Interworld Para Terraforming

Void · 2024-11-08 22:04:38

The way I look at a produced Moon atmosphere, is that the Moon itself is fairly high up in the Earth's Hill Sphere.
So, if you took Oxygen from the surface of the Moon, you may have an advantage in some missions.

But if you have Oxygen Atoms/Molecules bouncing around either from the surface of the Moon or from another Oxygen Atom/Molecule, you have sub-orbital Oxygen. That is it has some of the energy of an orbit, at times the altitude with low speed, and at times speed with a low altitude.

The differential speed of such elevated Oxygen to the orbit of an object can be different. It is more for the Earth's upper atmosphere, and less for the Moons proposed very thin atmosphere. So, I believe that the machine I have been proposing is possibly going to work better for the Moon than for Earth, Venus, Mars, and other higher gravity worlds.

We have at least 2 reasons to not want the Moon atmosphere to be very thick. Dust, and the desire to use Mass Drivers.
Dust is a real thing, so we would not want the 5.5 mbar of Mars on the Moon. But the Moon may have higher differential temperatures than Mars due to the month-long day cycle on the Moon. Calliban thinks that Mass Drivers could work for Mars with it's current atmospheric pressure, so keeping the Moons atmospheric pressure below 5.5 mbars would be good enough. But again, the dust suggests keeping it much lower. Lets suppose .5 mbar or less.

This thin atmosphere would also not impede chemically launched ships from the surface of the Moon, I think.

It may be quite possible to bring metals and ceramics up to orbit then, even maybe with a Mass Driver. But I expect that with Robot Labor, and Magdrive and Neumann Drive metals and ceramics could come from the asteroids.

So, for the Moon, we might focus on making Oxygen to release to the created atmosphere, and also materials to build things on the Moon like factories and power production facilities that use sunshine.

Pause..............

A next question could be would you be able to aerobrake into the thin Moon atmosphere? You can with considerable difficulty aerobrake into the Mars atmosphere. The Moon atmosphere is likely to be thinner, but also having a greater height than such a pressure for a world with a greater gravitational force. So, maybe you could find a compromise to a thicker atmosphere that does not promote dust storms.

Next, I have suggested making organic dust to impact with the Moons atmosphere. Solein is one possible.

This would be manufactured from icy/carbonaceous asteroids, or worlds like Callisto. Once manufactured you might give this payload a "Kick" to the sunlight. I suggest some sort of chemical propulsion for that. Then the use of Magdrive or Neumann Drive to finish the path to the Moon, and then eject the payload to burn up in the Moons atmosphere. The ship then follows an elliptical path back out to the asteroid belt perhaps.

We don't need to care so much if the organic materials burn up in a thin Moon atmosphere. This will make condensable like water vapor or CO2, maybe Methane, and also Nitrogen may be a gas in the atmosphere or might end up as a compound. The condensable would then migrate to the shadowed craters to condense. The Nitrogen in the atmosphere might be worth extracting.

The Solar Wind is a question then. If you do not harvest it it will carry off some of your produced atmosphere. It may be worthwhile to make a leaky magnetic field, to try to get the solar wind to mix with your Oxygen atmosphere, and yet block the exit of the mixture from the Moon. This then may capture mostly Hydrogen and perhaps 8% Helium.

From the just prior post:

The planet Mercury I believe has a natural magnetic field that is somewhat leaky:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury%2 … onomers%29.
Quote:
Scientists noted that Mercury's magnetic field can be extremely "leaky," because MESSENGER encountered magnetic "tornadoes" during its second fly-by on October 6, 2008, which could possibly replenish the atmosphere (or "exosphere", as referred to by astronomers).
The magnetic field might also reduce the rate of loss of atmosphere.

So we would want a complex magnetic system where we could open the doors to let the solar wind into the atmosphere of the Moon but would want to close most or all of the exits. Since the Moon rotates the noon part of the Moon would move. The noon is where the doors should be opened. The sunset and sunup would be where you want to close the doors.

Anyway other ideas are welcome.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-08 22:36:04)

Void · 2024-11-09 09:01:10

So, we might try to create this economic backbone:

Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Mars/Phobos/Deimos>>Earth/Moon
Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Earth/Moon (Organic to the Moon)
Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Venus>>Earth/Moon

And so this would leave our Moon to be more an Organics collector from the 3.0 Asteroids, and perhaps from the Solar Wind. But then the Moon may donate Oxygen to the solar system economy. Oxygen can be a monopropellant if used in a on ship mass driver system.

But the Moon could also be a set of giant solar farms. I don't care if they are Photovoltaic, or Solar Thermal. So then these might shine power to orbiting atmospheric collection devices, collecting mostly Oxygen.

But the solar power may also be exported to the Earth, perhaps by way of intermediate orbital power exchange stations.

If the Moon does develop some advanced material projection system, then it might export metals and ceramics. That could be Mass Driver, Rail Gun, Skyhook. But the dry asteroids should be able to deliver lots of metals and Ceramics to Mars, Earth/Moon, and Venus orbits.

Keep in mind that this is to a great deal done by robots powered by solar energy. So, old notions about economics will not apply.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-09 09:07:48)

Void · 2024-11-09 11:10:11

So, I am thinking about shapes to catch molecules and atoms. Cups, Rings.

This is an old article from the "New Scientist": https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … nexpected/

OK, Venus has a tail. They detected Carbon and Oxygen atoms in it. I expect that their might be a bit of Nitrogen as well. My hope would be that you could station a molecule/atom collector in the Venus L2 location and collect this as well as solar wind items like Hydrogen and Helium. But the solar wind does not project out from the sun in strait lines, so, the tail may miss the L2 location. I don't know at this time.

Time for a Nap.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-09 11:16:09)

Void · 2024-11-10 10:01:59

I have some materials I want to put in this post that are not directly related to this article, but the article needs a home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n3punkST2s
Quote:

Nuclear Fusion: Updates & Impacts
Isaac Arthur
795K subscribers

Actually, he has two items I like a lot which may relate to what I will word-out in this post.

1) A fusion reactor is possible already, using Hydrogen Bombs in a large enclosure. I think this could be true more in space with a vacuum inside the enclosure.
2) Fusion power probably will not be better than solar power at the orbit of Mercury. (Actually, we simply will not know until fusion power appears).

So, from my point of View, both Venus and Mercury may be quite valuable for that reason, at least.

So, my current schemes are a bit of a progression of 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Venus>Mercury
But we could settle for this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Venus
or this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Mars/Phobos/Deimos
or this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Earth/Moon

In this process, I am going try for a plan that uses metal mirrors as propellants, radiators, and solar power collection.

-At the ~3.0 AU very large mirrors could collect energy. These made of metals for the most part.
-We then want to make some of those into spaceships.
-We want to give them a "Kick", possibly using a chemical burn resembling the ALICE rockets or some other solid rocket technology.
-On the way into the more inner solar system, more ALICE propulsion might be used, but also perhaps Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive.
-As the sunshine concentration goes up we may "Eat" holes in the mirrors to provide propellants. A bit like a caterpillar chewing holes in a leaf. https://www.corrys.com/resources/what-p … %20instead. Image Quote:
-This lowers the mass of the spacecraft, and provides propellants.
-We may do a gravitational slingshot of Mars.
-Our goal is a trans-Terrestrial Asteroid.

Pause for Breakfast................

The goal in this is to present a balance of metals and silicates, and organic chemicals to trans-terresrial habitats and objects, and to do the same for the orbits of the Planet Venus, and maybe later Mercury.

As it happens "Stony Asteroids" now appear to have some water, at least. While they may pick up water from the solar wind, I would say if they were once part of a parent body which may have had a metal core, a stony mantle, and a wet/icy crust, there can be water locked into minerals from that as well. Many asteroids may have started as "Mud-Balls", heated by Aluminum-26, for a few million years. Then if the parent body was busted up, still the rocks might have some water in them.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/16/worl … index.html
Quote:

Finding water on dry cosmic surfaces
The amount of water the team detected was roughly equivalent to that of a 12-ounce bottle of water trapped within a cubic meter of soil, Arredondo said, which is comparable SOFIA’s moon finding. The telescope picked up on the signature of water molecules in one of the largest craters in the moon’s southern hemisphere in 2020.
Like the water found on the lunar surface, “on asteroids, water can also be bound to minerals as well as adsorbed to silicate and trapped or dissolved in silicate impact glass,” Arredondo said.

