputation and public relations.

Unfortunately it would take a hundred years to orbit the materials needed to construct a space station for a self sustainable colony with a 1,000,000 colonist support capacity.
It would take away from the ten million who could be sent to Mars in the same time and cost.

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