Interworld Para Terraforming

Void · 2024-12-16 20:20:09

I will return to the idea of creating ecologies in protected shelters, where the pressures are dropped to the most economical value while maintaining productivity.

Well as I see it, the first thing you need is an armored envelope. To absorb the impacts of small objects, and to provide some thermal moderation inside.

Then you need to "Let there be light" inside. We should want that to be filtered. An avoidance of hard UV would be desired.

It might be possible to develop microbes extremely tolerant of UV light, but then they have to spend a lot of their energy repairing the damage caused by it. But my concern is for the transparent plastic bladders to be inside the armor. It would be inside of those that you would grow the microbes, and it is better to avoid the aging of the transparent plastic bladders.

It is true that you could use Fluorine to make plastics that would hold up better but that would be expensive as that sort of thing would be hard to obtain.

In this topic, post #1 I have some information on dealing with UV radiation: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 13#p190313

I think it is likely that light to be conveyed into the armored chamber with plastic bladders would involve mirrors.
Mirrors may or may not reflect UV light: https://www.glassnmirrors.com/do-mirror … -uv-light/

So, glass on a mirror could be rather helpful, but I don't know if it is suitable for the space environment.

Just on a guess, laser etching of a mirror might be able to modify the spectrum reflected: https://www.xtool.com/blogs/xtool-acade … -engraving
But I don't know if that is going to deliver what is wanted per UV.

Here is some more about mirrors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror

Anyway I think it can be done by some method, perhaps the window can also block UV. I think Titanium Oxide can block UV.

So, I think that glass will block most UVB and maybe UVC, (I hope), and 3/4 of UVA, (I read), but you can also put a film on the inside of the glass.

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

Of course if you are putting a focus on that it might overheat.

Anyway, I believe I have read that Cyanobacteria can operate at the pressure of 50 mBar.

So, that is already 1/20th the sea level pressure on Earth.

If you could go down to 10 mBar, then that would of course be 1/100th of a bar.

But it could be hard to keep that as a liquid at that pressure. https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php

Your vapor pressure there would be ~10 degrees C.

So, thermal regulation might be a problem. I already looked at that problem in post #73: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 18#p228518
Quote:

I will now seek to create a drawing to help illustrate what my thinking is:
The grey colored fluid filled containment might have a gas like CO2 in it with a fan to circulate the gas to even the interior temperatures.
Or it may be a part of some kind of thermal device such as a radiator.
The gap between the inner wall of the grey containment and the blue plastic bladder, would be filled with dry Oxygen. This is so that if air leaks out though the outer windows, it will not carry H20 and CO2 or other valuable gasses with it. Oxygen is practically a waste gas, if you have a proper running space industrial economy.
So, then the bladder needs to be largely impermeable to H20 and CO2 and other gasses you want to retain due to their value.
I visualize the bladder not being filled with water so much as having a film of wetness across its inner surface, where Algae or Cyanobacteria could grow.
There would be a robot(s) inside the bladder to manage the "Crop". Harvesting and fertilizing it. A spray bottle might work to fertilize it.
And then you would need means to transport the "Harvest" to a more pressurized space, and also a means to extract Oxygen to a use and to deposit CO2 and water into the bladder.
So, I visualize this as a sort of "Space Lung/Farm", with minimal costs, I would hope.

You could put shades in front of the armored containment and fill the grey area with a gas such as CO2 and then use fans to blow it around to try to equilibrate the surface temperatures of the bladders inner surface.

Getting microbes adapted to such a low pressure may be needing time and induced evolution.

As I have said before, you could go to lower temperatures and pressures using salt water. But I don't know if the microbes would maintain productivity.

You could simulate polar ocean water or even go down as low as -20 degrees C, which is said to be the limits for photosynthesis. But I think that would really be pushing it.

And I think that a plastic bladder that can hold 10 millibars is not that hard to achieve.

But the point of all of this would be to produce a maximum amount of "Farm Land", with the least amount of resources in space.

I you need something more spiritual, then I suggest a human suited garden lighted with LEDS perhaps, maybe a window, but mostly the plants might grow with acetate, (I hope).

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-16 21:13:40)

Void · 2024-12-17 14:35:25

I am at a point where due to current apparent capabilities, I think that perhaps from Mars/Phobos/Deimos, it would make sense to access the Main asteroid belt.

I have done posts like this before. But will repeat perhaps will a bit of improvement I could hope. The targets in the asteroid belts could often be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-type_asteroid
Quote:

C-type (carbonaceous /ˌkɑːrbəˈneɪʃəs/) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids.[1] They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks and minerals. They have an average density of about 1.7 g/cm3.
They lie most often at the outer edge of the asteroid belt, 3.5 au (520 million km; 330 million mi) from the Sun, where 80% of the asteroids are of this type, whereas only 40% of asteroids at 2 au (300 million km; 190 million mi) from the Sun are C-type.[2] The proportion of C-types may actually be greater than this, since C-types are much darker (and hence less detectable) than most other asteroid types, except for D-types and others that lie mostly at the extreme outer edge of the asteroid belt.

So, that may not be such a distance from Mars. Mars, I understand is ~1.5 AU.

So, I think that the sunlight at ~2.0 AU should be ~25% of what we get for Earth.

So, stations of activity in the 2.0AU area of the Asteroid belt could very easily be powered by solar concentrating mirrors, I expect.

So, I stumbled on a nice article yesterday: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 08#p228608

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 6b84&ei=13
The researchers suggest breaking down organic compounds in asteroids using a high-heat process called pyrolysis.
This reaction will lead to the production of hydrocarbons. Subsequently, the hydrocarbons could serve as a nutrient source for microbial organisms, which would then generate biomass possessing nutritional value for human consumption.

So, one thing I believe I learned from Dr. Zubrins writings, is that if you have nuclear power, rather than putting it on a ship, you might consider using it to cook hydrocarbon fuels and Oxygen to propel spacecraft. I think we could look at that for this situation with solar concentrating mirrors as well.

Pause......

The pyrolysis trick could go along with the very low air pressure greenhouses I hope for that are spoken of in the previous post. With these two methods, Fuels and Oxygen could be synthesized, to support chemical fueled propulsions.

Other items I desire to be created would be solar panels, Cellulose and other organic structures and heat shields out of regolith to likely use ablative methods.

I would suggest the making of a sandwich of these materials that can travel to terrestrial planets with atmospheres, to air brake into orbit. This of course means Mars, maybe Earth, and also Venus.

I have not shown it in a aerodynamic form for air braking into an atmosphere to achieve an orbit of a planet.

So, you would like go though 3 types of propulsion:
1) Chemical
2) Magdrive or Neumann Drive
3) Air braking

Air Braking would save you on consuming resources for #2, but you might spiral down into orbit using electric propulsion, if you are willing to pay the expense. I would think that for Earth this might be preferred.

For Venus or Mars though you might go wild west with it.

You would not discard the chemical rocket. After it's use you could simply tuck it behind the sandwich during interplanetary flight, behind the heat shield. Then if doing Air Braking move it to behind the solar panels.

