Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

knightdepaix · 2020-04-05 20:23:49

per title, there are so much seawater on Earth. This could be a drastic measure to counter sea level rise.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 20:39:37

Sure get it to mars, stockpile it there on the surface and then finally release it with lots of o2 into covered basins. Mars teraformed....

elderflower · 2020-04-06 10:55:32

Skipping the issues with actually shipping huge quantities of water off this planet!

SpaceNut · 2020-04-06 11:58:30

Not according to the starship master 100mt to 150mt cargo capability one way of course and after 5 to 6 refills for the fuel tank just to get it there .nah thats only cash....
Natural sea water has lots of stuff to make mars beautiful...

tahanson43206 · 2020-04-06 13:43:35

For knightdepaix re topic ...

You're getting a bit of lighthearted ribbing here .... would you be willing to see if the basic idea (water for Mars) is worth exploring a bit?

Comets pass by every now and then, and (I understand) they often contain significant amounts of water.

Google came up with this citation for Halley''s comet when I asked for "comets with water"

Famous comets
The roughly potato-shaped, 9-mile-long (15 km) comet contains equal parts ice and dust, with some 80 percent of the ice made of water and about 15 percent of it consisting of frozen carbon monoxide. Researchers believe other comets are chemically similar to Halley's Comet.Oct 24, 2017

It would be interesting (to me at least) if you could do a bit of research to see which comets come close enough to be "mined" for water for Mars.

The answer to your original question is yes and no .... seawater ** could ** be shipped to Mars, but the amounts needed to flood ** anything ** will most definitely NOT be on anyone's shipping list for a while (if ever).

Please consider finding potentially useful comets and posting them here.

Why let a perfectly good topic go to waste?

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-04-06 13:56:32

We have trailed through the tail of one but we lack the ability to move one and could not capture it either. The use of a nuclear reactor to melt and use its water for fuel is possible with ion reverse thrust but from there just how much of its going to get used up by doing so?
For covering all of mars I would settle for a small area in a large basin that is covered as thats not just a foot hold thats a civiliazation that can get started to colonize its own future.

tahanson43206 · 2020-04-06 14:35:01

For knightdepaix re topic ...

Please take SpaceNut's questions as incentive to try harder.

It would be a shame to give up on a promising line of investigation just because SpaceNut has doubts about how it might be done.

In his post #6, SpaceNut has given you a hint of how you might approach the challenge.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-04-06 17:16:11

Yes a fresh water source could or an be eventually achieve it time.

Back to Earth Ocean use as a two part sword to solve what we have an excess of for Earth and a deficit of for Mars.

So water is a solution to lowering to what level or is drawing it off into tanks here on Earth also as well needed not just shipping some to Mars.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

sure would be a nice scene for Mars.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi … evel-rise/

SpaceNut · 2020-04-06 18:38:31

Even if we do not believe that the seas will rise as much as they say that they will we still will have some to take care of either way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

Its clear whenwe look at images of items that once were above water as to it being real.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/sea-le … al-warming

Lots do a thought as to how much might be taken without any issue. Even if the rise is a meter for all oceans that cover 2,3 rds of the earths surface we are removing 2x times that amount when its placed on land.

The earths surface area of land is 510 million square kilometers x 2 meters = 1.02 x 10^15th cubic meters of water to transport or pull from the oceans or 1,020,000 cubic km of water.

So take what we want and call it good....

louis · 2020-04-06 18:56:36

If you build skyscrapers, car parking lots, hotels, and stadia on top of inappropriate coastal land, you will get flooding as Floridians, sitting atop porous limestone have discovered. It's essentially nothing to do with sea level per se. If you dropped sea level by a couple of metres that WOULD be a problem...you would have to rebuild just about every port on the planet and also try and deal with the silting up of estuaries.

