New Mars Forums

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,627

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

Isaac Arthur discusses colonisation of Titan.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HdpRxGjtCo0

His main point is that the low temperature and presence of cryogenic liquids on the surface, is a resource in itself.  At temperatures that never exceed 100K, thermodynamic powerplants are very efficient.  Quantum computers must operate at close to 0K, which is less energy intensive to achieve when background temperatures are already <100K. Whilst there are other cryogenically cold bodies in the solar system, Titan has the advantage of having cold liquids on its surface.  These can easily be pumped through heat exchangers.  This puts Titan in the position of becoming the industrial heat sink of the solar system.  Even at 90K, it is presently radiating into space about 30x as much power as humanity uses in total.  So even the total power output of humanity wouldn't warm Titan by very much.

Arthur makes the point that Titan isn't necessarily the best place for humans to live.  The low gravity and low temperature would make it challenging.  But the low gravity makes it easy to get on and off the moon, using rockets or orbital tethers.  So Titan will be a place for a lot of industry, even if it isn't a place where a lot of people live.

One thing that Titan and other cold bodies allow is concentrated development without heat issues.  In space, the need to radiate waste heat into space limits the effective density of human settlements.  It would be difficult to build large space stations with a high volumetric density of human beings, because our processes release waste heat that must be radiated.  Radiant heat flux is limited by the Stefan-Boltmann equation.  So the radiator for a megacity of hundreds of millions of people would need to be huge.  Not so on Titan or other icy moons.  In these places, we can build to whatever density we need and dump heat by pumping water or liquid hydrocarbons through heat exchangers.  On Titan, we could build truly enormous cities within ice shells and use surface liquid methane to cool them.  We just evaporate the methane into the sky and use the whole moon as our radiator.  We can do the same with other outer solar system bodies using ice covered lakes as radiators.

Ultimately, being able to locate huge numbers of humans and machines close together is what allows high culture and economic wealth to develop.  Titan, Ganymede and Callisto, could all eventually become planet-wide megacities rather like Coruscant on the Star Wars movies.  The surfaces will eventually melt and megacities will float in the global oceans, using the water to cool themselves.  Water will evaporate from the ocean surface, creating a water vapour atmosphere.  Solar radiation will gradually break this down into hydrogen and oxygen with the former rapidly escaping.  So many icy worlds will eventually be water worlds with floating cities and oxygen dominated atmospheres.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-05-19 07:07:13)

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

I have read the previous two posts and enjoyed them.  I watched Isaac Arthur's video as well and enjoyed that and am considering it all.

In this video, Isaac Arthur makes the point that if you generate power in space and beam it by microwaves to a worlds surface, you may dispose of a great deal of waste heat in space, and so then not so much warm up that world (Earth): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNqCAvL1T1Y  Quote:

Clean Energy From Space

Isaac Arthur
784K subscribers

This may seem to contradict the idea of using Titan as a heat sink but consider the mirrors.  What if they are also radiators?  Mirrors were also mentioned in the orbit of Saturn, in the video you posted Calliban.  They could also be radiators and including that would perhaps justify that they can be more substantial, with channels to carry a fluid to carry heat.  This implies any hot source, so that you could have a heat engine, solar and nuclear.  These would be very big mirrors; I estimate 100 times concentration as a possible option sought after.

The backsides of the mirrors may even have anti-solar cells to scavenge just a little more energy from the process.

But then you need certain materials to make a lot of those devices in orbit of Saturn.

This might offer it, quote from post #25:

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,492
Email
Are Titan's Dunes Made of Comet Dust?
https://www.universetoday.com/166286/ar … omet-dust/

But then we also have the moon Phoebe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(moon)
Image Quote:
Quote:

It is estimated that Phoebe is about 50% rock, as opposed to the 35% or so that typifies Saturn's inner moons. For these reasons, scientists are coming to think that Phoebe is in fact a captured centaur, one of a number of icy planetoids from the Kuiper belt that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune.[27][28] Phoebe is the first such object to be imaged as anything other than a dot.

Phoebe orbits retrograde, so that if you took material from it and impacted the atmosphere of Titan with that, considerable energy should vaporize the ice, separating the rocky materials, and allowing it to fall to the surface of Titan.  Then you could mine that to build things on Titan and in orbit of Saturn.

So, much energy generation could be in orbit of Saturn, but then much of that could be beamed to the surface of Titan to run processes to produce goods.

