Saturn

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-15 00:21:26

Saturn would make a substantial shell world, it has a gravity of 1.066 x Earth, a Surface Area of about 95 x Earth, and an axial tilt of 26.73 degrees, the axial tilt is somewhat important because it determines how wide we have to make the solletta to focus the Sun's rays on Saturn and provide a proper 24-hour period for night and day. I've calculated that 1 over the cosine on that axial tilt is 1.120, we multiply this by 12,800 times 100 to get 1,433,152, round it up to 1,450,000 km for good measure, the radius of the Solletta is 39,000 times 100 to get 3,900,000, this is about 11,200 times the area of the Venus Solletta and also 11,200 times its mass. The Venus Solletta with a thickness of 1 centimeter has the mass approximate to that of Saturn's moon Enceladus which is about 110,000 million million metric tons, 11,200 times that mass would be 1,232 billion billion metric tons, about twice the mass of Mars, if we make the solletta 1 millimeter thick, it will be 1.2 billion billion metric tons, which is less than the 1.8 billion billion tons of Saturn's moon Iapetus. Iapetus is an iceball of course but that doesn't matter at this distance from the Sun, mirrors can be made out of ice. Perhaps the individual mirrors of the array can be smaller to compensate. These mirrors will focus light on Saturn and its moon Titan.

We would then put a shell around Saturn so inhabitants would have something to stand on. I figure there would be pressure waves on a flexible shell, with waves undulating like the surface of an ocean, but if we were to add another layer of shell on top sandwiching gas cells that inflate and deflate in anticipation of these pressure waves on the lower surface, we can actually create a fairly stable surface on top. and 1 atmosphere of pressure differential below compared to the air pressure above can support 10 meters of water above the shell or about 3 to 4 meters or rock and soil. If we have a 2 bar pressure differential we can support 20 meters of water on top and 6 to 8 meters of rock and soil. Topographical features can be artfully shaped by varying the thickness of the material the shell supports, the thinner it is the higher the elevation on the upper surface. I'm probably assuming something like nanotechnology here to build it and to maintain it.

JoshNH4H · 2013-11-15 00:58:49

Where would the material for this shell come from, and how do you plan to build it in such a way as it can handle meteors or windstorms or even just normal loads resulting from it being used as the surface of a planet?

Terraformer · 2013-11-15 03:02:48

Well, if you're at the stage where you can build such a project, you're probably able to mine carbon from the planet itself, and otherwise use helium to build up everything you need.

JoshNH4H · 2013-11-15 03:45:59

Are you suggesting nuclear transmutation or some kind of solid-gas composite?

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-15 06:56:01

I made a little calculation error, the mirrors would have to be 10 micrometers thick to have the mass I mentioned, not 1 millimeter, it was late at night. If it was 1 millimeter thick it would have the mass of one fifth of Mars or a bit over one third of Mercury or all of Titan just for the mirrors, but there is no reason why the mirrors couldn't be 10 micrometers thick since all it has to do is reflect light.

To answer your question about nuclear transmutation Josh, I would mention that Saturn's atmosphere is 0.4% methane, methane as you know has 1 carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms in each molecule, something solid could be made out of that. Saturn also has 0.01% ammonia which is a small percentage of its atmosphere but when you stop to think that most of Saturn is made out of this atmosphere, there should be enough nitrogen if taken out of each ammonia molecule to make a 1 bar nitrogen atmosphere. Area equals 4 pi times radius squared, Saturn has an radius of 60,268,000 meters for a surface area of 45,644,000,000,000,000 square meters. Water has a density of 1 ton per cubic meter, Iron has a density of 7.96 tons per square meter, a 1 meter thick layer of iron would have a mass equal to 363,330,000,000,000,000 metric tons or 0.363 billion billion metric tons of iron.

A 10 meter thick layer of iron would be 3.63 billion billion tons. For comparison Titan has a mass of 135 billion billion tons, so if we had a layer of iron 500 meters thick it would have a mass about equal to Titan, not that Titan is mostly made or iron or that we should build a layer that thick. Titan probably has enough water to make a global ocean for Saturn if that same mass was made out of water that layer would be 4 km thick, but I suspect Saturn itself has enough water for this. Every 10 meters of iron requires an atmospheric pressure of about 8 bar underneath to support it, that is 80 bars of pressure required to support a 10 meter thick layer of iron, just under the surface atmospheric pressure on Venus. Just throwing around some numbers here.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2013-11-15 07:07:20)

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-15 07:16:02

Terraformer wrote:

Well, if you're at the stage where you can build such a project, you're probably able to mine carbon from the planet itself, and otherwise use helium to build up everything you need.