So, you would keep as much mass as possible, except for the propellants that you expended.

The Chemical Burn would be to kick the assembly closer to the sun so that the solar panels would be more useful.

I am not sure, but I think it is possible that you might kick a platform like this more inward than 1.5 AU for Mars, and then use the better sunlight to get to a ballistic capture into Mars orbit.

Again, not sure, if you would want to do that to get to Venus.

It is possible that gravity passes could be used, to go more inward or possibly outward in the solar system.

If Phobos and Deimos are mostly dry, these materials would be useful in orbit of Mars,

And Venus has almost no assets in orbit so very useful for Venus.

And Earth???? Could be a good thing, but I would be shy about Air Braking giant platforms against the Earth's atmosphere. Maybe not using Air Braking to get to Earth/Moon orbits.

This would give us 3 terrestrial planets and the Moon, and a good toe-hold in the asteroid belt.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-17 15:21:24)

Void · 2024-12-17 18:21:14

I am paying attention to the discussion in the Venus topic, but don't want to interfere with it.

So, I can work in parallel here. They are discussing the surface, I want to come from the asteroid belt and move stuff to the orbits of Venus and then the clouds. So, these things could eventually connect together.

In my previous post I suggested special platforms of various materials that could go directly to a planet. Now I want to consider taking such a platform to a terrestrial crossing asteroid, expanding the platform and then going to a planet with that platform. More often than not the asteroid belt proper will contribute organic chemicals to the process, and that platform will likely go to a stony asteroid that is in an elliptical sun orbit. So then at that sun orbit the platform can bulk up on things that are good for metal and ceramic structure, and of course things that can be used as propellant for Magdrive or Neumann Drive.

In the case of going to Venus then it the platform would resume travel from a elliptical asteroid, and then move towards Venus. A gravitational boost from a planet would not be out of the question.

As I have said before, if you have enough solid propellants for Magdrive or Neumann Drive, you could likely go to orbit of Venus without Aerobraking. But if you have a good heat shield, you might choose to include that in your method.

So, then finally the robots have brought this platform into orbit of Venus. It then can contribute to the orbital community and that community may have interactions with another community in the clouds of Venus.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-17 18:30:51)

Void · 2024-12-17 18:32:02

So, I am going to go Sci-Fi here for somethings to do with Venus. Keep in mind that I understand that after making our wishes then we have to try to move towards practicality.

Drawing from post #479 of the "Index» Terraformation» Venus" topic: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 04#p228604
Quote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
Image Quote:
Quote:
30(km) 222(degC) 9.851(Bar)
I am going to suggest a terrorists dream. Not that I like such people, but I am going to ignore the danger and suggest something that such a person would love to destroy. The hope is that in time we can come up with alternatives that are more robust against the danger of such nasty types.

I told you I was going to get Sci-Fi. What if a pyramid was built that was 60 km high off of the surface of Venus? Not so much out of stone, but rather buoyant structures?

Obviously the Sulfuric Acid Clouds and some water would condense on the roof of it and would flow down. If you structure could endure that, then it would flow down until it heated up enough to boil/evaporate.

But what if you had ways of protecting that flow from heat. Chanels, pipes (Glass?) inside the structure. Now you might be talking about up to (Not quite) 60 km of hydropower.

Your fluids having moved down to where it is very hot, you may decompose it with heat and you will get a mix of water steam and hot SO2 or SO3 which can flow upwards and turn a turbine with a strong updraft of (Not Quite) 60 km.

Up on the top now if you have radiators, you may condense the water vapor to water and release the Sulfur Oxide gasses.

Alright lets reduce the amount of Sci-Fi. We will have a floating pyramid which will only descend to the 10 bar level more or less, and might get as high as the .33 bar level of the atmosphere of Venus.

This will be multi-chamber to say the least. Each chamber will have its own mix of gasses to ideally give it a neutral buoyancy in the atmosphere. In the lowest sections you would have just a little less CO2 and a little more Nitrogen.
At the 1 Bar section you might have a pure Nitrogen. In rare cases you might have a N2/O2 mix. As you got above the 1 bar level you might start using a N2/H2 mix.

I have reduced the silliness, and since the base of the pyramid is not on the ground we don't so much have to fear Venus Quakes.

As I understand it, when you get to the base of the clouds the heat, decomposes the Sulfuric Acid to H20 and Sulfur Oxides. You still could do the hydroelectric thing with the Sulfuric Acid, but you might take water into your structure from the lower levels. If you isolate the water from the Sulfur Oxides, then the UV light cannot reconstitute it into Sulfuric Acid.

Anyway most lower parts of the structure would be inhabited by robots, but with special provisions some human activity might be possible. I believe that some divers can go to higher pressures than 1 bar on Earth, of course. But mostly that would be a silly thing to do. The heat would be very dangerous.

But humans could exist in certain rooms higher up. Not that I would want to.

You could use the difference in heat to generate power. You could boil water down below to cool those locations and condense the water up above.

You might employ windmills on the outer surfaces of the device.

You might have greenhouses on the outer surfaces of the upper portions.

Anyway, candy for the imagination.

But what about spacecraft? Well if they aerobrake into the atmosphere of Venus, then they could drop to the 10 bar level and land in a special chamber with a door that could be sealed, The chamber could be flushed of acid vapors.

Then the ship might ride an elevator to the top of the pyramid to relaunch to orbit.

The landing air pressure might be 10 bar, and the launch air pressure might be .3 bar or less.

This could be favorable to space flight along with the fact that the gravity of Venus is less than that of Earth.

Way out there, I know. But maybe someone will make it more practical eventually.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-17 19:03:23)

Void · 2024-12-19 13:55:43

Isaac Arthur has a new video out about space elevators, it is rather long, but has interesting information.
It has made the squirls in my head run a bit faster than normal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ju74IqW0A
Quote:

Space Elevators: Strategies & Status
Isaac Arthur
799K subscribers

OK, maybe someone will build such things, several decades from now. I am the cranky old skeptic. But I don't totally dismiss it, I hope the young people figure it out.

For now I will borrow from it for something else that I have an interest it.

I feel that many new types of propulsion will be able to lead us to Mars/Phobos/Deimos, and then to the Asteroid belt, and then to the mostly stony terrestrial crossing asteroids, and from them to the Planets Mars, Earth, and Venus.

It is possible that we could get the organics I want from Mars/Phobos/Deimos, so if that is true, then we can make a shorter loop, and save the asteroid belt for later.

It would be sensible to consume asteroids that are a threat to human inhabited locations. Otherwise they may be useful in the materials they have. So, if we can port organics to them then we can set up settlements in association with them. Then they can be processed into materials to send to Mars, Earth/Moon, and Venus.

So, in any case we could make platforms either in the Mars/Phobos/Deimos location or if not economical then expending to the Asteroid belt proper.

In dealing with terrestrial crossing asteroids there is a variety, but mostly they seem to be stony, and those have a small amount of hydration.

