Mercury

Void · 2015-02-03 12:27:53

Mercury,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)

Advantages:

1) Magnetic field about the size of the planet Earth. Not a continuous and complete protection, but some protection.

2) Atmosphere
Surface pressure (trace)
Composition
42% molecular oxygen
29.0% sodium
22.0% hydrogen
6.0% helium
0.5% potassium
Trace amounts of argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, xenon, krypton, and neon

Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; it does have a "tenuous surface-bounded exosphere"[58] containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and others. This exosphere is not stable—atoms are continuously lost and replenished from a variety of sources. Hydrogen and helium atoms probably come from the solar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space. Radioactive decay of elements within Mercury's crust is another source of helium, as well as sodium and potassium. MESSENGER found high proportions of calcium, helium, hydroxide, magnesium, oxygen, potassium, silicon and sodium. Water vapor is present, released by a combination of processes such as: comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water out of hydrogen from the solar wind and oxygen from rock, and sublimation from reservoirs of water ice in the permanently shadowed polar craters. The detection of high amounts of water-related ions like O+, OH−, and H2O+ was a surprise.[59][60] Because of the quantities of these ions that were detected in Mercury's space environment, scientists surmise that these molecules were blasted from the surface or exosphere by the solar wind.[61][62]

3) Polar areas have water ice.

4) Lots of metals.

Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material

5) Lots of solar energy.

6) Natural shelter; Along with the magnetic field, there are the polar craters which contain ice, and obviously are cold. Some additional protection from radiation, particularly from the sun.

So, I speculate on an economy where head hunters find people on Earth who are reasonably promising. They would then be hired for a job, they could buy a home in a synthetic gravity world, and have a mortgage on it.
The base of the industrial activity would be to mine Mercury and build real estate for more settlers. The sponsoring organization would then collect income taxes, and of course mortgage payments.

The one way transport of a humans would be expensive, but I do believe that the costs for that are likely to continue going down over time.

The reason I think this is a good choice;
1) I think that at a time when Earth is running out of many minerals, Mercury and the Asteroid belt could provide them.
2) Automation/Robots will be very sophisticated during that same era.
3) As mentioned the cost of a human transfer will be lower and lower I expect.
4) A community of habitats in the approximate location of Mercury would be very able to use solar driven means to travel amongst themselves.
5) Something that many may hate is that if you had a ring of habitats approximately at the orbit of Mercury, you could support cycling spaceships to many outer locations.
6) It may be possible to harvest quite a few substances from the Exosphere of Mercury.
7) Human life span may be extended to 1000's of years (Useful for interstellar flight).

I wonder if you were to disassemble Mercury, if you could dig very large and deep holes at it's poles, and if that could be an advantage. It seems to me that it would also be reasonable to consider if habitats could be built on the surface or under the surface at such locations.

Not a real aggressive form of terraforming, but sort of.

Of course this could not happen without something also being done with Mars, but Mercury might be the real wealth maker.

And yes, I have an eye on interstellar travel. To supply energy to it.

It is notable that Alpha Centauri may have a very hot planet the size of Earth. Hotter than Mercury.

Who knows, with advanced machines/robots, even that might be the basis for a civilization, if humans/machines learn how to work with Mercury.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-03 12:33:57)

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-02-04 07:51:59

Void wrote:

Mercury,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)
Advantages:
1) Magnetic field about the size of the planet Earth. Not a continuous and complete protection, but some protection.
2) Atmosphere
Surface pressure (trace)
Composition
42% molecular oxygen
29.0% sodium
22.0% hydrogen
6.0% helium
0.5% potassium
Trace amounts of argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, xenon, krypton, and neon
Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; it does have a "tenuous surface-bounded exosphere"[58] containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and others. This exosphere is not stable—atoms are continuously lost and replenished from a variety of sources. Hydrogen and helium atoms probably come from the solar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space. Radioactive decay of elements within Mercury's crust is another source of helium, as well as sodium and potassium. MESSENGER found high proportions of calcium, helium, hydroxide, magnesium, oxygen, potassium, silicon and sodium. Water vapor is present, released by a combination of processes such as: comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water out of hydrogen from the solar wind and oxygen from rock, and sublimation from reservoirs of water ice in the permanently shadowed polar craters. The detection of high amounts of water-related ions like O+, OH−, and H2O+ was a surprise.[59][60] Because of the quantities of these ions that were detected in Mercury's space environment, scientists surmise that these molecules were blasted from the surface or exosphere by the solar wind.[61][62]
3) Polar areas have water ice.
4) Lots of metals.
Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material
5) Lots of solar energy.
6) Natural shelter; Along with the magnetic field, there are the polar craters which contain ice, and obviously are cold. Some additional protection from radiation, particularly from the sun.
So, I speculate on an economy where head hunters find people on Earth who are reasonably promising. They would then be hired for a job, they could buy a home in a synthetic gravity world, and have a mortgage on it.
The base of the industrial activity would be to mine Mercury and build real estate for more settlers. The sponsoring organization would then collect income taxes, and of course mortgage payments.
The one way transport of a humans would be expensive, but I do believe that the costs for that are likely to continue going down over time.
The reason I think this is a good choice;
1) I think that at a time when Earth is running out of many minerals, Mercury and the Asteroid belt could provide them.
2) Automation/Robots will be very sophisticated during that same era.
3) As mentioned the cost of a human transfer will be lower and lower I expect.
4) A community of habitats in the approximate location of Mercury would be very able to use solar driven means to travel amongst themselves.
5) Something that many may hate is that if you had a ring of habitats approximately at the orbit of Mercury, you could support cycling spaceships to many outer locations.
6) It may be possible to harvest quite a few substances from the Exosphere of Mercury.
7) Human life span may be extended to 1000's of years (Useful for interstellar flight).
I wonder if you were to disassemble Mercury, if you could dig very large and deep holes at it's poles, and if that could be an advantage. It seems to me that it would also be reasonable to consider if habitats could be built on the surface or under the surface at such locations.
Not a real aggressive form of terraforming, but sort of.
Of course this could not happen without something also being done with Mars, but Mercury might be the real wealth maker.
And yes, I have an eye on interstellar travel. To supply energy to it.
It is notable that Alpha Centauri may have a very hot planet the size of Earth. Hotter than Mercury.
Who knows, with advanced machines/robots, even that might be the basis for a civilization, if humans/machines learn how to work with Mercury.

