Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

SpaceNut · 2005-01-17 06:51:16

If one could move the resources form one place to another where it could be used in large enough quantity to justify it economically speaking then IMO anything is more probable.

srmeaney · 2005-03-18 08:49:21

With the terraforming of titan, the best alternative will be to use methane eating bacteria or nanofungus. If you have ever seen Anthrax under the electron microscope, you might get the idea that it has a useful purpose to it's existance. It will feed off the wet and hostile methane conditions on Titan and change it in a way that is beyond any machine we could hope to produce. It wont be safe to go there but that wasn't going to be an option anyway.
Terraforming Venus on the other hand will require of us nuclear technology. We will need to decay the Sulphur content of the Venusian atmosphere into some other elements. Like Titan it wont be colonisable but it will be a beginning for the emergence of other life.

Terraformer · 2008-01-02 11:55:12

I said in another post that Cees was the easiest body to terraform but I've changed my mind. If we can just get to Titan we only need miniscule changes to Terraform it. The Methane can simply me stored in orbit floating around as ice. We could sell the Methane to the other planets and moons (rocket fuel, good source of Carbon) or use the Carbon to synthesise Oxygen (need to do more study on this). If that isn't practical we can simply electroyze the ice to get Oxygen. A post Terraformed Titan would be arctic but at least we'd be able to live in it. Energy could be beamed from Moons under going Tidal Stress Heating.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-02 14:39:39

To turn Carbon 12 to Oxygen 16, you need to fuse in two alpha particles (Helium-4 Nuclei) losing at least 14.3 MeV (that's a lot) So No go.

Terraformer · 2008-01-02 14:47:50

Well, actually you don't need to do that. Firing an Alpha Radiation wave at a mixture of 1 He atom to 1 Nitrogen atom produces 1 H atom and 1 O atom.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-03 14:58:56

so basically, you're saying accellerate alpha particles (helium nuclei) so that they fuse with the N, and make O?

Even if this was feasible (there's a HUGE energy loss) It would be nearly impossible to set up enough factories to do that.

However, most rocky planets/large moons are at least 30% oxygen (in various oxides) by mass. Just free up a tiny bit of that (possibly extracting some useful ore in the process, a lot of iron and nickel and silicon) and put it into the atmos. Only problem is ther would be almost two bars. Can humans stand 2 bars of pressure forever?

qraal · 2008-01-03 17:37:25

Hi All

If we gave Titan an oxygen rich atmosphere the methane would react with it - not necessarily igniting - and turn it into water and carbon dioxide. The presence of methane will become a non-issue in a few decades once oxygen is around.

Also the ignition point of methane in air is 3.6% by volume. Titan has only about 1.5% methane so its current atmosphere won't ignite even if the oxygen appeared magically in an instant. However methane is a very efficient greenhouse gas and warming the planet up will cause all its methane/ethane lakes to add to that greenhouse effect - the temperature rise would be +50 C (~140 K) with a few bars of CH4 added.

So we'd need to do something with it eventually - perhaps draining the lakes into huge gas tanks for future use.

Terraformer · 2008-01-04 07:26:59

jumpboy11j, the Alpha radiation/Nitrogen reaction is feasible. It's already been done.

And graal, thanks for the info on the ignition point of Methane in air. I've thought of possibly building a space elevator and storing the methane in orbit for using/selling later as a fuel plus Carbon? Good source of Carbon. The space elevator could be constructed using it. An energy source would have to be found (geothermal tidal stress collecters on Enecladus?), and beamed to Titan to draw oxygen into it's atmosphe (photodisassociation already splits water in to H2 and O2) allowing the Hydrogen to escape. Then, without the Methane/Nitrogen reactions causing an anti global warming effect the surface should start to warm. React some of the oxygen with the Methane to get CO2 for planets, then move in. Easy.

qraal · 2008-01-16 06:01:27

Hi Terraformer

I've always liked Titan, especially in its late 1970s version when people imagined that it had 0.5 bar methane and a greenhouse temperature of ~ 155 K or so. Arthur Clarke's Imperial Earth is the best fictional depiction of that Titan, but I don't know too many later depictions that get it straight - Titan is really cold. Stephen Baxter's Titan is the closest, but he needs serious updating as it's not as dreary as he imagined, nor as coated in tholins.

But his imagined terraformed Titan gets a lot of points for getting the issues right - the atmosphere is escaping, the crust is melting (being mostly water) and to have any decent "land" the place has to be cold. All the silicates, bar 4.5 billion years of meteoritic dust, is under hundreds of kilometres of ice and clathrates. Much of that is probably a high pressure version of "mud" - i.e. highly hydrated silicates, perhaps akin to concrete slurry?

Same problem applies to all the icy Galileans and the like - melt them enough to make them nice for Terran style life and the damn things are ALL ocean. So we have to be smart about what we mean by "terraforming" and flexible in how much we're willing to meet our new World halfway. After all if we have planetary scale power sources adequate for terraforming then we can heat whatever habitat volume we like.

If - and it's a big if - Europa has regions of thin ice over its ocean, then potentially the place is already suitable for some forms of advanced terrestrial life (i.e. marine animals.) According to a recent study of Europa's oxidant supplies the ocean probably contains a similar level of oxygen to Earth's oceans. The other Ocean-Moons of the Solar System probably aren't so blessed with free oxygen, but we could change that.