Elon Musk has said that Fusion power may not be economic relative to future solar, and I think that can be true.  But nuclear processes may generate Helium 3 and 4, I believe and those can be valuable.  On Titan, Helium 4 might facilitate buildings that jut into the upper atmosphere as if and as heat exchanger fins.  Perhaps they could go from the surface up to the 1/3 bar atmospheric pressure level.

While they could be buildings that could house important functions, they also would be radiator fins. 

So, I think that this could stretch the heat capacity of Titan as a radiator further, then.  If so, then nuclear may offer more than just electric and heating power, but also Helium 3 & 4.  That may make it more economic for Saturn/Titan, even if it turns out not to be economic for Earth/Moon.

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-05-19 09:27:47)

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

Well, OK a Saturn Orbital power plant / hab:

Maybe you could do it at Uranus and Neptune, but of course one really big mirror(s)/radiator(s).

Done

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

I ran into this stuff today and it triggered some thinking:

Could We Colonize Europa, Callisto And Titan?
YouTube
Insane Curiosity
21K views
6 months ago

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ajaxhist=0

The video was long and only at one point gets to the materials about Titan.  I was surprised, as there was a suggestion for wind power on Titan.  This article gets to the point much more quickly than the video:
https://www.sciencealert.com/titan-has- … -of-the-us
Quote:

Titan Has Enough Energy to Power a Colony The Size of The US
SPACE
10 July 2017
ByDAVID NIELD

Quote:

As for wind power, Titan does have strong winds in its upper atmosphere, according to measurements made by the Huygens probe. At the moment though, we don't have the technology to build floating wind turbines that could get up that high.

First of all, there is a moral issue.  The hunt for life on the surface of Titan must occur, and decisions made according to results.

Then presuming that the results allowed habitation and modification of Titan, some notions came to my mind.

It must be Tholen's that are getting heated up in the atmosphere to produce winds.  What happens if you harvest the Tholen's out of the atmosphere and make things out of that material?  Then also you might thin the amount of Tholen's, so that sunlight would reach deeper in the atmosphere.  This could produce winds lower in the atmosphere.

Then there might be two paths to take:
1) Large Floating Blimp Structure that covers 30 to 40% of the day side and moves in the sky.  This then above the surface, and in the wind, perhaps and also able to harvest the Tholen's enough that some sunlight is enhanced.
2) Towers on the Equator with lighter than air support and compressive support.  These would be anchored to the ground but rise above the Tholen's.

The accumulation of a precipitated ice could be a problem, not sure how that might work, if at all.

But either #1 or #2 could receive microwave transmissions from orbital solar or nuclear power stations.  (Most likely solar).
This input of energy could ultimately stimulate more winds as waste heat was produced.

Titan could be a good place for lighter than air, construction.  Heat, Hydrogen, and Helium might be used for such devices. 

Presuming fusion power then Helium should be available.  As the energy collectors might be high up in the atmosphere at the 1/3 to 1 bar altitude, (Maybe 2/3 bar), then the surface might still be quite cold as various portions of that moon would radiate heat to the Universe.

The purpose of wind energy would perhaps be to scavenge some of the energy from the waste heat.

While it may seem silly to have Fusion, Fission, Solar Orbital, and Wind methods, I think having a diverse energy method is more robust, and more adaptive to mishaps which might occur over time.

This could make Titan rather a good world for humans and robots.

I don't know if any of the larger Dwarf planets and Triton could be treated in a similar way, but it could be a matter of interest.

Interstellar futures that allow humans across the void, might benefit from this as well.

You could have a Titan or Earth with a Nitrogen dominated atmosphere at distances of the equivalent of .25 to .01 the sunlight of Earth where it was a cold planet with a Nitrogen dominated world.

In our solar system, Vesta could have developed to be Mars to Earth sized, and be like that, if Jupiter did not exist.  So, I think interstellar travelers may be interested in Titan like planets, and Moons, and also Cold Terrestrials.  These methods might work for those.

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-06-02 12:48:46)

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

Anton Petrov made a Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPHVzwSgzBg
Quote:

Could Alien Life Exist on Titan? Major Discoveries From the Saturn's Moon

Anton Petrov
1.32M subscribers

The video suggests that life in the under-ice seas is somewhat unlikely.

There is a bit of support for the idea that the dunes which are mostly near the equator, may be made in part of sand from comets, and so then perhaps the dunes are not so icy.

Another part of the video suggests that the shorelines on the lakes appear to more likely to have been formed by waves.  This along with dunes suggests winds.