If we could build a giant solar powered Laser, and accelerate a light sail towing an interstellar Ark to 10% of the speed of light, we could send it to the red giant Gacrux and the natural light alone, coming from that star, should be enough to slow it down to a complete stop. The habitable zone of Gamma Crucis can be found in AU by taking the square root of its luminoscity on Solars. The square root of 1500 times the luminoscity of the Sun is 38.7298 AU, almost out to the mean distance of Pluto's orbit. Out here there will be plenty of red sunlight, plenty of materials to build with, as the red giant blows out its outer atmosphere, we could build all sorts of things with this stellar material, and Gacrux does all the work! There probably is a lot of asteroids and comets, and plenty of reddish sunlight to grow plants under in enclosed habitats. We just need to survive the 880 year voyage to get there. Perhaps we could cut it down to 440 years at 20% of the speed of light or 220 years at 40% of the speed of light, and make use of magsails to slow down against ionized gases that are probably surrounding the red giant. I don't know how many people the Gamma Crucis system could support, but it should be 1500 times the maximum carrying capacity of our Solar System., and a red giant in its final stages could last millions of years, and this particular type dies slow, it blows out its outer layers and its core contracts to a white dwarf, not a supernova!

Void · 2015-02-04 08:53:39

So, I am currently infatuated with Mercury, and you see it as a pathway to "Gamma Crucis".

That's fine. Interstellar pathways are secondary to my purposes, but it is always good to have a "And then what?". It helps the now to be structured in a pattern which might be favorable to a speculated future. Avoids Cul-de-sac situations.

And then I would make the point that gravitation for Mars and Mercury is roughly similar. Therefore many lessons learned for Mars will be applicable to Mercury.

To further support the idea, the methods of SpaceX to land boosters on their tail ends, should be most suitable to Mercury. A lesser gravitation, and no real atmospheric breaking will make it different, but I am guessing that it would work well for Mercury.

In my previous post I mentioned manufacturing real estate. Of course this is an appeal to the human desire for property and domain. And it also calls to the instinct to nest and procreate. So, here I am attempting to manipulate our stone age interior architecture, which happens to actually be important, if you want a species that perpetuates it's kind. I wouldn't mind swinging on a star and carrying moonbeams home in a jar, and what's wrong with being better off than you are?

So, humans manipulate humans (And pets, and farm animals), and they manipulate objects. Above I have addressed a method to manipulate humans to cause them to see benefit, wealth, and purpose potential for Mercury.

Now the Object manipulation.

A rough estimate would be that if I had the material to build an object to manipulate a stream of energy, I might get 16 times more energy at Mercury than I would at Mars, in a given time period. This creates a bias, where I might prefer to do my manipulations of objects in the area of Mercury rather than Mars, since I might get more potential.

(Obviously Mars will come first though. Lessons learned from Mars will benefit a later effort for Mercury).

As far as the materials available at each location, they are approximately the same varieties, but of course Mercury is much more tilted towards metals. We typically incorporate a lot of metals into our machines, but of course Mars could do more with plastics which is also very important. But the environment of Mercury on average will be much less friendly to plastics than metals.

If all of Mercury were the same, where a long period of time under intense heat from the sun is followed by a long period of frigid dark, then I would not be so optimistic. However as with the Moon, but even better polar craters will offer protection from the heat, and materials other than metals. It should be possible to "Pipe" in energy from sunlit portions of Mercury into those locations, and those locations should be great places to seek shelter relative to the rest of Mercury.

I presume that an electromagnetic launch system will be possible but not necessarily easy. But it might be noted that cold shadowed locations might be a good place for the needed magnets to operate. Mastering that and being able to launch materials, I presume that Mercury has the 5 "L" locations, where perhaps assembly of "Real Estate" could occur. Those being finished, they could be pushed out into a solar orbit. I have presumed that it would be possible to build them in such a fashion that they would provide good dwelling space for humans, and that would be desired.

A fun question is "How deep could you dig the holes at the poles before they would collapse?". I don't know. Could you dig them deep enough that an atmosphere could be in them? Mercury already has a variable Exosphere, and of course a magnetic field. I don't think such polar atmospheres are much more than a whim, even if it could be done, but some people are much more comfortable with a conventional concept of a sky above, and running water, Etc. So, I mentioned it for the entertainment value, and also to manipulate you as well.

