Venus First

Gregori · 2008-04-24 04:48:12

Commodore wrote:

Ok, this is descending dangerously close to a political thread, so I expect some of this to be split off there. Never the less, I'm not going give this a free pass...

Oh yeah, cause those people are just working to hand over everything to the state, right? Cause they'll just stay rich forever, no matter how much you tax them. And everyone will still aspire to the high office of goverment cash cow.
Actually, no, history has proven this to be wrong.

Just show me the millionaires that are begging on the street from government taxes, and I'll believe you.

As for the value of space tourism, it has a lot to do with how we structure the program. Economy of scale is the key to everything, as it will make the dollars go farther, and increase the prospect of truly private space travel. The day Bill Gates decides he can afford his own space yacht is the day he decides he can put his servants into space.

A few Bill Gates types in space in a feudal system won't be a very promising model for space tourism. We need to develop a form of mass passenger transport. I reckon we need proper colonies before thats a real prospect. Thats how tourism works in the modern era, a lot of people can afford to go and in bulk.

True business as we know it on Earth is far on the other side of colonization threshold. Beyond some of the more exotic stuff, we have our physical needs covered on Earth. And its incredibly expensive and/or dangerous to bring stuff to the surface. The real advantage of those resources is to mitigate the cost by building everything we need off world.

Yeah, It will help building off world. I've said that loads of times. But thats not all it can do. Unless there are kickbacks for Earth in space colonization, people won't support funding it. Not everybody has there material needs looked after on Earth and some would like more. If its expensive and dangerous, well we need to invest and do the R&D to make it cheap and safe.

To what end exactly? Do you really think you can solve everyones problems?
If you really want tax revenue, teach people how to take care of themselves so that they are not pinching every penny to survive under oppressive taxes.

Oh please... Modern history has shown this to be untrue.
It won't solve all problems, but it will deal with several serious ones.

Space exploration is not a pot luck supper. The more systems the more everything costs. The ISS should have proved that beyond a doubt.

Its doesn't prove jack about co-operation. Simply the ISS was a badly executed project. There lots of better examples of space co-operation. We're people with imagination ,we can work something out that would help slash costs. It can be done, ISS is just not a good example.

That worked so well before.

They haven't tried it before. For the price of the Iraq war, we could have done a Mars Direct Mission several times over. Actually we probably could have went to Mars by the End of the decade instead of 2034. That has to make you just sick. Going to Iraq achieved little but the destruction of the country and pushing up the price of oil.

Washington doesn't want anymore oil, its apparently bad for the environment, and the anti-war party likes the tax revenue the high prices bring. So much so they are trying desperately to make it worse.

The incumbent government are not enviromentalists - I heard they wanted to drill Alaska, the anti-war party aren't in power (If there were such a thing). Rightly so, Washington doesn't want more oil, but it wants to control world energy reserves. Cheney and Bush are making their friends in the oil buisness pretty wealthy.

Commodore · 2008-04-24 12:12:23

Oh yeah, cause those people are just working to hand over everything to the state, right? Cause they'll just stay rich forever, no matter how much you tax them. And everyone will still aspire to the high office of goverment cash cow.
Actually, no, history has proven this to be wrong.
Just show me the millionaires that are begging on the street from government taxes, and I'll believe you.

Millionaires by and large do not get that way by being stupid. If taxes threaten their revenue, they either pass the cost on the the customer or move as much of their operations off shore, in either case everybody loses. Some will also fight back in the political spectrum.

As for the value of space tourism, it has a lot to do with how we structure the program. Economy of scale is the key to everything, as it will make the dollars go farther, and increase the prospect of truly private space travel. The day Bill Gates decides he can afford his own space yacht is the day he decides he can put his servants into space.
A few Bill Gates types in space in a feudal system won't be a very promising model for space tourism. We need to develop a form of mass passenger transport. I reckon we need proper colonies before thats a real prospect. Thats how tourism works in the modern era, a lot of people can afford to go and in bulk.