So, the trans-terrestrial asteroids may be partially self-sufficient in water needs. But we would want to bring more organics from the original ~3.0 AU asteroids.

I had mentions Solein as a organic substance to bring along. But we might consider things like wood and plastics and Carbon as organic structural materials to help make the ships.

I will admit that processing rubble piles will be a challenge. I think microwave methods may be used to render stones to dust, or to melt them or to sinter them.

Just because I know a little about it I will pick asteroid Eros: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros
Image Quote:

Green=Eros
Dk Blue=Earth

It comes nowhere near Venus or Mercury. But if you had regular deliveries of organics from the ~3.0 asteroids, then you could set up a processing facility mostly having robots but a few humans as well. Then you cold send shipments to the orbits of various planets including Venus.

Venus actually has a lot of Carbon and Nitrogen, and some Hydrogen, so, the emphasis of shipments from Eros to Venus would be to send Metals and Ceramics to it's orbits. (This presumes that we can develop effective ways to obtain organics from Venus itself. I do not have too much against cloud cities, but I much prefer the idea of orbital habitations for Venus. This is why we would ship metals and Ceramics to Venus.

We have done repeated metamorphosis of structure to get from ~3.0 asteroids>Eros>Aerobraking to Venus?

So, as a ship goes on its way to Venus, it might be considered if it could in part or whole be made capable of aerobraking to orbit of Venus. A mirror structure sort of might skip off of the atmosphere. But you might need to give some sort of ablative coating to its convex side to do that.

If you do not aerobrake to orbit then you would most likely use Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive to attain orbit of Venus.

So, then this would be to support growing communities around Venus. The hope would be to capture atmosphere in the orbits of Venus and perhaps at the L2 location of Venus, (If Possible).

This is an interesting article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 1cd1&ei=14
Quote:

The Earth and the incredible discovery of the third energy field that surrounds it and changes how we understand it
Story by Alberto Zaragoza Lerma,Greg Heilman • 2mo • 2 min read

Venus has a stronger effect than Earth, I believe. It lifts Oxygen out of the atmosphere of Venus, to be snatched by the solar wind. My hope is that we could capture the Oxygen and other atoms and molecules for use.

Eventually Venus might have enough orbital structure around it to shade the planet. This might permit some eventual terraforming.

Mercury might be treated in a similar way, but of course it does not have a significant atmosphere at this time.

Ending Pending

Need Rest.

Last edited by Void (2024-11-10 11:55:22)

Void · 2024-11-11 17:24:13

So, I want to explore the idea of a patchwork mirror. This would be a mirror frame where you would be mirror facets together to make a large part of a mirror.

So, a patchwork mirror might start out with all patches filled, as leaving the ~3.0 AU "Wet/Icy/Hydrated" major asteroids. My notion is that this mirror assembly would be given a kick. You can choose. Chemicals, Nuclear, Mass Driver? Anyway the kick is to give it a sendoff to an elliptical orbit where it perihelion will be closer to the Sun than 3.0 AU, considerably closer. The main function of this ship would be to bring a power plant to a stony object, and also to being organic materials. So the structure could in part be composed of organic structural materials, and could carry a cargo of organics as well. Structural materials could be wood or plastics for instance. Organic materials could be Solein, maybe water, other things.

The mirror being a part of a power supply would need less and less mirror surface to supply a heat engine or solar panels as it moved towards its perihelion getting more and more sunlight.

From post #29:

-On the way into the more inner solar system, more ALICE propulsion might be used, but also perhaps Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive.
-As the sunshine concentration goes up we may "Eat" holes in the mirrors to provide propellants. A bit like a caterpillar chewing holes in a leaf. https://www.corrys.com/resources/what-p … %20instead. Image Quote:
-This lowers the mass of the spacecraft, and provides propellants.
-We may do a gravitational slingshot of Mars.
-Our goal is a trans-Terrestrial Asteroid.

I will make a drawing:

I did not work to hard to create that. The thing is when the mirror was at a ~3.0 AU asteroid you would need the whole mirror, as sunlight might be ~15% of Earth normal. But as you got nearer Mars, you might need less mirror to feed the heat engine. So you could feed part of the mirror perhaps circular pieces to a sort of a metal muncher, that would make it into propellants for ALICE, or Magdrive or Neumann Drive. So, at perhaps Eros, you would need considerably less mirror. This would lighten the dry mass of the ship, while using the expelled mas to impel the ship.

Once at Eros, it would disgorge its organic structure and cargo to that little world. and would replace structures with Ceramics and Metals. The blank spots on the mirror would be filled back in, and a much bigger heat engine would be put into the ship. The ship would also be loaded up with metal propellants. So, then it might set off for one of the Terrestrial planets from there. But Venus is currently my main interest.

To arrive at Venus, a question is, "Are you going to try to employ Air Braking to Orbit?". If you have enough metal propellants, then you don't have to. But if you could fortify and morphically alter your ship perhaps it could do a air brake capture to Venus orbit.

So, like various organisms we would have a flight where we employ various stages of metamorphic alterations.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-11 17:48:07)

Void · 2024-11-12 08:18:50

It is possible that it would make sense to bring organic chemicals to Mars orbit from the ~3.0 AU Asteroids, but I think it would be more sensible to get what you could from Phobos and Deimos, and if necessary, bring materials up to orbit from Mars itself.

I am working myself in the direction of microgravity manufacturing. This will be very important for Earth, so, it only makes sense that if you are going to put 1,000,000 people on Mars, then you will want orbital microgravity manufacturing for Mars in a similar time period.

While eyes are on the Moon for Starship as a priority, I am going to guess that we may be perhaps a year away from Starship being able to support microgravity space manufacturing for Earth's needs.

In this respect Starship answers some needs should it actually workout that way. You could have human labor in space with some assistance from robots. And the Ship is supposed to be able to give life support to 100 people for a very prolonged time. But for Space Manufacturing in microgravity, I would suppose just a handful of people on board.

I am seeing the potential of making a Lunar Starship type into a space station and visiting it periodically with a Atmospheric Starship with flaps and heat Sheid. In that case after being orbited the two propellant tanks of the Lunar Starship could be converted into warehouse space. And a large installation of solar power could be attached to the Lunar Starship.

That way the Atmospheric Starship would not need to be heavy on Life Support. In fact if you could do the personal changes using a Dragon and/or Dreamchaser, the Atmospheric Starship would not need life support at all. It would simply bring 50-200 tons of materials up and down. So, you could have relatively frequent personal changeovers, so then limiting the degree of microgravity illnesses.

Eventually Vast Space could have a space station with synthetic gravity that people could operate the Lunar Starship Factory from remotely. Maybe only 1 or 2 people would be stationed in the Factory Station at a time, in case some repairs were needed.

So, once Starship is ready to support Starlink, and the Lunar Starship is well developed, it may be relatively easy for SpaceX to get into a bulk manufacturing mode, and make a lot of money, I think.

I know that the ISS is reported to be able to recycle water at a 98% efficiency, but SpaceX is aiming to tighten that quite a lot. So, then for Mars Orbits Stations should not require that much import of Hydrogen or Methane from Mars.
In some ways import of Methane makes sense, as you can react it with heat with the regolith of Phobos and Deimos, and get water and some CO2, perhaps. The CO2 could be manipulated to yield Carbon for various purposes.

I have been thinking about Phobos, and tethers. I am a bit phobic about tethers, as I expect them to get severed by impactors, but still as it happens, I have realized that if you view Phobos in a certain light, it represents a power supply.
I have the notion to dangle an atmospheric mining platform on a tether, to tickle the upper atmosphere of Mars. Then over time dragging Phobos downward and atmosphere upwards. Without altering the nature of Phobos then we would expect it to break up once it would get to the Roche Limit: https://www.bing.com/search?q=phobos+ro … 1&hsmssg=0
Quote:

Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons at 22km in diameter, is slowly falling toward Mars and will reach the Roche limit in about 20 million years.

But we would be exploiting the inertia of Phobos to lift things off of Mars such as atmosphere. We also might fling things to a higher orbit using a tether. Both of these would lower the orbit of Phobos. So, we would hasten the end of that moon, unless we converted it into a ring of space stations having more strength than a rubble pile.

