"Ice Castles" on Titan

Tom Kalbfus · 2014-05-25 16:50:48

I was thinking of the movie Frozen, there was this scene where Queen Elsa was building an ice castle. So would water ice make a great construction material on Titan? Much of Titan is made out of ice, and with a nuclear reactor we could melt this ice into a liquid and form it into ice windows and ice walls. If we allow the water to freeze slowly, we can give it time to crystalize for increased strength. Water ice can be heated up to nearly its melting point and still remain solid, and inside a dome made of ice we could place a smaller dome made of plastic, plenty of materials to make plastic out of on Titan, so there is no shortage of that. I once had a greenhouse that consisted of two layers of plastic with a pocket of air in between for insulation, so basically it is a dome-shaped green house, we make sure the plastic dome is insulated enough to keep it comfortably warm inside while preventing enough heat from leaking out to melt the exterior ice dome. The air within the ice dome could then be kept 5 degrees centigrade below 0 on the Celsius scale and with enough volume of air within the ice dome such that heat leaks from the plastic dome will not raise that temperature significantly. The air within the ice dome would be oxygenated so a human being in warm clothing can breath without trouble, and airlock through an ice tunnel from the outer dome will have lockers with environmental suits inside should any astronauts wish to exit from the ice dome. The air pressure within the dome would be slightly higher than outside, so poisonous gases don't enter in case of a leak.

Terraformer · 2014-05-25 16:58:55

So... you want to build a snowman?

(Note: torrent Frozen, to make references and puns in thread).

Ice is fine as a building material at cold enough temperatures. Mix in fibres to make papercrete, and you can use it at temperatures of around freezing point.

RobS · 2014-05-25 17:14:38

I'm sure people will build with ice, if they ever live on Titan. Near the freezing point, ice slowly flows; anyone who has ever built a tunnel in a snow pile knows that. But the outer shell of the ice will be at Titan ambient temperature, and somewhere I read that ice at that temperature is as hard as concrete. I've been working on a novel that includes a colony on Titan, and the 500 people there melt huge underground caverns, extract chondrite and othe meteoritic materials from the melt, construct insulated enclosures in the caverns out of nickel-iron meteorite and plastic, fill the space between the enclosures and the cavern walls with water to freeze up the space so nothing can fall from the ceiling, then they light the enormous spaces with electric lights powered by geothermal and wind power and create artificial soil from the chondrite and roasted tholin.

I suspect something similar could be done on Callisto and the moons of Uranus and Neptune, but in vacuum conditions you'd want to start with big plastic balloons, inflate them, and fill the outer layer or two with water ice for strength, micrometeoroid protection, and radiatin shielding.

clark · 2014-05-25 23:35:17

And somewhere, an Eskimo screams.

Tom Kalbfus · 2014-05-26 05:54:44

It has little to do with eskimos.

Void · 2014-05-28 10:09:58

I would like to point out that this could be practiced on Mars in places.
I would pick a glacier in Hellas.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1371 … s_craters/
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Marti … ports.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081124.html
http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2008/11/ … latitudes/
The favorable factors are:
1) The air pressure in Hellas is thicker, so better radiation protection.
2) Big water supply for some time.
3) It is not utterly impossible that some type of Lichen could be cultivated in the open surface, with a bit of UV protection. (Lichen as we know them are slow growing however).
4) Surface greenhouses are an option, with various levels of pressurization.
5) Solar energy is available on the surface, but would be seasonal, but that’s not necessarily bad, if your economic activities are scheduled for the availability of energy.
Beyond that dirty Ice above a layer of Sandstone or Salt caverns would be a very good opportunity to build a multi-layered city, where the upper caves were more similar to the outside environment, and each lower layer was more and more like Earths atmosphere.
Dirty Ice and Sandstone, or salt would be possible to build caves in most likely.
One thing that most Mars settlement schemes I have seen lack is a good way to create lots of living space in an economic way.
So, on the surface greenhouses to grow bulk food, and a few smaller types that allow humans in shirt sleeves to interact with vegetation and the sunlight.
The first layer of caves would be unpressurized and carved into the glacier. Places to put machinery, that might manufacture special chemicals from atmospheric chemicals. Storage for food, and parts perhaps.
The next layer of caves pressurized to 1/3 bar with Martian atmosphere. This one in the ice as well. As a passage between levels, and also as a place where toxic chemical processes could be carried out.
Since humans would suffocate in such an environment, the would have a breathing suit, but not a pressure suit. Toxic gasses would be vented to the outside as possible and convenient. Hopefully some of them would be greenhouse gasses.
The next layer would be O2 @ 1/3 bar pressure.
The last ice cave layer would be N2/O2 @ 1 bar pressure. Things like ice hockey could be supported, or ice skating. People do not live by bread alone.
In both cases it would be possible to have heated sheds with artificial lights to cultivate certain plants if that makes economic or spiritual sense. For instance Apple trees. If the soil at the bottom of the ice cave is thick enough and thermally insulating enough, it would be possible to heat a “Tented” area to sufficient temperatures to allow a growing season. Providing Apples and wood. Then a unheated season would be provided which would be tolerable to the trees, and would allow the long term thermal balance of the soil and ice layer below it.
Finally I would hope to transition into sandstone, but perhaps even a salt cavern. (Sandstone is much more likely).
That would be to provide housing for humans, although some of the Ice caves could host homes for humans.
(Note: There could be a N2/O2 1 bar ice cave with special acoustics for Eskimo’s to scream in) 
Such tricks learned on Mars could be instructive as to how to similar things on Titan and other worlds perhaps.