The investment a private citizen puts into making himself comfortable in space is just as valuable as government R&D, far more applicable to long term colonization than just exploration, and cost the taxpayers nothing.

]
If you really want tax revenue, teach people how to take care of themselves so that they are not pinching every penny to survive under oppressive taxes.
Oh please... Modern history has shown this to be untrue.

How modern do you do you want to go because as late as 2002/3 US tax cuts significantly increased government income because more people were making more money from the money they no longer had to hand over to the goverment. If there was a goverment in existence that could get elected by functioning within its means, it would have run a massive surplus.

To what end exactly? Do you really think you can solve everyones problems?
It won't solve all problems, but it will deal with several serious ones.

The trouble is it tries to graft an insufficient command economy on a free market with a fixed budget. Any change in cost or demand throws the entire system out of whack and the taxpayers pay the price. That hurts revenue, and the entire thing becomes a death spiral.

You either have to put the investment in infrastructure to eliminate that vulnerability and that, or stand back and let the chips fall were they may.

Ironically, while your advocating the reduction of military spending, increasing the size of the military produces logistical requirements that answers most of the issues of providing the necessities, to those who can't do it themselves via mass production while providing opportunities for those who can but somehow "don't".

That worked so well before.
They haven't tried it before. For the price of the Iraq war, we could have done a Mars Direct Mission several times over. Actually we probably could have went to Mars by the End of the decade instead of 2034. That has to make you just sick. Going to Iraq achieved little but the destruction of the country and pushing up the price of oil.

Its a red herring because we were never going to spend the $500billion on anything else, much less Mars.

Washington doesn't want anymore oil, its apparently bad for the environment, and the anti-war party likes the tax revenue the high prices bring. So much so they are trying desperately to make it worse.
The incumbent government are not enviromentalists - I heard they wanted to drill Alaska, the anti-war party aren't in power (If there were such a thing). Rightly so, Washington doesn't want more oil, but it wants to control world energy reserves. Cheney and Bush are making their friends in the oil buisness pretty wealthy.

It wants one thing and one thing only, control of the people and their money. The dirty little secret is the only ones making more money from the price of gas than the oil companies and OPEC is the IRS.

Terraformer · 2008-04-26 04:36:04

Here's my rant.

[rant]

Do you seriously think I was suggesting putting Fake Gravity centrifuges in Venus' atmosphere? Why does everyone here think I'm an idiot? If you'd actually bothered to read my post you'd have known that I was talking about Fake Gravity (note Fake, not artificial) in Space, not in a planetary atmosphere.

Near Space tourism first. Floating Hotels in the stratosphere, that sort of thing. That'll demonstrate to you lot that it is possible to have floating colonies.

But in any case, Marsheads, C-Type asteroids, with Mines on S-Types, are the best form of colonisation due to the amount of Volatiles.

Mars is the worst place I'd contemplate for colonization if I had the budget. That's mainly out of spite for all you Marsheads out there.

Oh, did anyone actually bother to read the wikipedia article on colonization of Venus? Or are you all to fixated on Mars to bother?

[/rant]

Spaniard · 2008-04-26 15:59:54

Terraforming is an unpractical waste of resources. All humans have to is subsist from the resources that are available in the solar system in sustainable and rational way. All we need is enough water to drink, enough air to breate, enough food to sustain.

The idea behind the terraforming is that although we need a lot of resources, energy and time to make it done, when the terraforming will be done, no new resources is needed to sustain the terraforming.
The Earth is in a "eternal" cycle of self recycling. Only energy, our sun, is needed.

And this energy will run out some day. And a lot of time before, the solar system will change to make the life in Earth impossible, if we don't work to change with geoingeniering (perhaps massive, like move planets).