Its not that hard of 0.4% of the upper atmosphere is methane, convection would keep on bringing up more after you've extracted it from the atmosphere, and when you consider that Saturn is mostly made of this atmosphere and has a mass of 95 Earth masses, that means 0.4 Earth masses of just methane if the percentage stays the same throughout. Saturn is not all atmosphere throughout, but still that's going to be a lot of methane, which is mostly carbon by mass.

karov · 2013-11-16 15:23:59

http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando. … oss/7.html

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-16 18:01:00

karov wrote:

http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando. … oss/7.html

Interesting bit of fiction, a lot of reading there. One little nit pick though: A balloon in Saturn's atmosphere would need to be heated in order to float, and not just any gas, it would have to be hydrogen. A floating city in Saturn would consist of two balloons, and outer one consisting of heated hydrogen, and an inner one consisting of warm air. The hydrogen would have to be warmer than the surrounding atmosphere of Saturn, but in this case since Saturn's atmosphere is frigid, a balloon filled with room temperature hydrogen would be warm enough. Since the hydrogen would be room temperature, it would make sense to have the breathable gas envelope inside the warm hydrogen balloon, and a heater powered by a fusion reactor fueled by Saturn's atmosphere would also be convenient.

karov · 2013-11-17 05:40:16

Yep. Matrioshka ( russian dol ) version of Buckminster Fuller's Cloud Nine system.
and yes - heated ( relativelly to room temp. is enough ) hydrogen baloon - Accelerando's design is exactly such.
Let them multiply and they'll cover Saturn in several decades. Interlinking into solid foam-deck structure 100-ish times wider then Earth's surface, but in fact OVER 1000 times wider and more livable area then Earth ( less deserts of all kinds ... )
Indeed even if compact fusion is not available ( although the unending stockpile of He3, D etc. easily fusable elements within the surrounding atmosphere ), the Saturnian interior "geo"thermal heat shotcutted into the chilly outer layers or into 3K radiator in space, would be enough to power such air-raft civ for Billennia and Trillenia ...
Saturn has slighly over 1 gees "surface" gravity. Like Neptune and Uranus type of worlds such aerostatically suspended habitats are just fine.
The atmospheric buoyancy itself acts like massive DMC ( Dynamic Compression Member ), BUT...
The original kinetic design of P Birch is simpler and better.

Visualize: each orbital ring is like a massive garden hose. Instead of polyethylene it is made of ... else. The mass stream is not water running by pressure, but maglev suspended mass stream of as much as needed velocity ( even relativistic-ally if available mass is of concern, or if s.o. is ok to trade kinetic energy for momentum. ). The strength of the hose is important to withstand the |pressure| of the mass stream, but it could be self-stabilized by Moravec's way ( via embedding solenoid electric line, best way - superconductive, to pull the hose together longitudinally and laterally ). The hose is stationary in respect with the surface beneath.

It is vacuumed of course, and practically does not loose energy for veeeeery ( geological and astronomical length periods ) long periods. For ALL external observations it is like static circular object of unnaturally high compression strength. Now do a cage of such to cover the whole underbody. Put as "pannels" the habitat's "geosphere" on top. It could be built step by step , incrementally - in habitat "pixels" as big as the smallest one is sound to be. Birch envisions lateral composite gasbag "fences" ( 2 bars at bottom, hundredths, or thousandths of bars upmost - not much differing from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShaft , and other similar designs of A Bolonkin , etc. btw SUCH modular inflatable "columns" could be used to hold the habitat "decks" way above the atmosphere's optical surface, and simultaneously to be anchored very very deep into the gas planet's hot and full of chemical treasures interior!!! -- the tower static structure in fact relays the bottom bouyancy upwards ) -- the fences move to unite bigger and wider habitable area. The cage of "hoses" protrudes down elevator lines to draw energy and mass from the Deeps. NOTE: The "hose" provides static space platform = a way to build top-to-bottom, the shaft - vice versa, so I bet both will be combined. The overall pic is of a composite between the super-stiff "hoses" mesh of the "toposphere" and the |softer tissue| of the "geosphere".

In such scheme the function of REALTY ( real estate objects of property rights ) serves the total available around 1 gees area, hence even away from stellar source of radiation one could plan multi-storey construction... The limitation would be - how far from 1 gee the tenants/buyers are willing to be + the acceptable vertical spacing between the storeys + the shear energy flux divided on area...

The "hoses" interact electromagnetically with vehicles and other mass-streams around providing infra- and inter-planetary transport. THUS once you have one hose around Saturn you can commence simultaneously to exploit both the lunar system ( and nearby Solar system space for Troyans, Centaurs etc. ) and the planetary deep for resources - both chemicals ( construction materials ) and energy - orbital energy from the Heights and thermal from the Deeps... IF the overall sructure is fractal-cellular down to nano-level and selfreplicating the picture of the suspended habitat is of a TREE or other smart plant with roots protruded high in the skyes and deep into the core. I personally BET none habitat will be dump matter.

The Moravec's tensile strenght amplification ( via embedding solenoids within |normal matter| bulk is ideal for stiffening of rotating habitats ( rotars ) too. Thus one can make them with as big diameter as desired using the same standard hoses as for the static gravity ones ( gravitars ). Rotars are cheaper in case useful mass is dispersed, gravitars cheaper if construction mass is readily concentrated.

BUT we are discussing here extremes.

Indeed with this plenty of planets within the Galaxy -- of hundreds of thousands to millions of planemos per star ( fusor ) available, such super-utilization of resources, given the post-human spaces for colonization is a matter of far future.