Protect the Earth from overheating, build lots of real estate, and build cities at the poles of Mercury, and the perhaps eventually to support interstellar travel. What's not to like?

Last edited by Void (2015-02-04 09:22:25)

Void · 2015-02-04 09:26:55

This part is surely for entertainment, and is Sci Fi.

Could you carve Mercury into a toroid doughnut, with an atmosphere where the doughnut hole is. Of course that does not seem like it would be stable, and also you would destroy the magnetic core.

But could you go partway in that direction? Actually cutting into the Mantle, and maybe even the outer core? Shape would matter. In such a non-spherical object, then local gravity vs total gravity/far gravity might determine if the shape could hold. Obviously no such thing could be done unless the excavated materials were of value, such as in building solar orbiting habitats. You could also combine this notion with partial shell domes to cover the tops of the holes. No more fantastic than the notion of a shell world.

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 10:30:10

Elsewhere I did propose something for Mercury. I had suggested settling without terraforming. Mercury has lots of metal, and lots of solar energy. The 88 day sunlight followed by 88 day darkness would have provided bake/freeze cycles to concentrate certain minerals. Hopefully there will be concentrated veins of metal, ideal to mine. I'm thinking particularly of gallium and indium. The top junction of current triple junction photovoltaic cells for space are gallium-indium-phosphate. And there's the new photovoltaic cell published in an academic paper in year 2000: gallium-indium-nitride. You couldn't use photovoltaic on Mercury itself, the cells would melt. But Sterling engine solar thermal generation would work fine. And solar can be concentrated by a parabolic mirror for a furnace to smelt metal.

Build underground for protection from heat and radiation. Mine for 88 days during sunlight, then shut down for 88 days of darkness. Set up two mines on opposite sides of the planet, so the operation moves personnel from one mine to the other every 88 days. Build an underground greenhouse with artificial light. Yes, I argued for surface greenhouse with ambient light on Mars, but that's Mars. On Mercury build it underground with artificial light. A farmer/janitor would remain to tend crops continuously.

Economy: I object to income tax. I have a serious plan to abolish federal personal income tax for Canada. Got involved with one of the major political parties to seriously push the idea. So don't want to hear of income tax on another planet. Instead let a large corporation build the two mines. No taxes, instead just corporate operations. Either sell the metals on Earth, or use the raw material for Earth manufacturing of solar panels.

And yes, I have visions of the vast majority of new houses on Earth built with roofs entirely composed of solar panels with integrated photovoltaic and solar thermal, windmill in the back yard, geothermal heat pump, and batteries in the basement. Add good insulation, but just modern house insulation and weather sealed, air heat exchanger, and some passive solar features such as a solarium. The result is houses that are entirely energy independent, and sell surplus power to the grid. Lower income from selling power in winter, most in summer, medium in summer/autumn. At least in norther climates. Southern California may have the seasons reversed. This would work with houses, and low buildings with a large roof such as shopping malls, but wouldn't work with towers such as office towers or apartment buildings. So there is a customer to buy the power. And Manitoba current sells electricity to Minnesota, who sells power to California. I raise this because that creates a massive market for photovoltaic cells. Where do you get all that gallium and indium? From Mercury? Green environment on Earth, supplied by space mining?

So yes, when environmentalists complain we need to focus on Earth instead of "wasting" money on space, part of my argument is to go green by going to space. Another argument is to mine gold, silver, platinum, and platinum group metals from asteroids. Shift mining to space, make Earth a garden planet. Of course it may never be economical to shift mining iron/steel or low cost industrial metals to space. But precious metals and rare metals gallium and indium? Why not? Part of my attempt to diffuse the anti-space activists.

Wasn't there an episode of "Flash Gordon" entitled "Mines of Mercury"?

Void · 2015-02-04 11:38:24

Your thinking is sound. However, I simply don't get involved in anti tax politics. I figure it is easier.

Your plan does not consider that there is "Farmer" class, that regards us as farm animals, and they are not going to go away. It is part of a predatory ecology.

Wood was once a critical war material (You could forge weapons by burning it, make ships, etc). Peasants could not own trees. If they cut one down they would suffer a maiming the first time, death the second time.

After that the cartels owned the coal. Then the Oil.

Edison and Ford had a plan to build a rural based economy with electric cars and windmills. It required a battery which Edison created. When it was tested (The battery) it was purposely not charged up, and a vast news campaign was put in place to say it did not work.
Edison's labs mysteriously burned down. Ford withdrew from the deal. He must have gotten the hint.

You used to be able to take electric street cars from Minnesota to the east coast. That all got torn up and replaced with internal combustion engine busses.

Here in America we pioneered high speed electric trains. At the point where it was about to pay off, it was scrapped and a man was allowed to salvage the copper and sell it off. The trains could generate power when going down a mountain.

The point is they want us to burn the fuels that they own, and want to sell us. Period.

They like a free ride (Just for them).

Oil prices plunged? Get rid of that alternative energy.

They also like centralized control. Hence their attempts to turn the internet into television.

Do I care a lot? Not really. I have done OK. I just want to make sure that you don't spend your life tilting at windmills.