So, maybe wave power could be tapped on Titan by settlers.

This article gives some support for waves: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … ngNewsSerp

I suppose that with an atmosphere 1.5 times as thick at "Sea" level than for Earth winds might have some power.  Also, the gravity being quite lower that may be a contribution as well. 

Also, Titan rotates much slower than Earth, I believe.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/satu … -depth.amp
Quote:

Orbit and Rotation
Titan takes 15 days and 22 hours to complete a full orbit of Saturn. Titan is also tidally locked in synchronous rotation with Saturn, meaning that, like Earth’s Moon, Titan always shows the same face to the planet as it orbits. Saturn takes about 29 Earth years to orbit the Sun (a Saturnian year), and Saturn’s axis of rotation is tilted like Earth’s, resulting in seasons. But Saturn’s longer year produces seasons that each last more than seven Earth years. Since Titan orbits roughly along Saturn’s equatorial plane, and Titan’s tilt relative to the sun is about the same as Saturn’s, Titan’s seasons are on the same schedule as Saturn’s—seasons that last more than seven Earth years, and a year that lasts 29 Earth years.
solarsystem.nasa.gov

Quote:

Atmosphere
Our solar system is home to more than 150 moons, but Titan is unique in being the only moon with a thick atmosphere. At the surface of Titan, the atmospheric pressure is about 60 percent greater than on Earth—roughly the same pressure a person would feel swimming about 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface in theocean on Earth. Because Titan is less massive than Earth, its gravity doesn't hold onto its gaseous envelope as tightly, so the atmosphere extends to an altitude 10 times higher than Earth's—nearly 370 miles (600 kilometers) into space.

So, it might seem that the long days, and seasons, may cause the atmosphere to do more of the heat redistribution than is true for Earth.

But the light is very much less at Saturn: https://bikehike.org/how-long-does-ligh … to-saturn/
Quote:

1/81 or 1.2 %
Saturn receives less than approximately 1/81 or 1.2 % of the sunlight that Earth receives12. This is because Saturn is more than 9 times farther away from the Sun as Earth is from the Sun1.

So, maybe wave power would work.

I think that the previous post has mention of wind power higher in the atmosphere, and also some sort of tidal power as well involving the lakes.  But maybe wave power.

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

Another article about waves on Titan: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 3868&ei=16

Quote:

Titan has a thin atmospheric layer of roughly constant temperature above the troposphere, followed by an extensive stratosphere ranging from 50 to 200 km (30 to 120 miles) in altitude, where temperatures steadily increase with altitude to a maximum of 160 to 180 K (−172 to −136 °F, −113 to −93 °C).
Titan - Atmosphere, Methane, Nitrogen | Britannica
www.britannica.com/place/Titan-astronomy/The-atmosphere
www.britannica.com/place/Titan-astronomy/The-atmosphere

So, then an updraft on the sun facing side, and then maybe a downdraft at the poles?

The "Sand" is at the equator.  Maybe downdrafts at the poles sweeps materials from the poles to equator.  Maybe such winds, if they exist then cause waves on the polar lakes?

Maybe

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-06-23 17:10:10)

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

Here are some additional articles related to the previous post:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 8804&ei=19

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … r-BB1oBmVB  Image Quote:
Quote:

Ligeia Mare — a sea on Titan. Image credits: NASA.
© ZME Science

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … f8f13&ei=4

These articles are about waves on seas of Hydrocarbons on Titan.

I am inclined to upgrade the potential of Titan and also the Saturn gravity well because of recent discoveries and thinking.

I feel that in the orbit of Saturn as well, this is a potential: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 43#p224643
Quote:

Here then is an attempt at a Heat Engine Greenhouse:

The "Light Bulb Window" is the latest notion.

The shape that is a bit like a light bulb, may be of a frame of metal pipes, and may have a tent of transparent webbing around it.  Or, if you like a film of something like poly film.

The "Base" of the lightbulb is to be of pipe framing as well but of transparent ceramic window materials of some kind, ALON for instance.

Done

If it turns out that Phoebe has a 50/50 makeup of rock/ice, and if the dunes of Titan at the equator are somewhat comet dust/sand, then the whole Saturn system looks increasingly attractive.

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-06-24 09:35:48)

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,513

Re: Titan, with modest efforts

Another article about waves on Titan: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … r-BB1oQxtH

Mentions winds also.

More needs to be investigated in the future.

Done

---

I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"