The matter is eternal if we don't transform into energy, so move matter between bodies of the solar system or change the chemical form of this will not exahust the resources.
Terraforming is a great idea but requires that we think like a species, and we works to make a better place in the universe although we and a lot of future generations don't see the results.

louis · 2008-04-27 07:28:00

I certainly agree terraforming requires a long view. It's a bit like planting a line of trees, knowing you will never see the fine view of mature trees.

I think the problem I have with starting now is that we can see that advances in technology over the next 100 years could radically improve our capacity to
terraform. It's seems a bit daft to start on a 500 year process now if in one hundred years time we will be able to terraform in one hundred years.

I think it makes more sense to start with habitats and then move to paraterraforming where we create earth-like environments in large craters or canyons. This will of course require some means of atmospheric retention not yet devised.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-27 09:37:32

Terraforming can be done in decades, not centuries. It's still a long time, but it is within a single human lifetime. One problem getting people to accept terraforming is that they don't realize how quickly it can be done.

Spaniard · 2008-04-27 10:50:19

I think that you are very optimist. Passive or "medium passive" methods like use special gasses on little quantities to generate a possitive feedback that could need centuries only to wait to get the correct temperature. But generete an little percent of gas ammount into an atmosphere, is huge for us. For example, change the CO2 in Earth Atmosphere to change the little quantity of CO2 that out atmosphere contains have required a century, massive process of burning carbons that is easy because generate energy, don't consume it and don't require advanced technology.

And it was burning is all our machines, the machines that work for a population of billions of humans.

Although CO2 have been generated as a waste it could show us, how difficult is any kind of planetary engineering that is some orders of magnitude bigger that change a little the composition of out atmosphere.

With current technology, it could require from thousands to hundred of thousands years to complete a terraforming. Perhaps Mars could be an exception and, if all is in the better case, it could be completed in some hundred of years. We need more investigation to check it.

But things like remove all carbon from venus atmospheres is a lot more complicated.

I think that future technologies could change that, but bring this technologies to reality need time. Only make fusion energy feasible requires now decades, and fusion will be necessary only to make a serius colonization in centuries instead millennia. So terraforming is far, far away.
Perhaps, future technologies like selfreplication machines could change some orders of magnitude to make terraforming feasible. I hope it. But the numbers are really big in any case.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-27 14:13:38

Mars: manufacture full-size chemical factories, each the size of a chemical factory on Earth. Each factory on Mars will convert Mars rocks and atmosphere into greenhouse gasses. It will include fully automated mining equipment, such as loaders, to open-pit mine minerals to feed the factory. Power each factory with a thorium nuclear reactor, since thorium has been proven to be plentiful on Mars. Calculations show this must be accompanied by orbital mirrors. Once all dry ice is sublimated, pressure will be more than sufficient to walk outside without a pressure suit. You'll still need an oxygen mask, though; primarilly CO2 atmosphere.

Venus: genetically enginner an anaerobic archaea (microbe) to thrive in the clouds, and reproduce exponentially. Engineer it to use only elements available in the clouds. Part of its metabolism will convert CO2 into polyanhydride, and excrete it. Once pressure and temperature has dropped to permit rain to reach mountain tops, seed the clouds with cyanobacteria to produce oxygen, and extremophyles on the mountains themselves.

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-27 14:32:04

I believe that venus is a bit short on water. I'm guessing you suggest comets, to be dropped before the whole process begins.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-29 05:08:42

I believe that venus is a bit short on water. I'm guessing you suggest comets, to be dropped before the whole process begins.

Yup

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-04-29 12:13:49

The first thing is to block the sunlight, by placing a large object at L1 such that the diameter of the disk appears the same angular diameter as does the Sun from Venus.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-29 13:47:33

The first thing is to block the sunlight, by placing a large object at L1 such that the diameter of the disk appears the same angular diameter as does the Sun from Venus.

Nope. Too big, too expensive, too unstable.