Perhaps, with so many potential habitats to make like Europa, we should be working on better ways of living underwater?

Antius · 2008-01-16 11:07:54

I gave some thought to the idea of terraforming icy worlds. Basically, there is no way of doing this that does not involve planetary engineering on a scale that would dwarf anything required in the terraforming of Mars.

We would need an atmosphere with a much greater column density than Earth's and this would need to be manufactured from local ices. Sunlight at that distance would be too weak to be useful in driving any meaningful ecosystem. We would therefore need artificial illumination of the whole planet. If this took place at ground level, the upper atmosphere would remain at about 30K and this would greatly reduce the problem of atmospheric escape.

The existing surface is ice and would melt if brought to Earth temperatures. One way around this would be to cover the entire world in several metres of crushed rock and dust. The surface temperature of the world could vary greatly over the year, but as long as the average temperature remained a few degrees below zero at all locations, the icy mantle under the thin crust would remain solid. This would allow warm summer temperatures so long as they were matched by bitterly cold winters.

We could raise average temperature above freezing if it were possible to use heat pumps to cool the upper mantle. An enormous pipe network would carry brine into giant heat pumps at a temperature of perhaps -10C, with an exit temperature of perhaps -12C. Heat pumps would reject heat at a temperature of perhaps 10C. We could even allow portions of the crust to melt and form seas in some locations.

Terraformer · 2008-01-16 12:43:08

You could have seas anyway though, maybe. In the Arctic there are still icebergs that aren't melting, even though the sea around is liquid. Say we're aiming for an -80 celcius temp. at ground level. How mush salt is that?

Space elevators built from Carbon taken from the Methane could be used. The excess Hydrogen could be used in the Terraforming of Venus (see relevant thread.)

qraal · 2008-01-17 05:01:16

Hi Terraformer

There's plenty of carbon in the carbon dioxide of Venus, but there's evidence for extensive amounts of the stuff on Titan and Triton. Methane is probably more useful as a greenhouse gas than as a hydrogen or carbon source. Venus needs 98 tons of hydrogen per square metre to convert all its carbon dioxide into elemental carbon and water via the Bosch reaction, if that's what you're thinking. If there's about 5 bars mass equivalent of methane/ethane on the surface of Titan (following Ralph Lorenz's estimates) that's only about 17 tons of hydrogen per square metre spread out on Venus.

There's probably a lot more locked up in Titan as clathrate, but you have to get to it first. I wonder if the heat of Venus re-entry is sufficient to trigger the reaction: CO2 + CH4 => 2C + 2(H2O) , and to keep the equilibrium away from changing back? A line of thought worth investigating. Of course it means Venus is buried in an extra ~ 300 tons of carbon per square metre, but then perhaps it would be the perfect export product for a few hundred years? Might not want a lot of oxygen around all that potential fuel either.

Terraformer · 2008-01-17 05:42:14

Using all that methane is still a good start in terraforming both worlds though?

qraal · 2008-01-17 23:48:20

Hi Terraformer

Using all that methane is still a good start in terraforming both worlds though?

Titan needs to store or get rid of its excess of methane if it is ever to have an oxygen atmosphere. If we can get CO2 and methane to react the right way then it's definitely useful on Venus.

My point is: to totally react with all the carbon dioxide, making oceans and soot/diamond, then the equivalent of 28 bars of methane needs to be found on Titan - maybe it's under the crust, but for sheer convenience I would think shifting a methane rich cometoid might be the way to go. An eccentric Scattered Disk object could be easier to perturb inbound to Venus than haulling mass up from Titan.

Terraformer · 2008-01-19 05:08:07

Check the Terraforming Venus thread. We don't need to react all of Venus' co2, just enough for phytoplankton to work.

Earth holds onto a Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere closer to the Sun, but it has 7 times Titans gravity plus a mag. field.

Gregori · 2008-03-12 07:48:20

Terraforming Titan would be probably dumb.

However, Titan's massive hydrocarbon and water-ice reserves combined with ists low escape velocity make it an incredible resource for human space colonisation. It could be a manufacturing centre for fuel, plastics, water and fertiliser (Haber process uses Nitrogen)

If Fusion power become possible in the future, It might be possible to live in an enclosed settlement on the surface. People might not like to live there so I can imagine robots doing most of the work.

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#51 2005-01-17 06:51:16

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#52 2005-03-18 08:49:21

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#53 2008-01-02 11:55:12

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#54 2008-01-02 14:39:39

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#55 2008-01-02 14:47:50

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#56 2008-01-03 14:58:56

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#57 2008-01-03 17:37:25

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#58 2008-01-04 07:26:59

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#59 2008-01-16 06:01:27

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#60 2008-01-16 11:07:54

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#61 2008-01-16 12:43:08

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#62 2008-01-17 05:01:16

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#63 2008-01-17 05:42:14

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#64 2008-01-17 23:48:20

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#65 2008-01-19 05:08:07

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

#66 2008-03-12 07:48:20

Re: Terraforming Titan - Fate of Methane Atmosphere?

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