Some people might become horrified at the notion of "Stealing Atmosphere" from Mars. But what if we only did borrow and exchange? Processing Phobos would yield Oxygen, much of which may prove to be a waste gas. It could be dumped over to the Atmosphere of Mars. And the materials you lifted from Mars may contain a lot of Oxygen, but you would more want Carbon, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen. You could return the excess Oxygen into the Martian atmosphere.

The return method could be a Mass Driver to shoot Oxygen out at a speed that it would drop into the Martian Atmosphere. This would delay the decay of the orbit of Phobos.

So, early on the resources of Phobos and Deimos might be tapped. And if you have mirror technology that I have been talking about for the asteroid belt, then you can have means to terraform Mars using orbital power plants and also directing sunlight to desired locations.

Using Magdrive and or Neumann Drive, and Oxygen Mass Drivers, it may be possible to capture new moons for Mars, from Mars crossing asteroids. There could be a possible use of Ballistic Capture for that.

So, for that after all you might get organic chemicals from the ~3.0 asteroids and deliver them to a Mars crosser asteroid. Then set up facilities and gradually nudge an asteroid to an orbit of Mars. Perhaps some gravity assists might be employed to get that set up.

The use of tiny fibers to warm up Mars appears to be able to evaporate all the CO2, and so doubling the atmospheric pressure. The use of Microwaves, Infrared Lasers, and reflected sunshine, could perhaps turn each polar cap into a sort of cold sea, perhaps mostly covered with ice.

So, by orbital methods and the greenhouse things, I think a beneficiation of Mars could happen rather quickly.

Ending Pending

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scienti … e%20effect.
Quote:

The researchers designed particles shaped like short rods—similar in size to commercially available glitter. These particles are designed to trap escaping heat and scatter sunlight towards the surface, enhancing Mars' natural greenhouse effect.

So, those materials might be released from Phobos to warm the planet.

Once you had some sort of water cycle, even just snow that evaporated organisms might grow and they would likely release greenhouse gasses.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-12 08:59:29)

Void · 2024-11-12 14:26:04

I have had some further thinking on processing Phobos and Deimos, and other rubble pile objects.

Skyhooks have been contemplated by others for the moon Phobos. I think it would be something to come much later in the processing of Phobos, and if it is done, I would feel much better about it if it was "Skyhook(s)", connecting to a platform. In that way if a impactor might sever one tether, repairs might be possible.

I have had previous ideas about this and I also recall others, especially Calliban having notions. I would be happy to have an evaluation from such people. What I am chasing at this time is sintering and cables.

Calliban has had the notion of a "Ring" with digging arms. I am not contemplating a ring sintered into the top materials of an object like Phobos. Others have considered making landing pads for the Moon by sintering.

This query will reveal some of them: "Sintering landing pads on the Moon"
General Response: https://www.bing.com/search?q=Sintering … 96&pc=DCTS

So, this might be done while inserting anchors and leaving portals to dig into. The anchors could be connected together with some sort of cables. It is likely that the process of sintering may lead to cracking and also the thermal fluctuations would as well, so if while the regolith were softened by sintering, it might be possible in insert anchors and then wire the anchors together.

If you then could dig under this sinter shell, you could produce an area of relative protection.
Depending on the thickness of the shell you could get some radiation protection and some thermal protection and some protection from small impactors. You could add additional protections over time, particularly to make "Storm Shelters" for additional protections from radiation storms and accumulated GCR.

The moon itself would give some protection from about 50% or more of the sky.

If were on the Mars facing side you would get some protection from Mars itself, but would face secondary radiation coming from Mars. But "Secondary Radiation" may be easier to shield from.

We will want radar scanning of Phobos to reveal "Underground Truth", and probably sample returns.

In the beginning the sintering and linking with cables and fasteners would have to incorporate a substantial enough mass that a ship could anchor to it and carefully allow the entering of the undergrounds though a portal.

But elsewhere smaller slabs could be sintered with anchors and the slabs lifted off to become protection for a synthetic gravity space station near Phobos.

In time under the original sinter patch, a method to process the additional regolith and extract gasses and metals from it could be incorporated. So, then the sintering could be expressed around the circumference of Phobos, with slabs, anchors and cables. Under this could be built metal structures. Attached to it could be power method on the outside.

And I think that this basic method for starting could be implemented on Demos and many asteroids. We do not know if Phobos has a bit of water and other organics in it's rocks, it might, but probably Hydrogen and Nitrogen could be brought up from Mars as Ammonia, and if Carbon is needed that could be brought up as well.

Eventually the structure of Phobos could be made advanced enough to set up skyhooks, both down into the atmosphere and up higher to fling loads.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-12 14:54:37)

Void · 2024-11-14 08:28:16

I am going to do some strange thinking, perhaps using too much absurdium, so don't look if that bothers you. It involves a ship similar to Lunar Starship, and the making of such into space stations. My purpose is to see how close I can get to practical, and worthwhile.

https://www.humanmars.net/2020/07/cutaw … rship.html
Image Quote: SpaceX+Lunar+Starship+cutaway+diagram+by+Rocket+Posters_full_humanMars.net.jpg

I don't expect that the layouts are as the final ship will be, it is possible that the propellant tanks will take more space, and that the cabin will be designed differently.

OK to get strait to the absurd. The ship put to orbit, can after that shed it's raptors, and fill the bottom tank, which is Oxygen with water. But also I allow for a balloon to be put into that tank that could be filled with air.

I am currently thinking of this in microgravity or very low gravity situations:

There are dangers of having a lot of water in a ship, should it do a major leak, but I am just exploring this. I am hoping to use the water for biological purposes and to provide an improved radiation protection.

How to transit things from a liquid fill to air filled is going to be an issue in microgravity.

I suppose that the water tight inflatable could be transparent plastic. In that case you could have LED lighting inside of the water tight inflatable. That would cost a lot of power, and also heat buildup would need to be handled. But you could grow things in the water that way. Food for instance. Hydrilla might be an interesting place to start.

Maybe some sort of free floating algae.

But the water tight inflatable may be improved as a storm shelter against radiation. It would be better to have a future larger version of Starship which has been hinted at eventually showing up.

I thought you might want 14 feet of water but there is this:
https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … %20heat%29.

Quote:

7 centimeters thick
Well, according to a report on the topic prepared for the DoE back in 1977, a layer of water 7 centimeters thick reduces the ionizing radiation (rays and particles) transmitted through it by half (the remainder is captured or moderated to non-ionizing energy levels, mainly heat).
What thickness/depth of water would be required to provide radiati…
space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-thickness-depth-of-water-would-be-required-to-provide-radiation-shielding-i
space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-thickness-depth-of-water-woul…

Quote:

If we assume the energy levels are comparable, reducing that to lower than Earth background radiation would only require a layer of water around 1 meter thick.

The article has a lot of interesting calculations in it.

So, anyway, I am going on the notion that because of space junk, it might be nice to consider having starship factory stations at a higher orbit than LEO. This will cost transit fuel, but reduce fuel needed to avoid collisions. However, these higher orbits may not be as protected as the ones used by the ISS.

OK, so maybe additional protection could be incorporated with another bag of shielding material, perhaps water.

So, if you had that movable shielding then in a solar storm, the tail of the ship would not so much have to be pointed at the sun.

So, if you have a highly automated factory in the nose section, the crew (1 person?) might hang out inside of the protected area most of the time including sleeping.

I believe that Starship has a diameter of 9 meters, which I will translate for me. (29.5275591 feet)

Just guestimating, perhaps 2 to 4 meters of water thickness. 2 for walls, and 4 for bottom which might point at sun.

So, an air pocket inside the "Water Tight Inflatable", would be perhaps 5 meters by 10 meters. (16.4041995 feet by )32.808399 feet).

While I have suggested the use of LED's for photosynthesis, Acetate and Oxygen might be used as another method, requiring the ability to generate those chemicals through necessary means.

As I have said, these tricks might work better with a future larger version of Starship.

Another factor is that this modified ship could be embedded in a larger space structure, perhaps hosting other converted ships.

I am presuming that this thing might be valuable to support space manufacturing industry.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-14 09:18:02)

Void · 2024-11-14 12:08:16

There are various algae that could be farmed it seems. Spirulina is among them I think.

Query: "Farming Algae, Types of Algae"

Anyway, I anticipate that some type of robot that can be inside the main body of water may be useful, for instance to clean algae that grows on surfaces, to allow other algae to use the light.