For insertion to orbit of Mars, Ballistic Capture may be an option and also Aerobraking might be an option.
For Earth, I expect that aerobraking of huge platforms will not be practiced for fear of damage. But if Magdrive and Neumann Drive and other propulsive methods develop well, then those would be used at an increased cost as aerobraking may have been cheaper.

For Venus, I think Aerobraking could be a preferred method to contribute to moving valuable materials to the orbits of Venus.

So, now if significant materials can be put into orbit of Venus, we can think about a orbital civilization of Venus. Methods to extract materials from Venus would also be wanted then. Particularly Nitrogen, probably Carbon as well.

For that reason, I would like to find a way to Aero-Mine the atmosphere of Venus, and would hope to get Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Helium as well as Nitrogen, and Carbon.

I will make an attempt at something like that that could have the desired ability.

So, I am going to want to suggest the use of "Stacked" platforms, the lowest one to be VERY LOW ORBIT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_Earth_orbit
This seems to be in its infancy.

But a problem is if a very low orbiting device needs power, then solar power devices will create too much drag. So, you either have a underpowered platform, or too much drag in the air, which also makes it underpowered.

But if you had input from lasers and a thermal engine, such as Super Critical CO2 turbine-generator, this might be improved. If we have a platform attached to it with multiple tethers, then that second platform could be many km higher in orbit than the Very Low Orbit platform.

Actually one version of this would have the upper platform be a microwave rectenna. Then it would send power down to the VLO Platform by laser or maybe even conductive tethers.

Then in even higher orbits, you could have power satellites that would send power to the rectenna platform.

So, I want a very powerful engine on the VLO Platform. This could be able to liquify gasses, presuming that you would be able to catch them. For Earth, VELO seems to use Nitrogen as a propellant. But for Venus, we want to capture the Nitrogen as a valuable substance. In order to capture the Nitrogen and other gasses we are very likely to capture lots of CO2. While we might want some of the Carbon, it would be nice to be able to use much of it as propellant.

Since the VLO Platform will have a very powerful engine, then it may be able to freeze CO2 into bullets that could be shot out of a mass driver. But I would want to dope the bullets with a small amount of Magnetite dust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetite
Quote:

Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic;[6] it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself.

In early days at least the Magnetite would come from asteroid materials I expect.

So, then we need a very efficient way to capture molecules in the VLO platform.

I have ideas, but I am sure this needs development. I am getting tired and may address some possible options at a later time.

But if we can pull atmosphere from Venus (or Mars), to orbit we may be able to fill orbital habitats/farms with the gasses.

Ending Pending Smile.

Last edited by Void (2024-12-19 14:52:15)

Void · 2024-12-20 11:24:43

I have made attempts at a atmospheric scoop before and so this will be rather like those attempts.

If someone has counsel for me on the matter that could be a good thing.

In general I like a cylinder with a magnetic field. The hope is to interact with ionized gasses.

Here is an attempt to describe a Very Low Platform that might be able to collect gasses to orbit from an upper atmosphere.

This brings us to the point that we might hope to collect some of them to the green capacitive plates D & E.
To go further with the collection process we need some type of pumping device to skim the molecules off of the surface of the Capacitor Plates D & E.

No guarantee that this is going to work it is rather an attempt to gather some idea of what might be tried and tested eventually.

I expect that a heat engine will be just above this assembly to supply power to it. A thermal insulation will be needed and radiators that emit heat away from the collector.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-20 11:44:23)

Void · 2024-12-22 09:54:49

From my point of view, making Venus pay, will require a loop that is Earth/Moon>Mars/Phobos/Deimos>2.0 AU asteroid belt>Terrestrial Crossing Asteroids>Venus Orbital & Cloud Cities. With Venus then exporting materials from it's atmosphere.

So, my thinking aligns reasonably with the "Mars or nothing" people.

I was impressed with ice breaker technology from Russia: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=WRVORC Quote:

This Will Be The MOST POWERFUL Icebreaker In History
YouTube
Science
6.5K views
2 days ago

I am impressed with the attempt to handle a harsh environment with "Brut Force, and Cunning".

I think that the thinking is similar to the desire for Starship to be a big device.

Any idea of warming up Mars will tend to do some thing. Water ice will evaporate at low latitudes and condense at the poles. That is unless the poles were made warmer than the low latitudes. (I am not proposing that).

But I do believe that working with icy permafrost can be of significant value if lots of energy were be to put to the places where it will exist. Power might be fission, and maybe fusion. Also solar power plants in orbits. That idea the orbital power stations could be useful in many places in the solar system.

So then tunnels in permafrost: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tu … ML&first=1

So, it might be sensible to at times make habitats under the permafrost that are fully suitable to Humans. But when we get to something like the Tesla Bot, which is humanoid, you don't have to do nearly the level of modifications to make these suitable.

We can certainly say that the ice caps of Mars are a sort of "Icy Permafrost".

A tunnel system could go down to the "Grounding Line", and so have access to stony materials, and if they exist, "Ore Deposits".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_polar_ice_caps
Quote:

About 2 kilometers (1.2 miles)
The ice cap is about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick. The radar picture also shows that the boundary between the ice layers and the surface of Mars underneath is relatively flat (bottom white line on the right).
What Lies Below a Martian Ice Cap - NASA Science
science.nasa.gov/resource/what-lies-below-a-martian-ice-cap/
science.nasa.gov/resource/what-lies-below-a-martian-ice-cap/

Crude calculations:
1.2 miles * 5280 feet= 6,336 feet
If it were liquid water then 33 feet of water on Earth will give 1 bar of pressure. On Mars it is about 100 feet of water to make about 1 bar. But it is not water, it is mostly water ice, but might have some CO2 and dust in it. But I will consider it to be water ice, so I will say:
110 feet of water ice on Mars will give about 1 bar of pressure.

So, about 57.6 Bars of pressure at the base of a ice cap on Mars, 1.2 miles thick, or about 2 kilometers thick.

Cutting a horizontal tunnel though the ice at that level would be unlikely to provide a best result. But we could expect ice layers in many places that are not that thick.

So, for horizontal tunnels we would only go to an ideal depth in the ice. And to get to the stony materials or ore bodies we would perhaps make vertical shafts.

The deepest mine shaft is said to be more than 3 km on Earth. On Mars 2 km of ice would be equivalent to 0.76 km of ice on Earth, but ice is not as heavy as rock. It is even lighter than water of course, perhaps 91% the weight of water?

So, the ability to mine into rock under a Martian ice cap seems reasonable to me.

And also around the ice caps are "Layered Deposits" and also at higher latitudes vast sheets of ice with a fair thickness.

So, an extensive ice tunnel system is likely to be very possible on Mars. While I am not against nuclear, power on Mars, I tend to favor orbital satellites which collect solar power and may transmit some to the surface of Mars where rectennas may exist. Unlike for Earth, Mars has Phobos and Deimos, which could contribute to this option very well, I think.

Calliban has previously expressed the opinion that an advanced civilization well want heat sinks to dump waste heat into.

My feeling is that bodies of water on Mars will be well suited to that, even if covered in ice.