Do you know how to move a mountain? We can, you know. You move a mountain one shovel full at a time. Miners move mountains all the time, they use big shovels and big trucks but an open pit mine can literally move a mountain. There is a gold mine in Brazil that was mined by hand shovels, it was a small mountain but has been dug so deep it is now a hole as wide and deep as the mountain was. You don't ever try to move a mountain in one piece.

You can remove massive quantities of CO2 with self replicating bacteria. You can add greenhouse gasses to Mars with many chemical factories, each processing one dump truck load of ore at a time. But just as you don't move a mountain in one piece, you don't build a planet size sunshade.

Engineer atmospheric constituents. Once you get the gas mix right, clouds will be your sunshade.

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-29 14:43:47

maybe building a sunshade one bit of dust in space at a time What about balloon mirrors?

louis · 2008-04-29 15:41:17

Jumpboy - Yes I've wondered about that. There is a lot of stuff floating around in space. There's plenty of energy in space. Couldn't a solar power station orbiting Venus suck in matter, concentrate it and then cinter it?

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-30 14:02:51

I was thinking splitting the CO2 in the venusian atmosphere to C & O2, then sending the C dust to a MVO

What's cintering?

Gregori · 2008-04-30 15:50:29

I was thinking splitting the CO2 in the venusian atmosphere to C & O2, then sending the C dust to a MVO
What's cintering?

Its when you melt compacted dust to form a solid object.

If we are doing anything with the Venusian atmosphere, make sure its going down towards the gravity field. It always much easier to go down. Only useful exports should go against gravity field.

We need to secure the Carbon into a stable form that won't just become CO2 again. Diamond or Carbon Nanotubes might be a good material to make on Venus.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-03 08:49:16

The first thing is to block the sunlight, by placing a large object at L1 such that the diameter of the disk appears the same angular diameter as does the Sun from Venus.
Nope. Too big, too expensive, too unstable.
Do you know how to move a mountain? We can, you know. You move a mountain one shovel full at a time. Miners move mountains all the time, they use big shovels and big trucks but an open pit mine can literally move a mountain. There is a gold mine in Brazil that was mined by hand shovels, it was a small mountain but has been dug so deep it is now a hole as wide and deep as the mountain was. You don't ever try to move a mountain in one piece.
You can remove massive quantities of CO2 with self replicating bacteria. You can add greenhouse gasses to Mars with many chemical factories, each processing one dump truck load of ore at a time. But just as you don't move a mountain in one piece, you don't build a planet size sunshade.
Engineer atmospheric constituents. Once you get the gas mix right, clouds will be your sunshade.

You can make the sunshade a statlite then, the light pressure from the Sun will hold it in place against the Sun's gravity. Actually you could design instability into it. Everytime the sunshade lets light through to Venus, it falls toward the Sun, and when the Sunshade blocks light, the light pressure pushes it toward Venus, and it repeats this cycle every 24 hours, spending 12 hours blocking sunlight and being pushed away from the Sun, and 12 hours letting sunlight through and falling towards the Sun. The L2 mirror is simpler, it remains a passive object, reflecting light passed through by the L1 shade and moving away from the Sun and Venus, and when the Shade blocks light, the mirror falls toward Venus. This would all have to be computer controlled I think.

Anyway atmospheric obscurement does not provide light for the nightside of Venus, with the two mirrors we can have a 24-hour day/night cycle, and we don't have to damage the planet by impacting it with meteors to change its rotation.

Terraformer · 2008-05-03 12:37:03

Carbon Nanotubes. Has anyone thought how much Carbon we'd need to build a Space Elevator on Earth, Mars, and other Industrial bodies?

Of course, we could produce the CNTs on Venus.

JoshNH4H · 2008-05-03 15:35:22

you're suggesting that we use CNT's to build a sunshade? or just for export?