As it happens this fell into my lap just now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMclJLuqqAU
Quote:

The End of ISS: SpaceX's Starship Will House HUNDREDS at 1/50th the Cost
Elon Musk 24h
2K subscribers

I have been wondering about the use of a Starship, put into a frame, where the Starship could be microgravity at times but then spin up periodically to have synthetic gravity.

Dr. Johnson, as I recall has suggested that Starship as original could reasonably do up to .5 g of synthetic gravity as best case, I suppose in its nose.

However it seems that Starship will be "Stretched" as time goes by. Also, future versions may be very much larger, so in those cases 1 g might be attainable.

So, if possible then you could have the best of things. Microgravity production, and at the end of a "Run", then to do a spin cycle, to address health concerns of humans.

If you had an assembly of 50 ships, maybe the spinning ones would not cause troublesome vibrations in the ones in microgravity mode. It would need some clever arrangements, I would suppose.

If not possible then the ships could disconnect from the assembly to achieve microgravity on their own, and then when ready to do a spin, dock back in to a swivel harness.

Such various modes may need special methods to supply utilities such as electricity.

The video mentions research money and tourism money, but I think some types of production could already be hosted.

And I have to wonder if they could experiment on hosting some sort of data center in a Starship.

So, there might be significant $$$ in this, and along with military and NASA money, the production of many Starships for these various purposed may make the per unit cost of a Starship drop.

Ending Pending

I also think that a collection of these could be place in proximity of the Moon. If you wanted to try the water radiation shelter/farming, the Oxygen for the water could come from the Moon, maybe even water itself.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-14 12:32:25)

Void · 2024-11-14 15:26:58

In the case where it becomes normal to build structures from multiple Starships, I might wonder if you could send 10 to Phobos and have enough gradational bonding to use manipulator arms to work with the materials of the surface of Phobos.

You would have two options. Send 10 air braked ships, and do the Hohmann Transfer, or bind 10 Lunar Starships together, and send them to a Ballistic Capture method to capture to Mars.

Yes the gravity of Phobos is extremely weak, but a 10 ship assembly would be a fulcrum that robot arms could be mounted on.

A wild idea, and perhaps not the greatest desire, but kind of fun to think of.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-14 15:30:43)

Void · 2024-11-15 10:45:51

A question about "Relative Value". What is the relative value of a Starship in orbit and one which attempts to return to the launch pad?

I am not the first one who might have thought that sometimes a Starship of a relatively simple design in an "Expendable Mode", could have value. It is sometimes done with the Falcon series hardware.

So, SpaceX could make an expendable tanker. Again, I am not the first to think it. But of course they would lose a lot of value if they just crashed it into the pacific. The raptors at least have reuse value.

So, suppose you have a space station in orbit that can scrap tanker starships and hand the Raptors off to a full Starship to deliver to the ground as reuse items. But then you have the Tanker Starship envelope which may have a second life in orbit, I think.

You could add volume to Space Stations, but eventually that would saturate.

You could then use the mass of the envelope in ways of repurposing. Some of it might be converted to metal propellants for Magdrive or Neumann Drive systems, but those are in infancy. And that probably requires a lot of energy and manipulations.

If you liked tethers, then you could lower the shells on a tether and then release them to burn up, this would boost a space station, I believe.

Could you cut a cylinder portion into 3 long mirrors, and coat them with a reflective coating and use them in some type of solar power plant in orbit? Maybe a heat engine? That would probably leave some portions to dispose of as metal propellants for Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive.

And if heat engines, then some shells could become radiators for them.

So, it appears to me that you would have some Starships that never land and some that can land and bring down mass to the surface.

Pause.....

So, then shells taken apart, then it being a sort of sheet metal, could you heat sections up in a mirror focus, and then stamp them into another shape. Then weld those patches together to make a big mirror(s).

So, the more conversions you could do in orbit to create value in orbit, the more sense it could make to mass produce, Simple Starships, which would be up mass to LEO, and be a significant portion of all Starships mass produced.

In one way, it can be understood that for these, you can avoid the cost of a landing, and possibility of a mishap. Landing is not without cost, in various ways. But you could never have 100% Simple Starships which do not land. Parts of the Simple Starships likely need to be landed in the complex versions of Starship.

So, kind of interesting. More launches than landings.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-15 11:09:57)

Void · 2024-11-15 14:22:29

If the materials of the previous post are approximately true, then it seems to me that some tricks can really be used to clean up the large pieces of space junk.

These notions of Magdrive and Neumann Drive can be true then space junk may have some value as propellants.

I have seen various articles suggesting that Rocket Lab's Neutron Rocket, may be competitive with Starship. In some ways perhaps. I respect the idea of Neutron. But what I am interested in is the 2nd stage of Neutron. In some cases, could it be reused in orbit? Maybe refilled with Starship and then sent out to go grab space junk of a certain size?

The methods to process simple shell Starships, would perhaps be compatible with recycling big chunks of space junk.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/02/rocke … to%20orbit.
Quote:

But what about the second stage?
Not only is there no nose cone payload fairing, Rocket Lab also decided to overhaul the second stage as well. Conventional rocket design integrates the second stage by sandwiching it between the first stage and the payload. But with Neutron, the second stage will hang inside the first stage. When the rocket needs to deploy the payload, the “Hungry Hippo” fairing design will open and release both the second stage and payload to orbit.

I have read that it weights about as much as a motorcycle.

So, maybe that is of a suitable size for collection of some space junk. I suppose not all junk will be collected, maybe some dumped into the atmosphere.

Raptors are impressive and getting more so, but there are other vendors who are producing smaller engines which might be suitable to special purposes.

Getting rid of the big pieces of space junk might slow the buildup of the problem.

And I think that someday, maybe it will be possible for SpaceX to make a lighter Super Heavy. But not now! But some of Rocket Labs tricks could be helpful.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-15 14:35:17)

Void · 2024-11-16 08:04:06

Here is a bit of something from the Angry Astronaut some time ago, about Magdrive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-4eif445pk
Quote:

Plasma drive for satellites and Starship! Three times as efficient as Raptor? Magdrive interview!
The Angry Astronaut
149K subscribers

So, I have read various guesses as to how much payload could be delivered to LEO, by expendable Starship. 400 Tons was the Maximum I have seen so far. However I think that might also require the undesirable loss of the Super Heavy.

Anyway, I am visualizing a "Liberty Starship", sort of copying the notion of "Liberty Ships" in WWII.

I may be asking too much, but what about a starship with just two tanks nose to tail, an upper tank perhaps of Methane and a lower tank of Oxygen.

Other than the Raptors and other parts that could be recycled back to Earth, then the ship would be entirely propellant.
Liquid Propellants and Metal, which can potentially be propellants.

So, then maybe:

So, then these would not have header tanks or the plumbing associated with that, no heat shield, no flaps and motors.

And in the video they tilt towards Nuclear-Electric. However, I would not be shy about Solar for appropriate situations such as delivery to Mars orbits, Phobos, Deimos.

Since they do talk about grabbing Space Junk, then much of such a Starship could be processed in a similar way.

Where I am currently at in my thinking about mining metals for propellants, is can you get a mish-mash of an alloy from stony materials such as our Moon and Phobos and Deimos, Mars, where you extract as much Oxygen as possible from the mass, and try to get a conductive "Garbage" alloy, that might work with Magdrive or Neumann Drive?

I know that Neumann Drive can work with most conductive substances. Here is a list of what can be used in Neumann Drive, maybe Magdrive could do it as well: https://neumannspace.com/metal-propellants/
(You need to scroll down).

The point is that a great deal of the periodic table can be used. So, then if you remove Oxygen first, do you have a mix that could be used as a conductive substance, or are there other parts you have to remove?

So, then using Magdrive Propellant Depots that could transfer to the Moon, you might only transfer Methane, no Oxygen. Then you could just grab Lunar Regolith and bring it up to Orbit with a Starship. If you have a space station made of Starship parts, you might be able to process it into Oxygen, Propellants, and maybe a few things you might extract for other purposes.

You would only use Methane and Oxygen to move up and down Moon Surface<>Space Station. Magdrive would do the transit propulsion Earth LEO<>Moon Orbit.

Low Latitudes on the Moon might be preferred for this. But eventually you might work with high latitudes.

If stony materials from our Moon could be processed in this way in microgravity or synthetic gravity, then I would think that it is almost certain that materials from Phobos and Deimos could be processed.