I mean even ONE baloon habitat -- say France size version of this :

[image] https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid … e=1&ref=nf [/image]

comprises successful colonization of Saturn effort on all meaningful and conceivable senses...

Last edited by karov (2013-11-17 05:42:54)

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-17 06:53:21

One problem is if you have enough heated balloons then they'll heat the surrounding atmosphere and lose their buoyancy. One could use fusion powered fans to maintain altitude, link them all together, and stitch the fabric together to prevent the atmosphere from escaping past. One problem with layering shells on top of each other is the dissipation of heat, another problem with a multistory planetary high-rise, is the lack of a good view.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2013-11-17 06:54:07)

karov · 2013-11-18 01:47:00

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

One problem is if you have enough heated balloons then they'll heat the surrounding atmosphere and lose their buoyancy. One could use fusion powered fans to maintain altitude, link them all together, and stitch the fabric together to prevent the atmosphere from escaping past. One problem with layering shells on top of each other is the dissipation of heat, another problem with a multistory planetary high-rise, is the lack of a good view.

Irradiating heat is matter of design. You have the massive heat reservoir in the deeps, the way you shortcut it to the space gives you the lifetime of the buoyant structures. The same for dissipation of heat. We commented here million times that Earth level Solar illumination is excessive for photosynthesis and human vision. Slow re-pouring of heat from habitat layer to habitat layer decreases the per unit of area light delivery requirements. The view ? - well, it is matter of scale, even without use of advanced celestial holography, a volume of dozens of km wide linear dimensions DEFINITELLY will feel like outdoors for all senses...

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-11-18 07:45:45

Just saying that Saturn already has 95 times Earth's surface area with just one level, this is probably enough for 1 trillion human beings, about the equivalent human population density of having 10 billion human beings on Earth. Another problem is that my design has each shell held up by atmospheric pressure. By taking Titan apart this shell is 0.5 to 1 km thick with oceans up to 4 km deep sitting on atmospheric pressures of around 80 bar underneath, similar to Venus only with hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide, this is a pseudo-naturalistic shell with mountain ranges rivers making allowances for erosion and so forth. Having multiple layers requires thinner layers and if each is supported by air pressure underneath, the deeper you go the higher the air pressure taking into account the weight of each shell on the atmosphere below. Unless you have pillars or supporting beams that transfer the weight of one shell directly onto the shell below without compressing the atmosphere in between. Allowing 10 km between each and 10 m thick shells you could have 50 shells ascending to a height of 500 km with pillars or beams that are 10 km high between layers, the pillars would progressively get wider and thicker as you descend to lower levels as each would have to hold up the combined weight of everything above and transfer it to the hydrogen atmosphere below the lowest shell, we could imagine a population of 50 trillion human beings then. At a certain point one might want to consider interstellar travel to other solar systems. Plenty of gas giants out there, some of them are even in the habitable zone of their respective stars.

karov · 2013-11-19 01:18:44

Tom,

Yes, your design is super. ( I just wanted to scetch down the borderlines / extremes - not arguing or "proposing better" indeed ).
The 1 gee surface gravity worlds must be wide spread. Especially if the Gerald Nordley's "quantized surface gravity" discovered empirical rule holds true.
I believe ( bet $1 ) that BOTH these rules apply across the Universe:
1. http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1599
&
2. http://www.gdnordley.com/_files/downloads.html ( the second and third before last link )
-- example : only in Inner SolSys ( there may be lurking in the dark other 1g bodies in Outer SolSys... out to 2.5ly distance without to count on the truly interstellar rogue planemos ), we have 5 of totally 8 "mainstream" planets with nearly 1 gee surface gravity: Venus, Earth, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. A clearly visible majority they comprise.
And the average 1g gravitational equipotential surface for 1g in SolSys is 1+1+95+15+17 divided on 5 = 25-ish Earth surfaces for the average 1g surface gravity world.
The universal average of course depends on density, i.e. universal abundance of compsition chemicals, but because H+He comprise the staggering 98-99%, it seems that the average surface area for the average 1g world would be in the order of DOZENS of Earth surfaces!
The proplyd modelling shows 90-99% of all planets be they small or big get catapulted in the outer and interstellar space during system formation.
That means QUADRILLIONS of 1g worlds in total in our Galaxy alone!!!
80+% of them gas giants of dozens of Earth surface areas ...
... terraformable in the Tom's design, without crucial need of dynamic compression members, except for transport needs eventually.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2013-11-15 00:21:26

Saturn

#2 2013-11-15 00:58:49

Re: Saturn

#3 2013-11-15 03:02:48

Re: Saturn

#4 2013-11-15 03:45:59

Re: Saturn

#5 2013-11-15 06:56:01

Re: Saturn

#6 2013-11-15 07:16:02

Re: Saturn

#7 2013-11-16 15:23:59

Re: Saturn

#8 2013-11-16 18:01:00

Re: Saturn

#9 2013-11-17 05:40:16

Re: Saturn

#10 2013-11-17 06:53:21

Re: Saturn

#11 2013-11-18 01:47:00

Re: Saturn

#12 2013-11-18 07:45:45

Re: Saturn

#13 2013-11-19 01:18:44

Re: Saturn

Board footer