The social architecture is a real thing, just like mountains.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-04 11:40:41)

Void · 2015-02-04 11:43:32

I liked your post where it concerned Mercury. I think Mercury is an undervalued planet.

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 15:31:53

Tax: My plan for Canada. Treat the federal debt as a mortgage; once completely gone, abolish federal personal income tax. EI & CPP premiums (Canadian equivalent to Social Security) pay for those programs, so they have to stay. No increase, no decrease, no change what so ever. Provincial tax is under authority of provincial governments, so anyone who wants to change that has to talk to their provincial politicians. This plan doesn't change that. Some provinces have a healthcare premium; that's also provincial so this plan doesn't change that. The only thing this does change: look at your pay stub. Look at the box that says "federal income tax". That will be gone, and your paycheque will be that much bigger because it simply won't be deducted. At the time I first proposed this, spending did not have to be cut, and no other taxes had to be increased. The GST (federal sales tax) and corporate income tax had to be frozen at the level they were at that time (during the campaign for the 2006 election). Corporate capital tax could go, and corporate surtax could go, but corporate income tax itself had to be frozen. Shift tax on dividends from personal income tax to corporate income tax, so when we abolish personal income tax, dividends will stay taxed. And the GST Credit (aka GST Rebate) would change from a cheque mailed every 3rd month to a line item added to your paycheque, and the total you get per year doubled. Employers would net it out with income tax withholding. Yes, this means off-loading expense of running the GST Credit system to employers, and passing the cost saving to employees. But when federal personal income tax is abolished, the GST Credit will go too. And when federal personal income tax is gone, the personal income tax division of the Canada Revenue Agency will drastically shrink. Some personnel will be required to collect back taxes outstanding, but with no further tax returns, this means massive layoffs. If provincial governments want to keep provincial personal income tax, then they will have to pay for collecting it.

I said this didn't require any cut to spending. To be fair, all the new spending promises from the November 2005 fiscal update would have to be postponed by 2 or 3 years. Probably 3. But the opposition parties voted against the fiscal update; that was considered a non-confidence vote and is what caused the election. So we could blame them. But it's been so many years since then that if the party I belong to had been re-elected in January 2006, then all those spending promises would have happened by now. And we would be 9 years into a 16 year debt repayment plan. But we didn't win the election. The other party got in. And they cut GST and corporate income tax. To do this now, we would have to raise GST and corporate income tax to the level they were on election day 2006. No higher than that. And we would have to cut spending to restore the surplus, get the mortgage started. The other party through us back into deficit, not only raised the debt back to its previous all-time high, but increased it even further. Despite this, if we start with a larger surplus, we can cut the debt repayment schedule to 15 years instead of 16. During the election of 2011, I calculated if we don't touch federal spending for healthcare or social programs, but cut everything else to the level of the 2005 budget, then apply inflation to the year we're elected, that would be all that's required. Today, that other party is talking about spending cuts, but they've increased spending so much that we would only have to cut spending by half that amount. That is, don't touch healthcare or social programs, calculate inflation for the rest from 2005 to this year, then cut spending by half the difference vs the current budget.

Mars (or Mercury): Whenever I even mention the idea of tax on Mars, individuals look at me like I just crawled out from under a rock. "Tax on Mars!" They expect no tax, and demand no tax. That's the point of leaving Earth.

I'm not saying the "corporation" owns all of Mercury. If an individual has the resources to set up his own mining operation on Mercury, then go for it. No tax, but really no support either. You're on your own.

Void · 2015-02-04 15:50:00

Well, if I were to live in a townhouse, I would have to pay an association fee. This is money to be paid into a common purse.

That money can be spent well or poorly depending on the administration.

I don't see how collective actions can be done by a collection of people, unless there is a common purse, and people put in charge of administering the spending of the money. Then you get into the issue, of what is my fair share to pay into the common purse?

Anyway, on a technical end, I would like to propose a method of construction, which might work well for the shadowed craters of Mercury.
I am just looking for feedback.

Igloo construction involves a method of stacking snow blocks into a dome structure.

I am wondering if such blocks could be made from metals. That is hollow metal blocks, and I presume a method to stack them into domes, and to weld the metal of course and use other means to join them into a common structure, and to create a vacuum barrier.

On Mercury you would already have the magnetic field, and the hollow of the crater on your side where radiation was concerned.

On the outside of the metal igloo, you could attach mineral wool or fiberglass insulation, to provide thermal stability. But of course this would also add a little radiation protection.

Blocks of metal or stone could be added appropriately to add radiation protection.

Finally, if the domes were trustworthy, and large enough, perhaps stone houses could be built inside them to give a final radiation protection part of the time.

Anyway, I am thinking that a large 3D printer, or perhaps automation could build several types of these metal blocks (Mass production if automation, sufficient production if 3D printer).

So essentially you get your robot/automation/3D printer crew to preform a very repetitive task, and build many of these blocks.

Then by object manipulation directed by human minds or the equivalent or better, construct these igloo structures, stacking one block at a time. Welding them together as needed and appropriate.