A simplified form of Metalysis might be employed, if you could simply extract Oxygen and a otherwise useless alloy mixture from the stony materials. Most uses of Matalysis suggest producing refined materials with good alloys. But having "Liberty Starships" from Earth could give you plenty of high quality metals, and to process stony materials, perhaps you could aim for low grade materials from Metalysis. So, then you don't have to go out to find high quality metal asteroids, although you could.

Lets say you assembled 10 "Liberty" starships into a heavy assembly, and landed it on Phobos or Deimos. There could be enough gravitational attraction so that you could use some method to fill up say 6 of the Starships with regolith as ballast.

Then you might take off by some means and process some of that materials into Oxygen and metal alloy propellants.

As I understand it Neumann Drive can use Silicon and most metals. So, I am hoping that removing the Oxygen might be all you have to do. But if more is needed, you still would be OK, probably a mix of some sort for propellants could be extracted in bulk.

And as for waste Oxygen, it can perhaps be possible to use that in chemical propulsions, and also it might be used in a Mass Driver as well for a propulsion method.

The plan by SpaceX to land on Mars with Starship Methand & Oxygen is interesting. But if you could process stony materials for return propellants, I would suggest that Phobos and Deimos might be first destinations.

And you might keep the Starships in orbit, and use an upgraded "Stokes" lander to access the surface of Mars.

All you would need to do with a Stokes Lander, is load it up with water from a ice deposit, and fly it to orbit.

Then you could split it into Hydrogen and Oxgen for another visit to the surface.

Your power supplies would mostly be in Orbit, Nuclear and/or Solar. And with Solar in orbit you could have thin concentrating mirrors, to bring the photon levels up to Earth normal for better efficiency.

Of course you could bring lots of water with you from Earth/Moon, as it could be used as shielding and to grow food.

Once you got to Mars orbit then you would render some of it into Hydrogen and Oxygen for a Stokes Lander.

https://www.stokespace.com/

Image Quote:

Your first landings could be with a humanoid robot, to confirm that a water resource is available to use in a practical way.

And each landing could grab some samples to bring to orbit.

Once you found a spot you liked then you could send some Starships to land with a large amount of Cargo, but you might still use the Stokes "NOVA" to transport people.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-16 09:06:44)

Void · 2024-11-16 12:36:11

(th) made this post in response to my just previous post here: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 52#p227852 Quote:

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,306
Email
For Void re "liberty ship" Starships ....
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 50#p227850
Your artwork continues to develop. I note the complex shapes you've created in recent posts.
Elon and company have chosen a simple cylinder as the shape for Starship and for Heavy.
A simple cylinder may be easier to manufacture? Your drawings are ** much ** more interesting.
(th)

The drawing is just suggestive. Cylinder with a cone nose is just fine.

The thing is that you could cut the cone off and join it to others for a pressurized space. This then may allow you to cut up the cylinder to make flat sheets of Stainless Steel that could be made into many things such as mirrors or other structure. Some other parts could be made into propellants for Magdrive.

While it might be interesting to use such a Starship as a tanker, just one time, then you must use the Superheavy.

But based on words from Elon Musk, it is possible that the "Liberty Starships" might be able to do SSTO. This would open many launch pads around the world to launch them. Elon has said in the past that Starship might be able to do SSTO if it had no legs and no heat shield. If raptors are getting better, then perhaps it could.

If so, then these would be launched to a very low Earth orbit and perhaps fetched upwards to a bit higher orbit using a Magdrive ship. Then they could be scrapped for noses, cylinders, and spare parts. The raptors could be returned to Earth with a full Starship as down mass.

So, we would have this metal propellants and space stations made from those. And at the Mars end we would have Phobos and Deimos as a source of Metals or conductive substances for propellants.

But what about out Moon?

Pause......

I think I am arriving at the possibility that we could build Moon-Moons to collect output from Magdrive. A Moon-Moon is simply a satellite of the Moon. Many Moon orbits are unstable but we might be able to handle that.

I will make some drawings: OK, here is a cut-away of a Moon-Moon platform:

Basically it is a target that plasma bullets from a Magdrive(s) on the surface of the Moon, might hit. The hope is that the magnetic fields and the electrostatic field may help attract the plasma bullets. And then we hope that the thermal balance will lead to the plasma condensing into a solid on the surface of the target.

A method to extract the collected metal from the target would be needed.

It might be possible to make a whole ring, a Moon-Moon-Ring. But that is rather fanstastic.

But if you did then you might also collect Oxygen if you released Oxygen into a extremely thin atmosphere for the Moon. This may conflict with the plasma bullets. I am not sure.

But this might eventually be done with Mercury as well, I am guessing and perhaps Dwarf Planets.

For now though perhaps just a set of discrete Moon-Moons.

If this can be made to work, then massive propellants would be available for use to access the solar system.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-16 13:21:07)

Void · 2024-11-17 10:17:10

So, it is unclear if a SSTO Starship really can be possible. Future discovery is needed.

A question could be why would you want it? It cannot carry any significant payload to space. But this is not true, if you are going to render the carcasses into useful things in orbit. Then the entire mass of the Starship can have value.

So, then every part of a SSTO Starship should have the "First Function" of helping the whole Starship to gain an orbit of some kind, even a very low one.

We could compare this potential result to a result of a mass driver. Lets say Spin-Launch.

One thing is apparent, Spin-Launch is very constrained as to what it can send. It is very complex, and could be severly damaged in a mishap, putting it out of service.

Similarly, a SSTO Starship could explode on a launch pad. But the explosion would be less than that of a full stack of Starship and Super Heavy of similar propellant load.

One thing has occurred to me about Starship SSTO, without legs or heat shield. You could mass manufacture them on a seaside, and then float them out to a sea launch platform. You might want covers for the Raptors, those covers could be reused. So, the risk of explosion is very reduced then and you are not congesting a spaceport which might be launching a full stack of Starship.

So, you could ballast the Starship with some means and keep its tail above water, with engine covers. Then when at a platform, it would by some means be made to emerge from the water and be set right for launch.

The brief immersion in sea water might not cause it too much harm. I am presuming that this ship would have 9 engines, and the electric means to steer the ship, so that has to have reasonable protection as well. And this presumes that the ship can overcome gravity on launch to proceed to orbit. I do not know at this time if that is possible.

But the Falcon series of rockets shows that SpaceX knows how to minimize the risk of explosion, and that a sea launch would also reduce damages that might occur from an explosion.

A sea launch suggests that out west coast could harbor a build process. The ships could be floated to the equator if desired, and launched from platforms in the sea. And of course similar for the East Coast. I guess having the equator option gives just a little more chance that such ships could reach a very low orbit.

I really don't know if that is all that could happen. But reaching a very low orbit, then there is a hope of a orbital vehicle to fetch it to a higher orbit. I am presuming that this tug would be thrusted with Magdrive. It may be that it would be sent power from orbital devices further up, but I don't know that that is possible.

Supposing that a SSTO Starship could have an endcap covering its entire engine skirt, then it might be possible that a platform might float under it, and then with ballast changes lift it out of the water. So, no crane, just some hooks, and a lifting as the platform rises in the water. The end cap would be removed, to be cycled back to land.

The ship would be filled by some sort of barge, and then the ship would launch.

Rinse and Repeat.

Ending Pending

So, the idea of a sea-launch platform with ballast tanks suggests that the ballast tanks are a form of stored energy.

You would have to release the air in order to do yet another launch, so perhaps a pneumatic catapult system could be incorporated to use that energy to give the launching ship just a small amount of additional boost. As SSTO will be very marginal in possibility, this could be very important.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-17 10:53:46)

Calliban · 2024-11-17 14:20:55

Void, the idea of a repurposable SSTO sounds like a good one to me. It avoids the need to consider reentry in designing such a vehicle, along with the weight and design complication that reentry imposes. A single use SSTO can also get away with slimmer structural margins, as long term creep problems in stressed components are not a concern. The ship needs to survive one stress cycle and then it is done. The engines only need be designed for single use. Maybe ablative lined, pressure-fed engines will do the job, especially if the ship is large. When the ship reaches orbit, different parts of it can be cannibalised for different purposes.

This is a different approach to reusability. But the ship is reused none the less. If you can sell the pieces of it in orbit to customers for about the same cost as you bought it for on the ground, then launch costs for any minimal cargo remain cheap.