Terraformer · 2008-05-03 15:45:27

Both! Venus has too much Carbon, might as well use it for something useful.

bobunf · 2008-05-04 19:30:07

What is the cheapest one would imagine a roundtrip to Mars could cost? Spirit and Opportunity each cost about $500 million in 2008 dollars. If a roundtrip could be arranged for this amount, returning with ten tons of processed gold, the cost per ounce would be over $1,400. Such a low cost is not likely to be achieved in this century to put it mildly.

And the cost of extraction and processing has to be added to the $1,400. It’s hard to imagine that the cost of extracting and processing gold on Mars would be less than that cost on Earth. Martians are likely to be much more highly paid than Earth workers, Earthers don’t have to work in a near vacuum, and Earth has a huge infrastructure to support mining and processing gold, which will be lacking on Mars at least into the 22nd century.

Good plan except:
> The gold will have cost more to get on Mars than it would on Earth
> Gold will cost more to transport than its value.

Maybe you’ll make it up on volume.

Bob

louis · 2008-05-04 20:33:34

Bob -

Some factors you've ignored:-

1. Spirit and Opportunity include the cost of the robot development which I think was a HUGE element in it. And of course the land. In term of determining the long term viability of gold trading you have to discount those one off costs and assume a mature technology i.e. an already designed lander that can carry loads of 10 tonnes between Mars and Earth.

2. Remember that on Mars there are no rental costs, no land purchase costs, no licensing costs, no taxes, no environmental pollution control costs, no administrative costs, no shareholder dividends, no labour or energy costs to speak of. (Against that I accept you have the problem of getting some expensive start up kit to Mars.)

3. Remember that if gold does exist on Mars it will exist in a very pure form a the surface because no one else (as far as we know!) will have been working it. So, purity levels could way, way above the average for earth mines and the mining costs could be much lower, since there will be no tunnelling and far less energy expended on purifying the ore.

bobunf · 2008-05-04 23:24:35

“no rental costs, no land purchase costs” Since there’s no profitable alternative use for the land this is certainly correct.

“no licensing costs, no taxes, no environmental pollution control costs” This situation will probably last for about five minutes.

“no administrative costs” Whose going to provide all the management, design, logistics, sales, accounting, insurance, legal services, etc.?

“no shareholder dividends” Whose going to supply the capital?

“no labour or energy costs to speak of” Whose going to do the work? If robots were cheaper for mining on Mars, they’d be cheaper for mining on Earth. If energy is essentially free on Mars, why don’t we get it for free the same way on Earth?

It doesn’t sound like you’re talking about an industrial operation, but some activity in a computer simulation.

Bob

bobunf · 2008-05-04 23:32:22

“if gold does exist on Mars it will exist in a very pure form”

This is pure speculation. While nobody may have mined Mars, neither has anybody done the kind of geological and mineralogical mapping that’s been done on the Earth for many centuries by millions of people.

The costs of mining and extraction on Mars could well be far higher than on Earth where there is abundant water, oxygen, nitrogen and skilled labor of all descriptions.

Bob

bobunf · 2008-05-04 23:53:04

“assume a mature technology”

After 40 years it still costs about $10,000 per kilogram to low Earth orbit. This is still almost $300 per ounce. Getting to Mars and back would add enormously to this cost. Then what is the cost of mining and processing on Mars? How about a budget?

Then there are the questions of time, risk and scale.

Years would pass from sending a vessel to Mars to getting the payload back. This represent a very large capital cost—20% to 50% of the total investment.

This type of operation would require a monstrous capital investment all of which would be at risk should any element of this plan fail in any way.

There would be a huge initial investment. If one were able to say, “Invest in Mars mining for a 50% return per year; which is a heck of a lot better than the 10% you’ll get in Australia. That’ll be $120 billion for Mars, or $14 million for Australia.” Funding would not be a sure thing.

It would be very expensive to obtain prior assurance that the amount of accessible gold on Mars would be sufficient to support such an operation. Investors would very much want prior assurance.

Just about everybody will say: “Not at this time.”

Cold, cruel world.

Bob

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