So, if we have robots that are quite comfortable at sub freezing temperatures in permafrost tunnels, then we might also have bodies of water that waste heat can be dumped into. The two could well be compatible.

And eventually if the Martian air pressure were elevated it might be possible to have canals of water that transportation could run though. But of course tunnel methods would be available before that.

But some day there might be ice breakers on Mars. If you had salty polar sea water at say -2 degrees C, then the air pressure you might need could be: https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php
5.2256 mbar, but of course probably needs to be more than that. Let's say the CO2 in the ice caps might bring it up to 12 mbar. So, about 9.7 degrees C as the evaporation point?

So, ice tunnels and canals as radiators may work rather well, even in fairly early days.

Correct me if I am wrong, please.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-22 10:46:45)

Void · 2024-12-22 12:49:02

I believe I saw confirmation that humanoid robots could work in microgravity. This would greatly facilitate the production of valuable materials in microgravity.

And a criticism of human operated tesla bots, is actually an asset as humans on the surface of the Earth could at times operate robots in orbit in that manner to achieve good results. This should greatly reduce the cost of microgravity research on things to manufacture in orbit.

This economy might be able to run in parallel to other objectives such as Tourism and Solar Power Stations.

If SpaceX and other providers can produce low costs to orbit, then the materials of the Moon would only be brought into the calculation if they can be supplied cheaper than from Earth.

But it would be silly to say that the Earth would want products such as these, but Mars would not benefit from them. So, I do think that from the start for Mars and eventually Venus you would want an orbital infrastructure.

For Mars, power beamed down from orbit could be very assistive for immediate use that would also lead to the thawing of the planet with waste heat.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-22 12:53:29)

Void · 2024-12-23 14:07:28

I am in a good mood for Christmas, more or less, so don't take my next words to indicate otherwise.

I must say however that I get tired of academic and science spokespersons who say things like it would be better to develop Antarctica than Mars. First of all we do not want to develop Antarctica as it is one continent on the planet that has had a relatively light touch from human activities.

The look at the temperature of Mars as a comparison and then the atmosphere and then make their claims.

I don't like the "The devouring mother is a psychological archetype that describes a mother who is overbearing, controlling, and manipulative towards her children. This personality disorder is often seen in those with borderline personality disorders or narcissism."

https://knowyourarchetypes.com/devourin … archetype/

In my opinion these are people who have been given recognition of worth by a society portion which behaves in that manner. They of course like this because they are not likely do-things sorts, but rather want to be like nobility with all resources and acclamations flowing up to them in their high towers which they were appointed to. It is difficult for me to measure such people as I really don't know them, in actuality. They just show up and proclaim things as if they were some "Popes" of science.

For this reason and other reasons as well, I want to shy away from the Shackelton Expedition notion of Mars.

Many developments seem to be on the Horizon that could be positive. Humanoid robots, Magdrive, Neumann Drive, Starship and others.

If we were to imagine a terraformed Mars, then perhaps you could consider what I would imagine. A world on the surface of Mars, as world under the surface of Mars, a world under bodies of water, and a world in orbit. The inhabitants would be able to travel between these on occasion, and perhaps quite frequently.

I see no reason to not do that as soon as possible.

Should you be able to manufacture propellants on the surface of Mars to return a Starship to Earth, then you could also manufacture less propellants to travel up to an orbital habitat situation. And unlike the Earth/Moon situation you have two tiny moonlets that resemble asteroids, that you could look for resources from.

Robots like Optimus will be able to do quite a lot of tasks without continual interventions. It will also be possible for humans to make virtual visits to remote locations though such a robot.

And it could go in both directions, humans could have virtual visits to orbit from the surface of Mars, and perhaps virtual visits from orbit down to Mars.

In Mars we may have a "Perfect Planet". SSTO is possible from the surface of Mars reducing the needed effort. But the planet can be partially terraformed in a relatively short time, and also sections can be Para Terraformed in relatively short periods of time.

But you may be able to send things to orbit with a Mass Driver, or possibly snatch things up to orbit with a Skyhook.

Should the masses of Phobos and Deimos need supplementing, you might capture asteroid materials to the orbits of Mars.

So, the picture is not of people hiding underground in a cold radiation-soaked reality, while they run out of Oxygen. Rather it is a picture of options. When in orbit, you will not have seasons or dust storms making life miserable. With concentrating devices you can have plenty of sunlight.

As for air to breath, you might get Oxygen out of the rocks of Phobos and Deimos. And you might be able to make a low pressure greenhouse to grow microbes in that would recycle CO2 to give Oxygen and organic product.

Many people might only want to visit the surface of Mars virtually with a robot actuator, or on rare occasion a real visit.

But some may like it more on the surface.

Anyway we should be advertising more cheerful (But realistic) options for the habitation of Mars/Phobos/Deimos.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-23 14:43:35)

Void · 2024-12-29 12:13:56

I like this presenter, but tend to think she is out of touch with reality as I recognize it. But her materials seem to have made my squirrels run faster in the wheels in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBocHXK098c
Quote:

Jeff Bezos’ Space Plans Make More Sense Than Elon Musk's
Sabine Hossenfelder

In a little bit I am going to say how I think that Mars/Phobos/Deimos are extremely valuable.

But I want to divert to my current notion of fulfilling the spoken objectives of Jeff Bezos in adaptation of the ideas of Gerard K. Oneill's ideas.

First Jeff Bezos talks, Industrial, whereas I believe that Oneill presented more of a pastoral picture. We would build farmland in space. This was appealing of course, most of us can do a bit better with some amount of that.

But as for the water and Nitrogen to make this farmland, I see a shortage in Earth/Moon orbits. You might eventually get some from asteroids, or may take some from Earth, but this is not industrial, not so much anyway.

But something else that the 70's could not predict would be humanoid robots. Those don't need the same type of life-support in space as humans do.

It is tempting to say that robots could work fine in microgravity, and they probably will do so at times. But even though microgravity is going to be valuable as we don't seem to be able to have it on Earth, I expect that some industrial processes in space could benefit from synthetic gravity.

Synthetic Gravity might have the qualities of useful and/or necessary for robots, industrial processes, and humans.
It seems very likely at this point that robots will do most tasks on the surface of the Earth, and it is even more likely that robots will do an even greater portion of tasks on the Moon and in orbits and on alien worlds.

A thing that space may offer is energy and cold, a heat sink. I have in the past considered "Habitable Radiators". I am aiming at that again.

Lets say that we might make a cylinder that we are going to use as a radiator. But we may spin it to give perhaps 1/6 of a g of synthetic gravity. I choose that because robots adapted to work in this cylinder may also be suitable to work on the Moon.

The cylinder likely will not be pressurized on the whole, but might have some pressurized domes or compartments suitable even in some cases for humans. Of course I am thinking of data centers to start with. Of course other things as well.

Pause.......

So, these cylinders might likely be in the shadows of a "Overplatform" that the cylinder radiators would attach to in some manner, mechanical or magnetic.

The "Overplatform" could include solar panels, or perhaps the cylinders would have some method of solar power included to one end of them.