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 16:01:02

In Canada, over 90% of revenue for the federal government comes from 3 taxes: personal income tax, corporate income tax, and GST. Once the debt is completely gone, we can afford to abolish one of those 3 taxes, but only one. I did two internet polls on Canadian political websites. Results were consistent: 66% voted to abolish income tax, 30% to abolish GST, and 4% corporate. I went door-to-door in December 2005 and January 2006 to campaign for the federal election. One point I raised with some voters was to pay off the debt, then completely abolish GST. Every Liberal voter and most Conservative voters said no, that's the wrong tax, abolish income tax instead. Ok, harder to do, but I took that as an assignment and came up with a way to do it. Above is what I came up with. So the online poll was consistent with what I heard door-to-door.

Void · 2015-02-04 16:55:01

Well perhaps we can make peace if I state:

"RobertDyck and his Manitoba Like-Kind may set up whatever type of common purse they wish to, if they can fend off predators that want to exploit them". (There is really not much I can do about that).

I might throw a beer bottle at your deviant space habitat though.

I do make a note that if I had an income of $100,000.00/yr, and the feds took 20,000.00 of it and then the income tax was replaced by a corporate tax, I could live as well on a $80,000.00 job. I would compete in a job market with other people who did not need as much money, and eventually my job would pay $80,000.00 / year, and the corporation would pay $20,000.00 / year on my behalf.

Granted it might get rid of a lot of administrative costs. However the tax system also exists to collect information on what people are doing.
Very similar to buying an item with a "Rewards Card" in a drug store or gas station. They are collecting info there as well.

Along with the use of computers, this gives those empowered tools to outsmart the public. But that is a whole nother matter.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-04 16:55:52)

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 17:57:41

The current Canadian administration abolished the long-form census. My party has objected to this. I would restore the long-form census. And every Canadian I've asked has said they would be willing to fill out the long form census if that meant they could get rid of income tax.

Last time I checked, the budget was $3 billion per year for the Canadian Revenue Agency. When I mentioned this plan on the official website of the candidate in my riding (electoral district) during the election, the Canada Revenue Agency made a statement that they are now talking to the provinces about collecting provincial taxes. The taxation centre for Manitoba is in my riding. Following that, during the election campaign, the leader of the other party (now prime minister of Canada) went on Canadian national TV to announce that the Canada Revenue Agency "only cost" $2 billion per year. Ok. Even though I was only a campaign worker (primary campaign worker) for a riding in which our party has come 3rd every election since the riding was created, so I was a nobody in the middle of nowhere, this idea got major attention. But since the CRA gets $3 billion total, but Stephen Harper said $2 billion, that tells me how much goes to collecting personal income tax. I didn't know the proportion before that. So this will save $2 billion per year, in a country with 1/10th the size of the United States. That's a major cut to administration cost.

Another point: the current government cancelled the last cut to personal income tax by the previous administration. The November 2005 fiscal update cut personal income tax by 0.5%. As I said, the 2006 election was caused by opposition parties voting against that fiscal update. Some people claim this doesn't count, but I say it does. Then a year later they brought back that same 0.5% cut. Cancel a cut and bring it back? That's not a cut. But the cut corporate taxes. Now the tax rate for the lowest income bracket for personal income tax is 15%, and corporations also pay 15%. So someone who lives below the poverty line pays income tax at the same rate as a multi-billion dollar corporation. That's sick!

Void · 2015-02-04 22:23:33

As long as the moderators do not object, I guess I will continue with the economic dialog, hoping to tie it to the topic of this thread eventually.

I see that you have emphasized your local and national Identity. I see value in the fact that Canada and other non-American (USA) peoples with Anglo/Quebecker/First Nations; Anglo imprints, can be able to do something different than what we do. That is the original notion of the States anyway, so that various people can try different things, and if it works, to some extent others may wish to try it as well.

Not very likely that we would try it here, as our Feds, not only seek to administer the states, but also have a major activity doing what ever it is various places. They want that money, and they want that control, and I am not stupid enough to think that their wishes can be ignored. Not at this time anyway.

There are some very exciting sciences that are being improved, because some of the activity can be moved to such locations where our somewhat irrational process cannot snuff them out easily.

I am all for America, (Since I am one, or so far I believe). But we are in a cultural winter, with culture wars, and there is a lot of nuttyness going around. It should be over by 2025, but until then, I think that their are too many nit-wits in positions of power who could damage such things for irrational reasons.

And of course I also look forward to what other places can contribute. Europe, China, Russia, etc.

As for importing minerals from Mercury to support solar power here, I guess I had not thought of that. OK then, fine, good stuff.

However, you can expect the Hydrocarbon industry to resist as long as they can. That will continue until the cartel people own the renewable energy methods, and can then impose a barrier between you and that, so that they can charge you for it.

The game is to find out what you need/want, take it away from you, and then sell it back to you.

I think that if the greenhouse effect is true, or if their is some other feature such as release of Methane from a source, the Earth could heat up, and it might be reasonable to consider if a large collection of habitats made from the materials of Mercury could be of use. I can say that if indeed it becomes possible to move large amounts of population from Earth to hollow solar orbiting habitats, that would then reduce the use of resources on Earth.

As for shading the Earth, I guess that would have to be a lot of habitats. But really whats wrong with that. If an economy that could build one were to come into being, and it built them without trying to tap the treasuries of nations of Earth, then why couldn't it make a million or more of them?