Repurpose is arguably more energy and resource efficient than full reuse. Most of the takeoff weight of the vehicle is fuel. A large part of the energy in that fuel is used to accelerate the dead weight of the ship to orbital velocity. That energy then gets wasted and dumped back into the atmosphere when the ship reenters. The way to eliminate waste entirely is to turn the whole ship into orbital payload, i.e your idea.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-11-17 14:30:20)

Void · 2024-11-17 18:44:57

Calliban, your post is very much appreciated.

The alternatives may be the better options. Such as one time engines, if they can have good enough performance. That would be much better than having to move Raptor back down to the surface for reuse. Perhaps with 3D printing the mass production of such One-Time engines could be facilitated.

Just now, I am thinking about the space tug method and a sea catapult of a bizarre nature.

For the tug, I would prefer to avoid tethers, but maybe if space junk could be cleaned up tethers might work to hook a ship and skyhook it upwards.

The Bizarre catapult, would involve pneumatics and stored gravitational energy perhaps. Two clapping gravity energy flukes, and a pneumatic rocket exhaust into the water. This would at least be good for giggles.

Having a catapult that could give a ship a vertical push when it has a complete fill of propellants could be a help in the needed margin to make it to a basic low orbit. I will intend to make a drawing shortly.

I see that sea launches might be good options, as various places with seashores could make money building these devices and the rockets. Although it might not be necessary to launch at the equator, there is a relatively persistent weather pattern of calm weather between the two hemispheres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertrop … seasonally.

We might like to exploit the equators spin a bit if possible and to avoid severe weather.

Seems like this came out fairly good:

Prelaunch the "Gravity Flukes" are up, and the upper cylinder is filled with compressed air.

To launch you release the compressed air into the lower chamber, and release the gravity flukes. The water squirts out of the nozzle at the bottom of the lower cylinder and the gravity flukes rotate down on hinges. When the gravity flukes are down they help keep the assembly from falling over at the surface as they are intended to compensate for the lower cylinder being filled with air and changing the center of gravity.

Then of course to launch again you have to reset the device somehow. The "Gravity Flukes could resemble a whales flukes with a very large amount of weight incorporated into them.

So, I was thinking of just two gravity flukes but now I see you could have them all around the circumference.

So, this might have a lot of kick to give to a launching ship.

Ending Pending

I suppose you could power the Flukes with pneumatics, but then you have to have lubricants and parts that would not be excessively toxic to the environment.

Ending Pending

I don't want to start a new post, as I want what is here to continue to be exposed.

I have mentioned space junk and Magdrive.

I have been thinking about a Magdrive system that could fire plasma bullets both backwards and forwards.

Don't be alarmed if I mention the "Fusion Candle": https://rumble.com/v2sjqbx-fusion-candles.html

A Magdrive "Candle" (Maybe better phrase needed), could be able to point some of its thrusters forward to point at a piece of space junk. I think if it is spinning it might be hoped to de-spin it and retrieve it as propellant.

But other alternatives could be to burn up a small piece into a powder which would deorbit faster from the exosphere gasses, or perhaps just to make a piece of space junk fall to a lower orbit, with a similar result of de-orbiting sooner.

I am very curious to see if plasma bullets could condense on an object, or would erode it.

Of course I want to see a situation where Moon substance could be sent out of Magdrives on the surface of the Moon and would condense on an orbital object and also possibly push it to maintain it's orbit.

Having metal mass from shell ships launched from Earth and metal mass from the Moon would give the human race a lot of options for space travel.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-17 20:42:01)

Void · 2024-11-18 09:00:52

An "Impact Method" to clear space junk has occurred to me. This would perhaps apply to some space junk, which is otherwise less profitable to grab.

So, there are two ways we might hope to get metal shells to orbit. Recently we have discussed SSTO ideas, which are not yet proven to be practical. But there is hope, at least for a dope.

But we might also consider a shell sent to orbit using Super Heavy, where the cargo is sheets of materials interior to the shell. Metal Sheets or Plastic Sheets, perhaps combinations.

An idea which I learned from reading Sci-Fi is that if you have two walls and a impactor hits that, then the first wall may vaporize the object and/or shatter it into dust. Of course then it also punches a hole in the first wall, if it has sufficient inertia. The plume from the fist wall impact has reduced speed and is spread out, so then the second wall may be able to handle the impact of that plume without being ruptured.

So, then obviously a simple shell of a ship could be used this way prior to traveling to a rendering plant in orbit where it would be taken apart for materials.

In the case of a ship assisted to orbit with a Super Heavy, then with multiple plates of metals and or Plastics or wood, bigger objects might be handled by deliberate impact.

There may be some cases of very small materials, where a bounce rather than penetration might be desired. The idea would be to shatter the impacting object into smaller parts which the atmosphere may slow down faster.

In any case a shell used and abused in this manner would then be moved to a "Rendering Facility" for extraction of it's materials to support space efforts.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-18 09:08:23)

Void · 2024-11-18 14:40:48

I felt it necessary to do a post elsewhere to smooth some things out: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 96#p227896 (See post #15 in that topic)

Quote:

Dr. Johnson, I appreciate the measurement. I worked in metrology, and I like having best numbers even if they don't tell me the story I want to hear: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 94#p227894 (See post #454)
But I should have been careful with my language. You have said that the glass is almost certainly not full enough. I am taking the notion of a glass partly filled and perhaps not ever to be filled, and then my question is what other assistance other than the Super Heavy would allow it to go to orbit?
So, at that point I am not talking about SSTO, rather Assisted-Sort-Of-SSTO. Ass.-SSTO, if you like.
-Possibilities are Tug/Skyhook to finish it to orbit.
-Catapult, which I have attempted in a sort of joking way to invent. Probably not enough.
-But we also could strap two Falcon 9 1st Stages to it in the manner of Falcon Heavy.
(Solids might also work, but I understand they shake a lot which would be bad, and they are hard to reuse)
I know that they had a terrible time making Falcon Heavy work, so yes, it is very questionable. But the thing about it is you would not be landing the Starship so you would not need a platform to land it with such as Mechazilla, and the two or more Falcon 9's could land on barges in the sea. Troublesome but not impossible.
So, for me that makes something possible, but good chances not economically viable. But who knows. If SpaceX were to build a Metha-Lox version of Falcon 9 with Raptors, then maybe. Not saying that they want to, but as I see it, the spaceports for Full Stack Starship launch will be likely to be congested.
(th), I also allowed for a shell Starship to be assisted to orbit by Super Heavy. In such a case it might be able to carry as much as 200 Tons, maybe more of propellants to orbit. I prefer the notion of Metals that could be either for structure or for propellants for a Magdrive, or Neumann Drive systems.
So, I feel that your inclusion of the idea to this topic is valid.
Ending Pending

So, with that reasonably cleaned up I feel I can dare to continue with what I have been after here.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-18 14:43:02)

Void · 2024-11-19 12:59:54

So, it seems I need to be careful about words, so as to not provoke communication problems.

I have been darting around between possible sources of mass and energy in space. Starship is one way to get mass into space that can derive energy.

I think we are getting close to "In Space Manufacturing". That could be done in many places but of course lower space orbits may do, especially if methods to keep the space lanes clear of excessive junk can be done.

A thing about Satellites is they are getting smaller and smaller per productive output. And this logic makes sense if you are going to manufacture them on the surface of the Earth. But what if later, Satellites can in part be manufactured in orbit, in part from bulk materials available? Then certain sensitive parts might still be made on Earth, but might be put into a chassis made from bulk materials.

Bulk materials might come from old space junk, but more likely lifted to Earth orbit from the surface of Earth, but perhaps later coming in part from other worlds, such as the Moon, asteroids, or Phobos and Deimos.

If Magdrive and Neumann Drive work per the hopes, then it may be possible to keep recycling space junk created as satellites go dead. Some of it anyway. If the big junk can be made to have further value, then there will not be much of a contribution to the Kesler Syndrome from those. And it may be that some methods such as an impact method could clean up some of the more dangerous smaller junk.

I like the Full Stacked Starship Super Heavy & Starship, but have been working on the "Anti-Starship" which has the philosophy of wanting to bring bulk materials to orbit while reducing reuse of hardware to the surface.

I don't know if SpaceX will ever bother with it, but I think that they will have the assets to experiment with it should they want to.

The Anti-Starship has a SSTO wish embedded in it, but that by itself is considered to be impractical at this time.
So, I suggest that the Anti-Starship will need assistive assets to help it achieve a useful orbit.