Ok, the cylinder as a whole will not hold a pressure high enough for gasses to have viscous flow:

The outside of the cylinder may have Aluminum Fins attached to help radiate heat to the universe. They may be "Chevron" in shape.

This is borrowed from the Oneill concepts to give radiation protection for windows, and to block impactors but to allow photons to travel.

The interior floor would have heat exchanger piping though which heat could flow with a fluid.

The interior of the cylinder would be kept at a low pressure but could catch leaks, so that the escaped materials might be recovered, if there is a spill.

An attempt of life support for robots and machinery inside of the cylinder would be made. This might also be helpful for humans in space suits.

As far as radiations effects on robots, I think that at 1/6 g, it would be possible to keep the robots main brains in a protective box, that it could carry around with it. That box might also include extra battery power.

As for humans, they would likely have upgraded habitats that in some cases would include radiation storm shelters.

In reality if they can run robots by telepresence, it is likely that they would normally stay in relatively protected areas, and run the industrial processes remotely.

As Space Stations that have stronger synthetic gravity will likely exist, the humans could possibly live in those most of the time.

I expect that the large proportion of task completion will be done with robots.

As for raw materials or recycled materials, some might come from the Moon, maybe the asteroids, but I think that the idea of a fully-directly-reusable spaceship can be taken too far. Many of those will be wanted, but in reality I favor another form. I have spoken of it before.

One form of it could be a "Shell-Ship".

Pause.....

OK, so Superheavy could be the 1st stage section, and the Blue assent tanks for the 2nd stage would be left in orbit.
Then it is desired that the green engines section with header tanks could airbrake down into the atmosphere and then land with chemical engines. So, the green section would be reusable, and the blue 2nd stage assent tanks would be repurposed. While they might be usable in orbit as is, I actually think the idea would be to cut them up and use them as feed stock to build things in orbit, perhaps a solar power plant with a habitable radiator.

Stoke Space's NOVA seems to come the closest to this of rocket systems so far. But I don't believe that they leave their 2nd stage main tanks in orbit.

Historically whatever you could not control in orbit should be burned in the atmosphere, or launched to a higher graveyard orbit. Now, I think that it will be a better practice to repurpose materials that you do not want to bring down from orbit.

Magdrive and Neumann Drive also suggest metals and Silicon and Carbon as propellants.

And this scheme would allow the recycle of existing space junk which I believe is an objective of Magdrive.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-29 13:45:05)

Void · 2024-12-29 18:59:15

So, a Plane of mirrors attached to each other on edges could face the sunlight, and a magnetically coupled rotating cylinder might be behind each individual mirror, in the shadows. This idea is similar to one from Finland, about a mega satellite in orbit of the Dwarf Planet Ceres.

While I described one that would not be pressurized, you might pressurize one or more of them. A pressure of 1/3 bar, might be suitable. In that case, I say that I don't like moisture on the inner walls of the cylinder, so, I suggest having sub-chambers where such could exist, preventing the main chamber from corroding from liquid water.

It would likely be possible to go to 2/3 bar, a N2/O2 mix also.

While I do not provide windows, I am tempted to say that if plants could be modified to work better with Acetate, then you might have farms that run 95% on Acetate and 5% on artificial light. This might be bright enough for humans to see well with and also the 5% light might give seasonal signals to the plants.

That is not to say that you may never have windows on orbital structures, but here I am more interested in not doing so, in running heat engines. But the radiator may be made more or less suitable for additional purposes such as to host robots or plant growth.

And this begins to say why I think that Mars/Phobos/Deimos are so valuable. I could use a phrase like "Collective Wealth". Maybe "Additive Wealth" is better. One of them sounds like we intend to structure economics like the socialist/communist experiments of the 20th century. I do not want that, as stewardship of wealth does not work well under socialist/communist methods. Under those methods stewardship goes to those who can play the politics of violence well, but such people are not at all guaranteed to be capable of making capitol expand in value. Rather they are more like a cancer tumor that seeks to grow while consuming the victim economy.

But "Additive Wealth" might be anything that the human touches and experiences that can be added to be within the boundaries of human actionable reality. So, to turn Mars/Phobos/Deimos into wealth, they have to be experienced, touched, and actioned onto.

And so, the case of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks intentions are mutually sensible business cases. But the case for Mars/Phobos/Deimos may be at least equal to the one for Earth/Moon. And the tools to attain them will also be very similar. The idea of a binary decision a zero sum calculation between them does not make any sense to me.

In the case of Mars/Phobos/Deimos, while it may be necessary to build on the surface of Mars first, (But that is not necessarily true), eventually it would be desired to have the same orbital capabilities as would be desired for the Earth/Moon sub-system.

Multiple new creations are making it more and more likely that these things could be a success. And using the habitable radiators notions, I expect that materials from Phobos and Deimos could be processed in such an orbital system to provide for growth of capabilities. Any materials which may not be sufficiently abundant might be brought to orbit using a shell ship method or regular SSTO ship, or mass drivers, maybe skyhooks.

Mars could be everything we might want in a second planet. It may be sterile or perhaps a conflict between two biospheres will not be a problem. It is large enough that the atmosphere could be improved over time, and yet it has a low enough gravity where SSTO may work well, to get to low orbit.

The problem of radiation could possibly be quickly improved on if the CO2 could be kept from condensing. The particle method of warming seems like a good trick to use for that.

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scienti … -warm-mars
Quote:

Scientists lay out revolutionary method to warm Mars

In my view it would be better to be less aggressive. The intention to melt water, is perhaps wrong. But if you could release the CO2 from the ice caps both temporary and permanent, you could double the atmospheric pressure, and some say almost triple it. I prefer a Mars where ice is made more stable. That would mean warming enough to evaporate the CO2, but not warming it more than that if possible. So, that would reduce the bulk amount of particles you needed to produce, and would improve the radiation protection and would tend to stabilize the ice at least in some places. An average atmospheric pressure of 11 mbar or even perhaps 14 mbar might be possible, and in the low places due to compression the atmospheric pressure could rise above 22 mbar to 27.5 mbar. Such an atmosphere might have actual snowfalls, which could bring water to locations at lower latitudes. And such an atmosphere may carry more moisture so that it might be possible to extract water from the atmosphere at times when the humidity is higher. It may be possible that snowfalls will melt to form temporary streams, and then that water could be collected before it would evaporate.

So, the radiation problem and water problems might be improved quite a bit. The particles might be manufactured in orbit, provided that they would not burn up if injected to the atmosphere. They might be of a size with a favorable surface area that they would not burn up.

It is unpredictable by me to know if this would increase or decrease dust storm activity. It would likely change it.

It is my opinion that that level of terraforming may make ice stable enough at some latitudes that you could have ice covered reservoirs and canals. But you could indeed cover those with a covering of some kind. It would not necessarily have to be transparent as you could power an ecosystem in the water with Acetate and Oxygen, and perhaps some artificial lighting.

While I have mentioned Phobos and Deimos and perhaps to some extent Mars itself as a source of materials to build in the orbits of Mars, with robotic technology and new propulsion systems, I think it would be possible to eventually be extracting materials from terrestrial crossing asteroids and moving it into Mars orbits.