The only problem which comes with this might be that various entities that wish to sell things to humans on Earth, and wish to collect revenues from them might have a declining tax base. But then if the Earth is deteriorating in the manner that the Global Warming fanatics insist it will, then there will be a lot of unfortunate people who would not be able to generate wealth, so giving them a way out of poverty might be a reasonable plan.

And then I suppose the people that want to sell you things, and tax you will be out there anyway, so at that point that general group will not be so much in favor of keeping the human race as their money generating captives on Earth.

A further development will be life span extension. I actually believe that they are going to pull it off. I think it will be sooner than we think. In that case I am not so worried about overpopulation from it (I think that will be OK), but rather I think it will be good to give the human population an adventure, and resources to build advancement of the human race. I expect a materialistic wave in culture anyway.

And apparently you might approve, what else will be expected is a narrowing of the wealth difference between the economic classes in the USA at least. That would not occur because I might say it would, it is expected by those who believe in cycles (The fourth turning).

Anyway, I think that Mercury can be considered after Mars. After that if people really want to try to turn Venus into another Earth, then metals from Mercury could aid in that. I am not necessarily in favor of terraforming Venus in that way, but I am not a ruler of such things.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-04 22:57:37)

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 23:13:09

This does tie in with Mars. One question was why go to Mars? What's the point? And we did explore various government scenarios. One reason people who don't belong to the Mars Society say they like the idea of Mars, is to get away from tax and overbearing government bureaucracy. Since we don't appear to be making any progress toward Mars, I thought I could try to achieve at least some of those goals here on Earth. In the country where I live. I can't get rid of all tax, but getting rid of income tax is a big one. But it isn't all Mars. Since I was in high school in the late 1970s and university in the early 1980s, I had desired lower taxes by controlling government spending and paying off the debt. When Paul Martin became finance minister and actually started to do that, I got excited. I hoped to achieve the ultimate: completely abolish one major tax.

I did write letters to the provincial Education Minister about my ideas for post secondary education. Ideas I had when I was in university. But I can articulate them better now. This started when the leader of one major provincial party made a promise as part of his campaign to reduce post secondary tuition, but didn't say how. I was worried he had no idea how. He did get elected, became provincial Premier. Turned out his idea was raid the surplus in the government owned insurance company, that has a legislated monopoly on car insurance. That did not go over at all, so the Minister started to do scramble to find something else. So he finally read my letter. He was so impressed that he had all his deputy ministers do a formal study, then started to implement all major parts. Changed some details, claimed it was his idea, but it got done. Then he got push-back from the largest university. It all got killed. But at least I had an impact.

Canada doesn't have states. We have provinces. That means our federal government has much more authority than the federal government in the US. There are authorities spelled out in Canada's constitution; but the balance is different.

As for income tax: Canada originally did not have any income tax at all. Both personal and corporate income tax were created in 1917 as a temporary tax for World War 1 only. That was the first industrial war, and cost far more than any nation had seen before. The act that created income tax was called the "Temporary War Income Tax" Act. I like to point out the acronym spells "TWIT"; so the TWIT Act created income tax. Some temporary, we still have it today. Canada had federal sales tax since it was a colony, in the 1980s the hodge-podge federal income tax was replaced by the GST. So what I'm proposing is going back to what Canada was. Actually, I'm proposing getting rid of only personal income tax, not corporate. The TWIT Act created corporate as well.

If I may comment on our neighbour to the South: The US used to be a great nation. Since World War 2 it has been on a slow slide into fascism. Under George W. that slide became faster. Obama was hoped to undo much of the damage, but he's been ineffective. If the US wants to clean up its economy, then it has to stop waging war on the world. Stop trying to be a hegemony, and instead be a good world community member. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, they asked the UN Security Council for help. The US lead the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and President George H. W. Bush told General Norman Schwarzkopf to have a clear military objective before he went in. President Bush was worried it would become another Vietnam, that America would get stick. So General Schwarzkopf kicked ass, cleaned up, and went home. Good job! Well done! But some yahoo in Washington just couldn't leave well enough alone. Just had to establish No-Fly-Zones. That was the beginning of everything we have today, including ISIS/ISIL. The people of Arab countries will not be dominated by any foreign power: not the US, not NATO, not the Soviet Union, not Russia, not any historical empire like the British or whatever. They want everyone out! And they're willing to support whoever is effective at doing so. Saddam Hussein was worse than his predecessor. Ql Qaeda was worse. Now ISIS is worse yet. Every tiime you think you've won, something worse crops up. Americans should understand freedom. But freedom means the people there choose the culture and values that they want, not a copy of American culture, or Russian, or anyone else. So out of desperation they cling to anything Arab, anything non-western, even if it's horrific. It's going to get worse.

As for Russia: Putin has pointed out Russia has 2 foreign military bases, but America has dozens. He has a point. He feels threatened. He feels he has to do what he's doing just to defend Russia. So stop threatening. Close American foreign military bases. After all America is broke; has been since 2008. Limping on credit. American economy is starting to recover, but I keep fearing another financial collapse due to overbearing debt. Drastically cut military spending, and start focusing on domestic economy. And stop trying to cut off Russia from high teach weaponry developed and manufactured in eastern Ukraine. That's what this is about. The city of Luhansk manufactures an aircraft detection system capable of detecting, tracking, and targeting stealth aircraft including F-22 fighters. I got this from the Ukraine government website; they said the white trucks with so-called "aid" actually transported small arms ammunition and that aircraft detection system *to* Russia. By the way, the rebels aren't going to run out of ammunition considering a major factory that supplies ammunition to Russia is located there.