SpaceNut wrote:

Even if we do not believe that the seas will rise as much as they say that they will we still will have some to take care of either way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
Its clear whenwe look at images of items that once were above water as to it being real.
https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/inline_all/public/NuisanceFlooding_Annapolis_610.jpg?itok=_uYXXRNn
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/sea-le … al-warming

Lots do a thought as to how much might be taken without any issue. Even if the rise is a meter for all oceans that cover 2,3 rds of the earths surface we are removing 2x times that amount when its placed on land.
The earths surface area of land is 510 million square kilometers x 2 meters = 1.02 x 10^15th cubic meters of water to transport or pull from the oceans or 1,020,000 cubic km of water.
So take what we want and call it good....

SpaceNut · 2020-04-06 19:14:13

What is your take on using the water for mars?
While I think its a good step I would not filter it and would send some life with it....

tahanson43206 · 2020-04-07 03:45:57

For SpaceNut, knightdepais and all ...

While the idea of shipping water to Mars from Earth seems reasonable for meeting the needs of astronauts on a mission, shipping enough to fill a swimming pool seems unlikely in competition with higher priority needs.

However, mining a comet is a reasonable idea, IF the comet passes close by Mars.

Accordingly, if someone in the forum is willing to invest a bit of time doing the research, it should be possible to enlist the support of professional (or even amateur) astronomers to study the catalog of solar system objects to see if any comets are predicted to pass by Mars in the future. A near pass within a small number of years seems unlikely (to me at least) to be helpful, because humans are unlikely to have the ability to send a probe to harvest material. However, any such objects that pass by Mars in the next 10 to 100 Earth years should definitely be of interest for a water mining expedition.

Whoever (or whichever group of folks) secure a significant quantity of water from a comet would (should) be able to trade that water with others who are in need, if there is excess beyond immediate requirements.

Edit #1: Consumer grade astronomy software can accept element sets for objects not already in the database of the product. The element set for an individual comet can be applied to predict orbits far into the future, as can that of Mars. What I am imagining is a modification of such software to run two element sets simultaneously, to discover any near passes that may occur. This is tedious work, for which computers (and especially small personal computers) are well suited.

Here is a starting point for a study of comet interaction with Mars:

Search Results
Web results
Cometographycometography.com
Cometography.com is the website originally created by Gary W. Kronk. The name is derived from Kronk's six-volume book series published by Cambridge ...
Cometography - Cambridge University Presswww.cambridge.org › core › series › cometography
Cometography is a multi-volume catalogue of every comet observed throughout history. The volumes use the most reliable orbits known to determine the ...
Cometography by Gary W. Kronk - Cambridge University Presswww.cambridge.org › core › books › cometography
Cambridge Core - Computational Science and Modelling - Cometography - by Gary W. Kronk.
Cometography: Volume 1, Ancient-1799: A Catalog of Comets ...www.amazon.com › Cometography-1-Ancient-1799-Catalog-Comets
Cometography is the most complete and comprehensive collection of data on comets available. It comes in four self-contained sequential volumes and this, the ...
Cometography: Volume 5, 1960-1982: A Catalog of Comets ...www.amazon.com › Cometography-5-1960-1982-Catalog-Comets
Book Description. Cometography is a multi-volume catalogue of every comet observed throughout history. The fifth volume provides a complete discussion of each ...
Cometography: Ancient-1799 - Gary W. Kronk, Maik Meyer ...books.google.com › books
Cometography is a catalog of every comet observed throughout history. It is the most complete and comprehensive collection of data on comets available.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-04-07 03:55:05)

elderflower · 2020-04-07 04:30:33

It might be more effective to fire big bullets of ice from an asteroid, say, Ceres. To balance the thrust on the asteroid you might have to fire more bullets in the opposite direction otherwise you will change its orbit!.

Spaniard · 2020-04-07 05:50:51

Earth means a huge deep gravity well... a lot of delta-v.

There is plenty of places to get water... farther but with less energy cost.

And the gravity well means that without some megainfrastructure like space elevators or something like that, or a new kind of propulsion technology, you need to use chemical rockets to go beyond the well...

Total waste of resources.