So, the potential for growth would be continual.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-29 19:42:24)

Void · 2024-12-30 08:55:37

So continuing with the thinking of the previous two posts, I think that these "Habitable Radiators", may be able to spin up, perhaps to 1/6 g and also spin down to have microgravity.

So, these could be work-shop, fabrication areas. The reason I want a general condition of vacuum in them is that you only need a door then to bring things in and out. You could bring the rotation to a stop, if you wanted to move large constructed items out of the cylinder, and you could bring in bulk materials to build the next thing.

This may also allow for a lighter construction than a cylinder which has to give full life support to humans throughout its entirety.

And while I am interested in simulating Lunar gravity other values might be tried, as it is a thing to discover which arrangement will be suitable to certain types of creation of material goods.

I expect that this scheme may work from Mercury to Saturn/Titan, you would just have to alter the mirrors sizes.

I guess I will think to copycat from other members and hope that supercritical CO2 could be used. I hope that frozen CO2 will not expand as water does. (In case the pipes freeze up).

Keeping a whole Plane of mirrors pointed at the sun may be some trouble, but the cylinders can be like gyroscopes, I guess. Perhaps you could turn some of them sideways, by using a mirror to fold the sunlight from a concave mirror 90 degrees sideways. Then you could have several orientations of cylinders that you may use as gyroscopes.

Of course as I have said space stations that support humans would be near by or on the plane of mirrors.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-30 09:04:59)

Void · 2024-12-31 10:42:40

Perhaps this is good advice: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=WRVORC
Quote:

Why Tesla Optimus ELIMINATES all jobs except for THIS ONE (you better prepare NOW)
YouTube
Jo Bhakdi
59 views
1 hour ago

I might be able to do a little bit of it.

Ending Pending

Void · 2024-12-31 10:44:14

I started the morning thinking of extreme microbe farming and may return to that later. But now I am interested in something different. I don't have a word for it, or a phrase for it. Making mass and energy multitask?

An example of this in a Tesla car would be a battery pack that is a battery pack but also provides a structure contribution to a car.

Light is conveyed though opening 'D' and impinges on solar panel surface 'C'.

Surfaces 'A' and 'B' are radiators and heat pumps can be use to push heat into them from data centers using the energy from 'C'.

The environment of 'C' is somewhat protected by the total apparatus. Glass might be put in front of the solar panels and also a method to filter out UV might be used, to make the solar panels last a long time.

So, then if a vacuum is inside of it, the problems of moisture, Oxygen, and UV are handled. As for heat, 'C' may discharge heat from the outer side of 'C', into the universe.

Spin gravity might be imposed on the cylinder with a partner cylinder being of an opposite spin. As the two spin rates may be modulated as more or less and could involve motors and generators, this then becomes an energy battery of the flywheel sort. So, your solar panels, radiators, and any other mass held in the spin process such as data centers and robots will also be flywheel storage of energy.

Surfaces 'A' and 'B' of the curved cylinder wall, on the inside can be an environment where robots could work.

So, in many cases atoms of mass have multiple services to give to the production of wealth.

Ending Pending

I have started to think of prisms to use to treat the photon input, to send various wavelengths to separated destinations for various purposes, but I am not well developed in that yet.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-31 11:07:15)

Void · 2024-12-31 16:35:30

I have been thinking about a multi-deck cylinder, and some possible implications for radiation protection.

At first, just two parallel decks were considered and then stringers and corrugation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrugated_fiberboard
Image Quote:

So, the double deck, possibly with corrugated stringers would be the cylinder surface of 'A' & 'B'.

Some parts between the two decks might be pressurized more or less. But the scheme for a vacuum filled robot floor above would remain.

I suppose I am still trying to achieve satisfaction of hosting multiple economic activities. Data Centers, Space Solar Power, Space Tourism, among those.

I would expect these devices to have a sparce population of space tourists and workers. So, in places life support would be very well established, but for most of the device only partial life support to assist robots and perhaps humans in EVA suits.

So, I have been wondering about radiation protection for parts not specifically given strong shielding.

The corrugated walls will be parallel to the rays of the sun, and so I suspect parallel to some of the concern from the sun. But some of the ions may follow magnetic lines of force in the suns magnetic field or the magnetic field of a planet, if it has a magnetic field. If I am not totally wrong, then there may be a way that this could shield leeward parts of the corrugated walls from some of the primary radiation.

If so, then this may be more true for worlds like Mars and Venus, but perhaps not so true for Earth or any other planet with a magnetic field.

I originally supposed that there would be no hope for shielding of GCR, but perhaps there is hope. Here again I might be wrong, but I will speculate on the factors. GCR is better blocked by the solar wind and the heliosphere when the sun is most active. So, I anticipate that GCR that crosses from the opposite side of the heliosphere from a world, might be blocked more. So, more GCR may come from the leeward side of the cylinder, as it has less interruption from the heliosphere.

The heliosphere is also not actually a sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere
Image Quote:

So, I am going to speculate that there is a seasonal effect as to which "Side" of the sun your device will be on.

So, I am thinking that usually humans would stay in more protected areas, and run a robot by telepresence if they wanted to manipulate an object in a less protected area, but still conditions per solar radiation and GCR will be variable as to the orientation of the device and also solar variations, and the possible seasonal effects.

If someone may choose to educate me on this and sees flaws in my thinking I welcome corrections for it.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-12-31 17:29:12)

Void · 2025-01-01 19:54:34

Well, I am getting a little lonely, where is everyone (th)?

Anyway normally I would put this link into a robotics topic, but I have been suggesting a dual cylinder (At least), work platform for robots, and found this article. A video is embedded in it: https://evsoup.com/elon-musk-the-genie- … he-bottle/ Quote:
Elon Musk: “The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle”
EVsoup / 9 hours ago
From Farzad.

As I have said before the dual cylinders could be spun up or down together, to create variable levels of synthetic gravity. For my likes I suggest Microgravity to 1/6th g simulation of the Moon, but that is not a mandate.

There is some questioning of the humanoid form in the video, so then I have some ideas about that.

So, I have been thinking of a Gorilla Bot, and a Gibbon Bot. Hand like feet are not good for bipedal walking though, but there are humans with a very special type of foot, it seems: https://brightside.me/articles/the-afri … ot-814508/ Image Quote: 84203653dbab2e6a2b8eaccc4e.jpg.webp

So, I think a reasonable bipedal and yet gripper foot could be created for working in space structures for the various types of robots I have so far mentioned. Perhaps based on this human alternate form of foot.

The robots may be suitable to work on the Moon as well. A knuckle walking robot may be more stable in Moon gravity, but of course if outside more into the dirt I am afraid. But it could be worth it. The robots may ride on wheeled robots a lot of the time anyway. So, having a body designed for persistence hunting may not be optimal on the Moon where that hunting style is not likely to be of a profit.

Elon Musk has suggested that we could have 10 to 20 billion "Humanoid" robots on Earth. What if we had 10 billion robots on the Moon? Mars? In orbits?

