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#1 2004-06-28 12:06:21

MarsDog
Member
From: vancouver canada
Registered: 2004-03-24
Posts: 852

Re: Terraforming Jupiter - The Gas has to Go

Have self replicating robot balloons fire the atmosphere to a moon of Jupiter, leaving the solid core behind. Then shoot parts of the solid core to form earth sized planets at convenient locations of the solar system. Recover some of the gas to fine tune other atmospheres.
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We could have at least 3 twin planets.
I wonder what would a geosynchronous Earth and its twin bahave like ?

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#2 2004-06-29 05:42:23

karov
Member
From: Bulgaria
Registered: 2004-06-03
Posts: 953

Re: Terraforming Jupiter - The Gas has to Go

For terraforming Jupiter, as well other gass giants and indeed, EVERY body with surface gravity stronger than 1 G (even the Sun itself, the giant stars, black holes, pulsars, etc) the best way is creating supraplanetary terraformed shell around the body on altitude where thee SG drops to 1 G (or lower). This shell ( 310 earth surface areas for Jupiter) is dynamically supported by rotating underneath it 'orbital rings'.
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See "Supramundane habitats+" thread or directly http://www.paulbirch.net]www.paulbirch.net for "Supramundane planets"...
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http://www.sfwa.org/members/Nordley/Gra … ravity.pdf

, from here - atitarev post the link in the ''Mercury terraforming" thread - you could find how 'twin geosinchronous planets' , if close enough, might look. Look at , say, http://www.wikipedia.com]www.wikipedia.com for the Jupiter moon Amalthea`s form and major-axial orientation and at the end of the Nordley`s study about the invented by Larry Niven (genious in world-biulding!!!) planet of Jinx. The very close to certain central body moons (which is the same in case of equal mass planets rotating eachother) tend to be not only tidaly locked but also tidaly streched ( so called 'Roche`s lobe') -- with form of rugbey balls -- the surface gravity on them in non-uniform... the closest and the farthest parts are with very low G and could rise in the vacuum - indeed very convinient low-g, low-presure land-accesible link to the space with lots of industrial and transport advantages.
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I agree that Jupiter is the most important reservoir of matter and energy except the Sun in the System. But dismantleing it is not the most efficient way of utilizing its vast resourses. As a orbiting and fast rotating huge mass it contains really enormous accessible and usable power in its celestail dynamics. A shell around it could be provided with all the necessary energy for industry and biosphere for billions of years only by slowly despining the planet, without the Sun income. The dismantle will need millennias of the total solar output in order the whole enormous planet`s mass to be extracted out of the biggest in the system gravity well.  The account 310 to 6 in surface area gain in earth units, speaks clearly about the economicity of dismantle vs. shell-it.
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But, we see that in the nearest star systems there are jovian and often superjovian planets too much sinked to their central stars. Very dangerous proximity for shelling+parasoling the terraformed new surface. There are methods (ask again Paul Birch) for mutuial spining and shifting of planets and stars. 'Simply' for increase/decrease the spin or the hight of the orbit communicate the momentum to other body. Thus a moon could be deorbited on acount of increasing the rotation rate of the planet, a star could be mined on account of sinking more useless mass in it. A jovian planet could be pushed in higher orbit on account of the stellar axial spin or just, by returning of the comets from the Oort cloud -- reverse process of gravity assist which perhubs led the giant to such close orbit. The excess of non-structural-material mass as H and He, could be traded for both momentum transfer and staller mining of usefull chemicals (CHON, Fe, Si...) with the central star.

Please, pay attention: In the CELESTIAL MECHANICS within the solar system is confined ENORMOUS amount of gravitational potential energy, comparable with the total output o the Sun itself for suignificant part of its activity!!!

So, if yo0u want to dismantle and produce smaller bodies (say for aesthetical reasons, or lack of other convinient and accessible source...) than there is a way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesklin]ht … ki/Mesklin

, even the gass giants could be spin so fast , to become so oblate that on the equator their gravity to become almost 0 gees. Afterwards the dismantle is more than easy... The spinning as I said could be done by importing rotational momentum from outer moving or rotating source, or by 'Dyson motor' -- an array of satelites in fluctuating orbits which ellectromagneyically to import the momentum (a scheme also proposed for spinning Venus).
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My firm oppinion is that wise civilization would dismantle only as a shortcut mechanism for utilising the gravitational reservoir of energy of any system.

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