A lot better to use rail launchers or tethers on outer moons or Ceres and use powerful engines only for minor corrections (or maybe even lasers to eject some material from the "asteroid pellets")
Consider that any terraforming project, even minimal means a LOT of mass.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-07 08:08:26

Fresh water with volitiles quite possibly would require nuclear as those chances of them staying long enough in a solar capable zone is small. Once we get past mars its solar levels drop off to far to use that as the means to mining and send towards mars.

Most people have a typical summer time plastic pool that is roughly 3 feet tall x 8 - 10 feet tall holding a rough 1,000 gallons of water.

1 kilogram (kg) = 0.264172053 gallon (gal)
1 gallon (gal) = 3.785411784 kilogram (kg)

knightdepaix, So just how much sea water do we really want is the question?

Shallow ponds for biomes come to mind as a means to push forward mars colonies as a means to do many things for man.

Terraformer · 2020-04-07 09:35:37

Ceres rotates fast (9hr period) and has a low escape velocity (~500m/s). Tethers could easily be used to export ice, in conjunction with high efficiency electric thrusters. Ceres synchronous orbit is only ~750km off the surface.

There's a lot of water there, too. With a surface area of 2.8 million square kilometres and a crust that is largely ice, strip mining it down to a depth of merely 10-15m would provide 28 trillion tonnes of water. That said, it may consist of rock to that depth... even so, there is plenty of water there. For the plausible midfuture, we're not going to have to go further to find sources of water for regular use, only for terraforming projects (I don't know about other volatiles, though).

With Ceres for water (launched via space elevator) and Luna for basalt (launched via railgun), we could get to work on building those giant space colonies we've always dreamed of...

EDIT: there seems to be a lot of carbon on Ceres, as well as water. Now I just need to secure the equator and sell off volatiles to pay for the terraforming...

Last edited by Terraformer (2020-04-07 09:41:29)

SpaceNut · 2020-04-07 09:47:27

What is proposed is not just a large scale system to get to mars but also a large scale system to get it from ceres to mars in addition.

The first can do it within its build as we have not settled on the quantity of need or of it utlization.

Its a starter ocean materials that I see for mars that could be done on the first missions and on each one to follow as we are not doing one and done for mars if we are going to settle it.

Something else for the oceans is sequestoring it in deep wells underground caverns as a means to lower earth ocean levels.
Its not just about exporting it to other places.

tahanson43206 · 2020-04-07 10:50:57

For Terraformer re #16

It's good to see Ceres coming back into view! Nice connection!

Is there a natural trading relationship between Mars and Ceries? As RobertDyck has pointed out on numerous occasions, settlement driven by economic forces and from the bottom up is far more likely to succeed than any other approach that has been tried on Earth.

I can't see anything at the moment, but I'm hoping (and expecting) that other forum members have suggestions.

If there is a forum reader who is not yet a member, and who has expertise/knowledge/education in this area, please register and post a reply to this topic.

(th)

Terraformer · 2020-04-07 11:47:19

See here for the discussion about trade with Ceres.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-07 16:16:59

To save on weight, a detour to the moon is the best route to Mars

For a piloted mission to Mars, fueling up on the moon could streamline cargo by 68 percent.

http://strategic.mit.edu/spacelogistics/

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#1 2020-04-05 20:23:49

Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#2 2020-04-05 20:39:37

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#3 2020-04-06 10:55:32

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#4 2020-04-06 11:58:30

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#5 2020-04-06 13:43:35

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#6 2020-04-06 13:56:32

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#7 2020-04-06 14:35:01

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#8 2020-04-06 17:16:11

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#9 2020-04-06 18:38:31

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#10 2020-04-06 18:56:36

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#11 2020-04-06 19:14:13

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#12 2020-04-07 03:45:57

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#13 2020-04-07 04:30:33

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#14 2020-04-07 05:50:51

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#15 2020-04-07 08:08:26

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#16 2020-04-07 09:35:37

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#17 2020-04-07 09:47:27

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#18 2020-04-07 10:50:57

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#19 2020-04-07 11:47:19

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

#20 2020-04-07 16:16:59

Re: Can seawater on Earth be shipped to flood designated places on Mars?

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