So, for low gravity situations, I think a "Humanoid" robot might be able to move about like a human, a guerilla, or a gibbon. It may be possible to include 2 or even to some extent all three of those options.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-01 20:11:46)

Void · 2025-01-02 14:11:22

The idea of synthetic gravity for robots in space is simply the idea that for some production of goods, a gradient of gravity may be useful. We already know that special things can be done in microgravity that cannot be done in gravity.

In choosing 1/6th g as another important gradient, I am acknowledging that the Moon is a large surface at 1/6th g and with a large volume of materials. So, robots suitable to work at 1/6th g in a synthetic gravity machine may have similarities to those needed to work on the Moon.

The Moon has abundant resources of some kinds, but it is a challenge to bring those resources to orbit and possible use away from the Moon.

This video suggests why for the Moon we might want to try to arrive at lower scale technology, to initiate railroads on the Moon. So, you have to try to build up an economy using a more humble method, to eventually justify actual railroads on the Moon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1dqyKy3xnI Quote:

Railways on the Moon
AnthroFuturism

I think that Mass Drivers and perhaps Tethers/Space Elevators are similar. They are too large of a up front cost for an economic process that does not yet exist on the Moon.

From post #85:

The Shell Ship from Earth only makes sense if you have the manufacturing capabilities in orbit, to transform processed materials into specific fulfillment of needs. We are just starting to think about doing something like that.

So, a Shell Ship from the Moon could be useful at that point as well. But the Moon tends to have inferior chemical rocket methods available. But the task is not as hard to launch such Shell Ships, should they have been created.

Creation of Shell Ships from Lunar raw materials, would be greatly benefited by various types of robots, I feel.

If such methods could be "Bootstrapped" into existence, eventually it may have enough value to justify the creation of Mass Drivers, or Skyhooks or similar methods.

Before that the value produced may not be sufficient to justify the imagined "High Tech" methods. I feel that with low cost Robot labor, perhaps Shell Ships from the Moon would be more economical, at least in proximity of the Moon, than Shell Ships from Earth.

The Shell ship from Earth may return the Red and Green sections to the surface of the Earth for reuse in a following launch. It may be that Shell Ships from the Moon would only be launched to an orbit, and that the entire ship would be reprocessed in an orbital facility.

The probable major propellants for a Moon Shell Ship would be Aluminum and Oxygen.

A facility to process Shell Ship materials, if it has a low gravity will not induce motion sickness as much as for a 1 g facility. And robots will not be likely to have motion sickness. So, these also could be downsized quite a bit to make them more practical.

Humans working on these devices will likely be professional and trained and filtered to be tolerant of motion sickness.

But there will likely be 1 g rehabilitation spin gravity devices kept near by, and perhaps on the same master platform of mirrors.

Ending Pending

Here is a short video about getting "Easy Iron" from Lunar Regolith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUV0iPublw Quote:

Lunar Regolith Magnet Beneficiation from 1981 (Paper Review)
AnthroFuturism

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-02 15:22:32)

Void · 2025-01-04 09:32:36

While it occurred to me that robots would not likely have an inner ear problem under synthetic gravity, I now wonder if Neuralink could be involved in a human inner ear modification.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-04 09:32:52)

Void · 2025-01-05 09:28:37

I see that there are attempts to do a zero sum again on Moon vs Mars as objective. I think that puts the eye on the wrong thing. If you have the hardware to do one then you probably have close to the hardware to do both. It seems that the more instances of a type of hardware can be made with a economic or scientific purpose, then the lower the per unit cost. (Perhaps, we may hope).

So, at this time there seem to be Support Starships, (Surface<>LEO), which will not go to either Mars or the Moon, and Starships that will actually go on an expedition. But one other type of support Starship which could be created would be a LEO booster Starship.

This would be to use one Starship as a booster for another to provide a solution to objectives harder than just to go to the Moon or Mars.

The Booster Starship could be throwaway or reuse.

If throwaway then both the Booster and the Mission Starship may be similar to Lunar Starships, (Or not).

As I see it, there is hope that Mars can become a refilling station to send Starships further out. But that is going to take many years to build up the infrastructure for.

Supposing you wanted to send a one way expedition out to an asteroid with robots on board. Then this might facilitate it. You could get robots to an asteroid and do research of discovery science and materials processing, to get an idea of what can be real in the future.

If refilling in orbit turns out to be effective economic, then to fill one extra Booster Starship now and then might not be that much of a hardship.

Another possible objective would be to get people to Mars on a quicker trip, to avoid the hazards of long term space flight. Yes, maybe nuclear may become such boosters in the future, but you would still be able to crank out an extra Lunar Starship and use it as a Booster Starship, perhaps relatively easy.

I know that a lot of people want to eliminate the creative scaffolding, and do short-cut thinking, so they turn invention into dogma as fast as they can so that they can get on top of the heap.

But I am not one of those. I think that the creative edge should be actively encouraged forever.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-05 10:19:07)

Void · 2025-01-08 12:48:09

I have seen multiple articles indicating that SpaceX and others are speculating on making space stations out of Starships.

This could be an alternative to my Shell-ship notions, provided you extracted the engines and returned them to Earth in a LEO Support type Starship.

Here is one article about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWIz8WHCyuI
Quote:

"SpaceX Unveils Starship as NASA's Next Space Station with Revolutionary Interior Design for 2025!"
Shinning Star
1.28K subscribers

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-08 13:09:49)

Void · 2025-01-08 22:06:37

in continuation with the previous post, I guess I just what to talk about the apparent common current knowledge about what might be possible with versions of Starship.

With the tanks stretched and improved engines, I now see ~150 tons as possibly the payload for a fully reusable Starship. In expendable mode that goes to ~250 tons. (I am not aware if expendable mode only expends the Starship, or if the Superheavy has to be expended to achieve that).

While tower landings are still under study and development, now I see that at sea barge landings are being considered with legs.

So, in expendable mode, since I don't know the details, a cargo of ~200 tons, and then the dry mass of the Starship in orbit. So, looking on line I see ~120 tons as the listed dry mass of a Starship. But of course this one would not have flaps and motors, or a heat shield, so maybe not that heavy. So, let's say a expendable launch could put ~300 tons of mass in orbit.

Probably it would be desired to send some items back to Earth, such as the engines perhaps.

A cargo could be a liquid propellant, or a metal propellant. Magdrive can use Iron, Aluminum, and Copper, but I would suspect that copper is the better one. Neumann Drive works best with Molybdenum, I have read. So, if space stations were made of Starships, then maintaining orbit could likely be done with one of those. You would not have to lift other liquid propellants for that purpose.

Here is a link to the Magdrive website: https://www.magdrive.space/

If I read it right, it seems to have greater acceleration than typical electric rockets.