Antius · 2014-06-10 05:22:57

Interesting idea. If ever we do build a base on Titan, I would imagine that this is how it would be done. One can imagine a double membrane inflatable kevlar fibre sphere delivered to the surface and pressurised using the ambient air. Next, liquid water would fill the space between the membranes and gradually freeze, leaving a solid ice shell with an inner plastic lining. Finally, the whole structure would be purged using an N2/O2 mixture. A habitable dome perhaps 100m in diameter could be assembled before human beings arrived on the planet.

The same thing accomplished on Mars would need a thicker ice blanket to hold in the internal pressure, perhaps 10m thick. The whole structure would then be covered with a metre of regolith after habitation to prevent gradual sublimation of the ice.

The project could be replicated on Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, etc. On worlds with low gravity (Enceledus, Dione, Miranda, etc) presstressing cables would be needed on the outer shell to counteract internal pressure.

Antius · 2015-03-21 14:38:57

I came across a site recently that specifically advocated colonisation of Titan. Apparently, the main selling point of Titan is its thick atmosphere and abundant liquids on the surface. This provides an excellent heat sink for a nuclear power source that would be lacking on Mars and other airless worlds. On Mars, heat dumping must rely upon thermal radiation, which neccesitates relatively large surfaces. The author was of the opinion that the superb heat dump capability opened the possibility for large cheap nuclear power sources, which would certainly be needed for any human colony that far from the sun. Just to produce enough food for one person would require several kW of continuous electric power to an artificially lit greenhouse.

The high density cryogenic atmosphere also provides benefits for habitat construction. Even with relatively high internal heat geberation rates, the excellent cooling capabilities of the atmosphere allow habitats to be constructed from ice with no danger of melting. A thin layer of aerogel insulation on the inner surface would allow +20C temperatures on the inside and -50C temperatures on the inner ice surface. At -50C, crystaline ice has a crush strength of 10MPa. This would allow ice domes litterally kilometres wide to be constructed on the Titan surface.

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-03-21 20:23:12

Probably will need artificial sunshine inside the domes. Nuclear fuel for the reactors would probably have to be imported unless we develop portable fusion reactors of the sort Lockheed is promising.

Antius · 2015-03-25 06:04:48

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Probably will need artificial sunshine inside the domes. Nuclear fuel for the reactors would probably have to be imported unless we develop portable fusion reactors of the sort Lockheed is promising.

Most likely. The crust of Titan would appear to be dominated by water ice, possibly with minor additions of ammonia and traces of hydrocarbons and alcohols. Not much in the way of silicates and I cannot imagine finding very much uranium ore laying around. Maybe there would be traces in buried meteorites. Still uranium is amazingly poer dense. One tonne of uranium yields about 2.5GW-years of harvestable heat. If nuclear heat is worth 1 cent per kWh and 10% of cost is fuel, then you can afford to pay $20million for each tonne of imported uranium. So its achievable, especially if you can deliver in bulk, say a few hundred tonnes in one landing vehicle.

Producing all light and energy from nuclear would be pricey. Just to produce enough food for one person would need something like 60MWh per person per year. If the price of power is $50/MWh, then thats $3000 per year, just to produce the power needed to grow the food you need.

Terraformer · 2015-03-26 10:53:37

It might be cheaper to build large solar concentrator arrays, then, and beam the power to the surface. The insolation is on the order of 10 W/m^2, so a 1 sq. km array focusing sunlight onto 50% efficient (hey, in the lab they've done far better than that) solar cells would be able to produce 5 MW of electricity, though of course some would be lost in transmission. It would also prevent them from being subject to the Terran uranium consortiums, or the thorium cartels of the inner planets...

By the time the colonisation wave reaches Titan, we'll be regularly building such structures in space, so I don't think it will be much of a problem.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-14 07:50:39

Voyager turns 45: What the iconic mission taught us and what's next
https://www.space.com/voyager-spacecraf … ry-science

Voyager told us a lot but Titan was still a mystery until the Cassini–Huygens of 2005

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-05-10 10:29:00

Human missions a long way off in the distance

but flying robots maybe

talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5sAoADS2yU

but now Dragonfly mission studying effects of potential budget cut

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#1 2014-05-25 16:50:48

"Ice Castles" on Titan

#2 2014-05-25 16:58:55

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#3 2014-05-25 17:14:38

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#4 2014-05-25 23:35:17

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#5 2014-05-26 05:54:44

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#6 2014-05-28 10:09:58

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#7 2014-06-10 05:22:57

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#8 2015-03-21 14:38:57

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#9 2015-03-21 20:23:12

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#10 2015-03-25 06:04:48

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#11 2015-03-26 10:53:37

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#12 2022-09-14 07:50:39

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

#13 2023-05-10 10:29:00

Re: "Ice Castles" on Titan

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