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 23:27:57

Global Climate Change is happening, but obviously has been exaggerated. Those who pay attention should have noticed scientists worry about global cooling in the 1960s and early 1970s. There was talk of nuking the poles to warm up Earth. Then a scientist in 1979 noticed global warming, and the data showed it started in 1970. Other scientists were skeptical at first, this was the reverse that everyone was talking about. But data doesn't like. If you look at the long term data, global cooling started with the industrial revolution. Then turned around in 1970. In 2000 or 2001, the rate of global warming slowed. But the planet has been recovering from the last ice age, had been slowly warming naturally. If you track natural warming before the industrial revolution, then draw a straight line showing what the temperature would have been if humans hadn't messed with it, then in 2000/2001 it crosses what actually happened. That means the reason global warming had slowed was the planet had recovered. Soot from coal burning had cooled the planet. In the mid-20th century industry had built tall smoke stacks to direct smoke and soot away. That actually pushed soot into the stratosphere. It took decades for it all to settle out. Based on global temperature, it looks like it did by year 2000. That demonstrates humans do affect the climate, but it also demonstrates the current slow pace is not going to speed up. Furthermore, you can't stop global warming entirely. The planet is still warming out of the last ice age. Many activists think it can be halted entirely. The world is dynamic, will always change. And scientists have determined what the last interglacial period was like. That's what we're headed toward.

Yes, I am saying climate stuff is overblown. Real, but exaggerated. However, we can capitalize on it. My real focus is on making life more livable for average citizens. Reducing cost, ensuring utilities pay homeowners instead of charge them, is far more important. Ensuring durable goods are actually durable, and not throw-away. These are more important. But we can do it all at once. And if the climate change advocates harp on about that one issue, then we can use that for things that are actually important.

RobertDyck · 2015-02-04 23:32:12

Ok, back to technical stuff for Mercury. If we're talking about a remote mining outpost, then it shouldn't be hard to mine out an underground space for living and industry/support. But rather than stack metal blocks like Minecraft, weld metal plates to create a pressure vessel.

Void · 2015-02-05 11:18:00

What attracts me to Mercury is:

Apparently it captures Hydrogen from the solar wind and perhaps comets. It also captures Helium, which could be useful.

It is about the same size as Mars, so some of what will have been done to access Mars will be usable for Mercury.

The energy supply and mineral supply of course.

I suppose I have not considered it as a direct habitat. I did some time ago read SciFi, that indicated a habitation of the Moon where the people simply decided to dig deep, and use the thermal differential to make energy. Not even bother with the surface. I am not thinking we have the energy technology for that at this time.

However as you pointed out, on Mercury, you could dig down many, many caverns. Lots of space. Lots of minerals, Water, Water that is replenished from the solar wind, and perhaps from comets. Lots of energy.

If synthetic gravity is not necessary for human health, then really, very excellent for an offshoot of our cultures, a hedge against the extinction of technological humans on Earth.

Last edited by Void (2015-02-05 12:41:12)

Quaoar · 2015-02-05 14:17:53

I think for Mercury may be good some kind of underground habitat like Asimov's Caves of Steel: we may build it on the poles, with central led array powered by solar panels mounted on peaks of eternal light. The interior can have an Earth like atmosphere with woods and lakes.

Void · 2015-02-05 15:12:21

Actually it has much more to offer than the Moon. The only property of the Moon, that would be more favorable to humans would be proximity to Earth.

I think the methods mentioned would have great potential to support a large number of humans at a high standard of living. Which is really what you want when you hunt for a place to set up shop.

All that's missing is the human transport method, and the proper tool set.

Quaoar · 2015-02-05 16:00:59

Void wrote:

Actually it has much more to offer than the Moon. The only property of the Moon, that would be more favorable to humans would be proximity to Earth.
I think the methods mentioned would have great potential to support a large number of humans at a high standard of living. Which is really what you want when you hunt for a place to set up shop.
All that's missing is the human transport method, and the proper tool set.

For the moment the best suited for a large colony is the Orion Drive, but in a future, investing on it, I think we can build a miniaturized version with magnetic nozzle and mini-pulse unit with a laser driven hohlraum or a magnetic compression (mini mag Orion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Mag_Orion ) as a primary and fusion-fission hybrid as secondary and tertiary.

This will have less political problems, because the pulse units cannot be considered bombs, needing an external device to implode.

Actually laser are very inefficent, but there are some interesting research in high efficiency laser that reach 75% of optical power conversion.

http://phys.org/news/2011-05-scientists … laser.html

Last edited by Quaoar (2015-02-05 16:10:46)

Void · 2015-02-06 07:59:46

Thanks Quaoar

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mercury

Some stuff on the exploration of, and problems of exploring Mercury.

Stable orbits of Mercury are a problem? I wonder about "L" locations? It sort of suggests you put all your stuff on Mercury itself, or you eject materials from the orbit of Mercury to construct facilities that orbit the Sun itself.