The logic of SSTO suggests that you could try to reduce dry mass for the Starship itself by going to a lower gage of metal, but then the purpose of the Anti-Starship is to get bulk materials of significant value to a useful orbit.

Obviously this can be done by using a Super Heavy to get the Starship to orbit. But I anticipate congestion at the major launch sites with Mechazilla Launch Towers. So, I want a launch method that can avoid using a Mechazilla.

And I think I want a launch site that can be remote from human populations. Sea Launches may allow that.

Pause......

Because of gravity and atmosphere, the SSTO wish has to be augmented. I now suggest that side boosters might work nicely at sea. Building a platform at sea with a full stack Mehazilla, may be rather demanding. But a Starship with assistive side boosters may require less of an effort. This would be to make Starship a bit like Falcon 9 Heavy.

As an experiment before they fully phase out Falcon 9 perhaps, they could do such an experiment. I would test the potential, and then also begin to give SpaceX a larger footprint at sea than they now have. Granted, this would require bonding two deferent fuel systems, but part of the architecture already exists. They already do a 3 core Falcon Heavy which should have taught them something, and they already know how to land 2 of the cores at least on barges or land.

I suppose they could try solids, but the history of solids is not as good of that of Falcon 9/Heavy, as per reuse.

I would think that they would hope to use only 2 Falcon cores, as that will more resemble Falcon Heavy, but I suppose they could put 4 or 6 on there if they wanted to try that.

Perhaps if the method works then they might make a Methalox replacement for the Falcon cores.

So, for this "Anti-Starship" you would have no intention of landing the Starship. But if necessary, you might ditch it at sea. That would be a loss. So the "Anti-Starship" itself would be in the place of the Falcon Heavy center core and upper stage.

I this method could bring bulk materials to orbit then where possible you might want to substitute other materials for Stainless Steel. Although you would want a lot of Stainless Steel in the device. Perhaps one tank, maybe Oxygen would be of Stainless Steel, and the nose might be of a lighter mix, such as the Falcon rockets use. Perhaps other things.

I would not expect the ship to have flaps-motors, or heat shield, but copper and other minority substances might be valuable in orbit.

So side boosters might make the "Anti-Starship" reach orbit on crutches.

But I would like to think of a space tug, using metal propellants to intercept it in a low orbit and bring it higher. This could involve a tether, if space junk is not too severe of a problem. 50 to 100 km tether could make a big difference, I think. But I would say at first just use something like Magdrive, if it grows up to be what we want it to be.

But I would still like to consider a pendulum skyhook for this purpose. Instead of a rotavator or a static skyhook, this might have main propulsion on the top end and some sort of propulsion on the bottom end with enough power to make the skyhook swing forward and backwards. It is possible that this method could match speeds to hook a "Anti-Starship". (I currently speculate).

Pause......

The last item of assistance I want to re-suggest is a catapult. I did try to make a sort of pneumatic/hydraulic/gravity catapult. Quite a monstrosity. But maybe someday a practical device could be made as a sea platform.

Ending Pending

With bulk materials delivery to orbit, then I hope that manufacturing in orbit can facilitate further development of space skills for reaching into the solar system. Also to facilitate direct benefits to the people living on the surface of the Earth.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-19 13:51:56)

Void · 2024-11-20 12:07:23

So, who knows maybe some of the "Shell Ship" "Anti-Starship" concepts might eventually come to a creation of them.

My logic for trying to make the attempts of them is that obviously the surface of the Earth is the most hospitable of work areas in the solar system that I am aware of. So, having additional matter in LEO, then improves that as a workshop. The additional matter can then appropriate energy from the LEO environment. So, then having matter and energy, LEO and further out can become improved work areas to project human intentions outward from.

Places to project to and then from, are our Moon, Earth crossing asteroids, the inner asteroid belt, the outer asteroid belt with organic available, and then Phobos, Deimos, and Mars.

Just now I have had a thought about Phobos and Deimos. The notion can apply to rubble pile asteroids which resemble those two moons of Mars, as well.

Previously I had speculated on using microwaves to make the surface of such an object with fine regolith on it solid, while leaving portals to get inside, and under the created pavement. My hope was that by creating a massive object it would have enough mass to be held by the feeble gravity of Phobos for instance.

Now, instead I am more looking at Stone Wells: http://www.stonestructures.org/html/wells-cisterns.html
Image Quote:

So, presuming that prior to a creation, you could "See" the interior of Phobos, with some sort of instrumentation, then you might calculate where you could do this and also end up running along parallel to a giant slab or rock, if such exists.

So, far, we have only a blury notion of what the interior is like: https://www.space.com/phobos-radar-unkn … rs-express Image Quote: Quote:

A 'radargram' acquired by MARSIS during the flyby of Phobos on 23 September 2022. A radargram reveals the 'echoes' created when the radio signal emitted by MARSIS bounces off something and returns to the instrument. (Image credit: INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica)
MARSIS had been designed to probe Mars' interior from an orbital distance of more than 155 miles (250 kilometers), but the recent software upgrade allows MARSIS to operate at much closer distances, permitting its use during close fly-bys of the moons.
Getting even closer to Phobos will provide radargrams with even greater resolution than that achieved here. The plan over the next few years is to employ MARSIS as close as 40 kilometers (24.9 miles) to Phobos.

So, now if we could determine where to dig our "Well" that would be a start.

Then I hope that a circle of rock could be melted with some sort of anchors embedded. IF the rock cools broken then perhaps it can be wired together using the anchors.

Pause for Coffee.......

I am supposing that you would want the "Well" at least big enough to pass a 9-meter Starship though, maybe 18-meter Starship. So, then I would hope to bring shells from Earth to insert into these "Wells".

Before starting a thing like these we will want to know what materials may be contained in Phobos. It is probably not entirely "Bone Dry". The solar wind may have embedded protons into some of the materials. Also, if the moon is in part composed of materials from a Mars impact, it may be part impactor, part Mars. Even the Mars part may include hydrated minerals. Some notions have it partly composed of Hydrated Minerals.

There are a lot of notions, and too few facts about that: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/ … 65/6660653

If the moons of Mars were created by an impact, some thinking has it that the impactor was icy, like a comet, and that it would have tempered the impact heat, with evaporative heating. So, both a Mars component and a impactor component might have Hydrated mineral, (or not).

So, facts are desired.

Some people think that Phobos and/or Deimos might actually have ice in them. Generally this seems less likely than Hydrated minerals.

In any case the materials that are there are what will be available. Thankfully Mars itself can supply Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Carbon if they are not obtainable form the moons themselves. But of course that will be more work and cost.

We can be pretty sure that the regolith of these moons will supply Oxygen, and "Metals" that can be used in a Magdrive or Neumann Drive or even Mass Drivers. Oxygen could be used in a Mass Driver.

Pause.....Coffee.....

I have in previous posts given hopes that Starship Shells could be pushed and pulled to orbit by various means. And my hope is that in some cases they can be converted for other uses and in some cases be rendered into propellants for Magdrive, or Neumann Drive.

To start Phobos out I would think that a "Bundle" of Starship Shells could be useful:

It seems likely to me that the center Starship Shell might be the most protected, so perhaps have the best life support.
The outer shells might have supplies and bulk materials added for radiation shielding, and other reasons.

So, this bundle might be able to provide sufficient protection from humans without being embedded into Phobos or Deimos. I am thinking that it might land on Phobos like a spaceship, and I am hoping that it would have enough weight and inertia to allow the manipulation of regolith in places to create the "Stone Wells" that I am interested in starting.

I have not yet figured out how to do synthetic gravity for the construction crew. So, this is not a completed plan, but a point of starting.

Obviously, I am hoping to eventually build huge "Voids" inside of such objects as Phobos and Deimos.

Where a "Stone Well" is started, then we might expand the circumference as digging deeper into the interior. And so to melt materials with microwaves to hollow out very large "Voids".

So, because of the potential development of:
-Magdrive
-Neumann Drive
-Oxygen Mass Drivers
-Mass Drivers that can expel fine dust.

So, the Phobos and Deimos as propulsion mass sourcing.

Pause for Coffee..............

So, while the plan to use Methane and Oxygen as the propellants to do Earth/Moon<>Mars/Phobos/Deimos, makes sense, on the Mars end it requires energy on the surface of Mars. Solar is not very good for that. Nuclear may be OK.
But in the orbits of Earth/Moon & Mars/Phobos/Deimos, solar is very predictable and thin mirrors can greatly amplify it.

If I am to believe what I think I have read about Magdrive, it will potentially have the efficiency of electric rockets, but may have much more thrust potential.

So, I think that that has a large potential value. I have tried to find a way to get metals to orbit of Earth for this purpose. And it is possible that the Moon can also provide metals and Oxygen. But Phobos and Demos look very good for obtaining such resources in microgravity.

I think this can be of large value. And I think we will be able to create large caves in Phobos and Deimos, so large that we could have synthetic gravity machines in them. And in hollowing them out we create massive amounts of propellants and structural materials.

But I want to rest. I am thinking about iron coated bricks for magnetic notions. More with that later.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-20 14:04:16)

Void · 2024-11-20 14:52:30

Here is a new idea for the formation of Phobos and Deimos, that I have not completely read yet.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 3972&ei=36

Commentary Pending............

Well, that explanation of the source of Phobos and Deimos is interesting. I suppose the source materials might have already been or rubble pile, or not.

If it was a shattered asteroid with source rock from an object like Ceres, then it will be very likely that hydrated minerals may be present. And if it were, then it could potentially contain various materials such as Core, Mantle, and Crust from such an original object.

But I would settle for just stony materials. It turns out that such contains some water anyway.

So, a process for Phobos could involve digging out the small stuff from around the big chunks, and perhaps anchoring to the big chunks. Ideally making caves large enough for synthetic gravity machines.

Although the total gravity of the moon and the gravity of each major subpart (Chunk), is very small, I suspect that there may be empty spaces near the center of Phobos, as if there are major chunks, the small stuff may be more attracted to a major chunk than the collective center of the whole moon. But I am ready to be wrong about that.

So, in "Hollowing" out Phobos in part, the materials removed will at least yield Oxygen and Metal/Silicates.

An interesting thing to discover is if you more or less removed all of the Oxygen, would the remaining materials be electrically conductive? If so, then this could possibly be use in a Magdrive or Neumann Drive.

But, if it is like the our Moon of Earth, then perhaps .5% of the materials will be magnetic Iron, and could be separated prior to that treatment process.

Here is something from post #38:

Here is a bit of something from the Angry Astronaut some time ago, about Magdrive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-4eif445pk
Quote:
Plasma drive for satellites and Starship! Three times as efficient as Raptor? Magdrive interview!
The Angry Astronaut
149K subscribers

So, returning to the materials of Phobos, apparently you might heat dust with a microwave, and some Iron and Oxygen may sublimate out in the proper vacuum. The Iron could be condensed out at a much lower temperature. Oxygen might be extractable, but I am thinking that Carbon and Hydrogen might bond with the Oxygen to make substances that can also be condensed at colder temperatures.

I seem to recall that the process could be found in a video, in this group: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRMkYy … feDtrQgcTA
It might be this one
"Lunar Metallurgy".

At this point, I suppose you might make a sort of brick out of the remaining materials.

You would have some Iron that you could use in a Magdrive, and some Oxygen that you could use in an Oxygen Mass Driver.

As I recall the video I mentioned also indicates how to perform Metalysis, to get even more separations out of the material if you desire, but that comes with a greater cost of effort and energy.

If materials are removed from the interior of Phobos, then structures could be built within it. It already has a lot of "VOID" space as it is. But if you create structural materials you could build outside of Phobos as well.

Perhaps then the surface area exterior to Phobos will be expanded, perhaps much larger than Phobos.

So, very likely we will want to do Metalysis or something like that to get things like Aluminum from the materials of Phobos.

However, that is going to cost energy and other efforts, and so, I have thought of an Iron coated brick.

More or less a brick in a thin iron can that is snug fitting. In air the Iron would rust in a hurry, but in a vacuum it may not, and if you were to put the bricks together and they were a tight fit, they may vacuum weld together.

And I would like to recommend magnetizing the Iron as well, so that if you are in a magnetic field the bricks that might become disconnected by an impact may tend to stick around.

I don't know how easy it would be to coat a brick with a thin Iron shell. But I am guessing it is possible. Perhaps some tricks need to be discovered though for it to work.

So, anyway I suppose things like radiation shields could be made of these things. It might be a good place to dump your leftovers after extracting what you want from regolith.

A large radiation shell might be constructed in this way to allow spinning or static habitats to be sheltered within.

You would not want to try to pressurize it though as the Iron will rust in the presence of Oxygen or water.

Perhaps you could do similar with Aluminum, which would form a protective Oxygen layer, but then you could not magnetize that. But if you put some small Iron magnets inside the brick maybe that would work.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-20 17:41:56)

Void · 2024-11-21 07:46:25

So, all this draws me towards the poles of the moons of Mars. Phobos first, and then perhaps Deimos.

At first I contemplate a heavy device to work our way into the interior of a moonlet. Then to process the materials, while you can get metals and Oxygen, at least you may wish to make ceramic blocks. And I want to make structures from those blocks. I read that 2 to 3 meters could offer pretty good radiation protection, so these may be big blocks.

My further desire is to coat these blocks with a thin metal that is magnetic, an Iron or Steel of some kind.
Then I hope to vacuum weld them together, perhaps using inductive heating on the metal to promote the bonding of the blocks.

If this were possible you may have a block structure with magnetic surfaces that robots and humans might "Walk" on.

We tend to be disturbed by the tiny gravity of Phobos. I read 150 pounds is like 2 ounces on Phobos. But how much would a normal dry mass of a Starship weigh on Phobos?

Well, I read things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
Quote:

SpaceX Starship - Wikipedia
Elon Musk stated in 2021 that the final design will have a dry mass between 160 t (350,000 lb) and 200 t (440,000 lb), with the tanks weighing 80 t (180,000 lb) and the interstage 20 t (44,000 lb). [3] See more

Well, that is informative, but after all a bit confusing. I just want to visualize it so I will pick tanks number to get that.
180,000 / 150 = 1,200. And 1,200 * 2 = 2400 ounces. So, maybe 150 pounds???

Anyway I think to bundle 7 or more Starships into a structure, so 1,050 pounds.

So, then 476.2719885 kg.

Of course we can put a bunch of rocks inside of some of the Starships to give more weight. Or pack a compartment with fine regolith for the same reason.

Anyway it should be possible to have a digging machine that can carefully and slo-mo sloth like dig into Phobos.

And if we can begin building large blocks that can be bonded into structures by vacuum welding their metal surfaces together, we can start building "Castles in space".

I like a cylinder structure to start with, without end plates. You could run tensile straps around the outside of it to give it more strength. They could be free floating in space, but it would make more sense to put them "One End Up" on each rotational pole of Phobos. The intention is to dig into Phobos as well as you could and to keep making such blocks and adding them to the structures. In addition to make metals and Oxygen for various reasons. There is some hope for chemically bonded volatile materials to recover as well such as Carbon and Hydrogen.

If these structures are restrained with tensile surround bands, and they have natural compressive strength, and they are vacuum weld bonded into cylinders we might hope to put synthetic gravity machines into them.

And also a vaulted roof might be put on the top ends exposed to the North and South solar poles. This then would provide a buffered environment, not as harsh as untreated space environments.

And after the initial block houses are made you may add others in parallel or another on around and on top of the original(s).

A great additional hope would be to tunnel though Phobos and so the connect the two bock houses and to have very large caverns inside of Phobos.

That is enough for now.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-21 08:15:22)

Calliban · 2024-11-21 14:51:56

Void, you could use thermite to weld your blocks together. Other options would be IR lasers and electron beam welders.

The reaction force needed to drill into the surface could be provided by a cable or net of carbon fibres wrapped around Phobos.
***

Additional: a plasma torch could be used to weld relatively thin ceramic components in vacuum.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-11-21 15:50:58)

Void · 2024-11-21 16:01:44

All good ideas! Yes, people should understand that I am not Phobos and not Mars, rather, I am both, and as I feel that most small worlds we will work with in the solar system will be approximately as small as Phobos or not quite as large as Mars. Venus is the one exception that and Earth, and the gas and ice giant planets.

So, I anticipate the inflation of a trade network Earth/Moon>Mars>Asteroid belt>Terrestrial Crossing Asteroids>Venus>Earth/Moon & everything else.

So, practice on Phobos and Mars and maybe Deimos is very much in our interests, I feel. Please offer your notions for this.

Thank You,

Void,

Ending Pending

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