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-02-15 10:57:06

the lagrange locations are constantly shifting, because the distance between Mercury and the Sun is constantly changing. I think L2 is the most attractive. As for colonizing Mercury, the poles are the most attractive places. The advantages of Mercury are its heavy metals and its proximity to the Sun. Place a Giant Solar collector to convert the excess Solar Energy into electricity, and then let enough leak through to give Mercury a Moon like level of illumination. Of course the collector would have to stay in the L1 point as it draws near and moves farther from Mercury, I think it would rely on radiation pressure to maintain its position.. It would be helpful to block out most of the UV and other nasty stuff.

The next phase would be the importation of volatiles as Mercury doesn't have enough of those. It should be simple to slow down comets and asteroids to fall towards the Sun and hit Mercury. If you get enough of those, you can have an atmosphere like Mars.

Void · 2015-02-15 12:41:46

O.K.

It's not unthinkable, for a future trans human descendent population.

You made me think about it.

Once you did L1, you might as well make it into a space community with synthetic gravity habitats. Then that has to fly in front of Mercury, as you have said, maintaining station with the assistance of solar energy, photons and/or the solar wind.

If they have a desire to simulate Earth on Mercury, then that might be possible.

You have overlooked the magnetic field of Mercury as an asset so far though. I would think with the device being in L1, it could expand more than it is, and between the L1 protection and the Magnetic field, circumstances to keep an atmosphere would be improved. As it is, the magnetic field temporarily captures Hydrogen, and facilitates the formation of water in the Exosphere of Mercury, but a bit of help from comets wouldn't hurt.

The situation on such a terraformed Mercury, would then however depend on good behavior of the inhabitants in L1. Human nature historically tends to foster cultural fracturing, and when that reaches storm level, typically a binary conflict behavior. This is apparently part of our self or directed (From somewhere) crafting/evolution process, to direct the human race(s) to a different character. Non-Adaptive characteristics are reduced, and adaptive characteristics favored.

Perhaps Mercury would be a park/mining planet, which the bulk of people/machines would visit. For mining purposes, the level of terraformation would only be served by Earth desert like conditions. So the amount of water needed would be reduced. Perhaps the poles only would be wet enough for Earth similar environments, and the rest of the planet strip mined.

Void · 2015-02-15 12:56:21

As I was thinking about your post, it came to me also that a more ambitious mode of operation would be to put a ring in solar orbit to serve the same purpose as placing a construction in L1. Obviously then there would be much more solar energy obtained, but also much more of Mercury would have to be mined. Still, this is then a very tiny step towards a Dyson Sphere. Actually for my tastes as much as should be bothered with.

Really how many people should exist anyway? What is optimal for a stable so called civilization. Actually we would not want it to be completely stable, but reasonably progressing, whatever progress is. Social pressures would determine objectives as well as just thinking about it though.

Anyway I was thinking that such a ring could then when it was not shading Mercury project energy to the Ice Giant planets Neptune, and Uranus.
By swelling their atmospheres, it might be possible to capture the atmospheres to orbital machines (Fusion). But perhaps also shattering their moons, by causing them to drag in such an expanded atmosphere and get too close to the primary object. Expand the atmospheres, and then drag a moon closer, contracting the atmosphere by reducing the solar energy, so that when the moon shatters, it is not dragged into the planet.

Or alternately, just dragging the moon close enough so that the balance of gravitation allows easy movement of moon materials into the L1 location? Then however you would have to remove an enormous amount of overburden (Ices) before you got to the metals and silicates.
Triton might be a good candidate I am thinking.

And if you really want to be silly, boil off the atmospheres of Neptune and Uranus to space. But that is wasteful. It would also take an enormous amount of time to do that, and the glowing hot balls of rock would emit enormous amounts of gases for a very long time, and would take quite a time to cool.

Again how many people does a so called civilization need? Granted the more people you have the better chances of a genius, and then everyone can try to copy the work of such a person, but what is a good rate of cultural/technical progression. Can we evolve too fast with technology, and not fast enough in our abilities to co-exist?

A better use would be to consider shattering Triton, and building starships with the materials, spilling humans/machines over the local stellar area. Perhaps if we did that alien civilizations would call an exterminator however. If they didn't, then we would have a polynesian situation where the magnitude of each worlds power would be insufficient to wage a large enough war to make it worthwhile to war on your neighbor solar systems. In such a situation, it is likely that while some worlds would descend into decay due to human demonic domination urges, others would forge on sensibly. Worlds that went extinct or returned to the wild after a period of human demonic domination would then potentially be restarted by their more sensible neighbors. In that way it is possible that some subpart will at some time reach a higher state of being, a progression that would make us as we are seem sub-human. (But we will be long gone, so it won't hurt).

Last edited by Void (2015-02-15 13:07:36)

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-02-15 16:11:04

Mercury could be taken apart to form a "ringworld" without the "world" on its inner side. The entire ring of course would rotate fast enough for artificial gravity, because we would make it out of ordinary materials. if it filled up Mercury's orbit, then it would be an elliptical ring designed to stretch and compress, and bend and unbend as well. The Solar Collector would of course be made of steel, rather than photovoltaics, but steel can be nice and shiny and have a nice mirrorlike surface for reflecting light. If the ringband is wider than the Sun, it could focus light on planets that need it, such as Mars and the Asteroid Belt.

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