Neuman drive seems to be being tested in space, so a little less speculation there: https://www.space.gov.au/news-and-media … d-in-orbit Quote:

Pioneering metal-based propulsion technology
Neumann Drive® is a unique lightweight, high-efficiency solar-electric propulsion system that would help SpIRIT manoeuvre in orbit.
In August, SpIRIT was able to demonstrate charging of the Neumann Drive®’s power capacitors by the nanosatellite’s solar panels and batteries. The spacecraft conducted several test firings that demonstrated the ability to use Molybdenum as a solid metallic propellant.
A comprehensive Neumann Drive® testing campaign will continue for the remaining two-year SpIRIT mission.
“There is nothing like proving what you can do in space. Demonstrating our technology in the space environment is not only rewarding but important to delivering assurance and confidence to the global small satellite industry.
~ Herve Astier, CEO, Neumann Space

I know that electric drives are not that great for direct access of Mars, but they could stage a refilling depot to a higher orbit for a Starship to refill from. Magdrive might be powerful enough to use to go to Mars and beyond, if it is developed further.

It is easy to be enthusiastic about both these two drives and the apparent future capabilities of the Starship set of options.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-08 22:33:34)

Void · 2025-01-09 10:10:52

This is in a large part about robots but other things as well, so I will put it here: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=WRVORC
Quote:

Elon Musk Just Made Bonkers New Predictions
YouTube
Farzad
5.8K views
5 hours ago
Related videos

A very important thing is the suggestion that there could be 5 humanoid robots for every person, in the future.

Ending Pending

On the question of how to distribute wealth. I think that an earlier retirement might be considered as wealth may accumulate sufficiently. Maybe things could be a bit more like the Nordics, providing that the economics would justify it.

As for American debt, for some time I have had a suspicion that such debt at low interest rates may turn out to have been a good thing, as to set us up to enter this new world. If the debt can be managed and also rendered less and less of the productive value of our economy, then it may well, be a mild sickness rather than a fatal one.

As for the parties of people who perhaps have a mental disorder, who continually insist that we are bad people and indeed inferiors. We should not allow them to test their theories.

For instance, the NAZI have the philosophy that continual killing will improve the human race. They seem to have a continuing desire to subordinate any people that they can. I think that they act on the level of insects, craving hierarchy at a level that is detrimental to the interests of the human race. It is not sensible to excessively weed out certain genes, as you never know if you may have use for them in the future. It has occurred to me that there is limited space inside of a person who grew from a certain genome. I am fairly sure that it is not practical to put all "Good" traits into such a genome. And then if you clone your "Perfect" human and everyone has the same genome, you make the human race brittle and not as adaptive as it should be to change.

As for the "Blank Slate" people, who have the philosophy that if they could get control of the human race completely they could teach the human race to be good, perhaps they should perfect themselves before thinking to change the nature of other people. (That is many of the far left who have those ideas).

So, America is quite a long way to the path that may be more desirable.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-09 11:38:55)

Void · 2025-01-11 09:32:27

My current view of a likely progression of human activity from Earth does aim at Mars/Phobos/Deimos.

The type of hardware that could do that seems to be centered on things like Starship. But the Starship could access the Moon, as it's own purpose. It is possible that eventually the Moon may be assistive in moving things to Mars/Phobos/Deimos from the Earth, but I don't think it is ready for that yet.

It is possible that Mars/Phobos/Deimos may have enough resources to begin traveling to asteroids. Mars could supply things to stony asteroids that may be lacking. Or it is possible that it would be better to travel to the main belt to get those, and then ship materials to stony asteroids that may have elliptical orbits that cross the orbits of terrestrial planets.

Ceres and other objects about 3 AU out might be places to go to for that, but the inner asteroid belt is closer. It is said that about 40% of the inner asteroids are carbonaceous. These may have some of the materials that are wanted like Carbon, Water, and even a bit of Nitrogen.

But James Web has just detected that there are a lot of tiny asteroids in the asteroid belt. That is of interest.

https://www.space.com/the-universe/aste … nd-jupiter Quote:

James Webb Space Telescope finds smallest asteroids ever seen between Mars and Jupiter
News
By Kiona N. Smith published December 10, 2024
"This is a totally new, unexplored space we are entering, thanks to modern technologies."

So, these may be of interest for a different method of mining.

It appears that these little asteroids tend to get dislodged from a circular orbit and then become a collision hazard in the orbits of the terrestrial planets.

A set of very large platforms might be able to mine these little asteroids, if methods can be invented.

This idea from the Finns is inspiring to me: https://www.sciencealert.com/could-huma … anet-ceres Image Quote:

I think it is a good piece of work. It is hoped that Ceres could supply Nitrogen to fill the synthetic gravity cylinders.

I understand that Mars does not have a lot of Nitrogen to spare. So, I have been looking into that problem.

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

Nothing so special, but a way to conserve Nitrogen.

Humans could hang out mostly in the 2/3 bar chambers with N2/O2, and if needed could then go into the larger O2 at 1/4 or 1/3 bar. They may or may not want suits to wear if at 1/4 bar.

Since telepresence may allow a human to teleoperate a humanoid robot as a second body. Usually that would be the way to access low pressure situations. This should allow the Nitrogen to be conserved and stretched out.

These platforms to mine small asteroids would ultimately send materials to Venus, probably to be air braked into orbit or into the atmosphere. Venus in turn eventually could be a large source of Nitrogen and then also Carbon to send outward as payment.

Perhaps having achieved that much then it might be worked on how to mine the surface of Venus itself.

Some thinking on that has occurred in another topic: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 03#p229003

So, at that stage of solar system development the Earth/Moon would be sandwiched between either Venus<>Mars/Phobos/Deimos, or Venus<>Asteroid Belt, with Mars/Phobos/Deimos and Earth/Moon inside the sandwich.

And from there then eventually the greater part of the solar system might be developed, I expect.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-11 10:35:48)

Void · 2025-01-13 12:46:31

I really liked this post from Terraformer: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 31#p229031

A master platform, might have some centrifugal structures that could envelop and collect rubble tiny rubble piles.

The main problem I see in it is that an imbalance might happen where like a washing machine the load is too far off center. So, that needs to be thought about.

This is one try:

The box with the counter rotor is to help set the collecting device to the proper spin for the object to be collected. Perhaps you would have zero spin for the collector "Cup", and then increase it until you start collecting materials.

Once materials were collected the device would move to a major platform near by, so that the materials can be further processed.

A certain amount of concept it included, but for sure it could be revised to be better.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-13 13:04:40)

Void · 2025-01-18 13:11:07

Terraformer is working with others on airships and spinlaunch, elsewhere. I do not want to disturb that.

But Terraformer prompted me to have another look at Ascender, and I have some ideas about that device. Some may consider it to not be real, just a dream, but lets dream. After all a while back, Falcon 9 would be regarded as not possible.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE
Quote:

Introducing: Ascender H1 Variant Orbital Airship
YouTube
John Powell
147.3K views
10 months ago

I have a special focus on Venus for this, but lets allow that it might be used on any world with an atmosphere. It probably will not be suitable for gas giants, and likely not for Triton. But Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan, and Pluto, might have potential. Some now, and some after being terraformed a bit.

I am most interested at this time, in Venus, both now and if it were terraformed a bit.

I have been interested in Starship for Venus, but Ascender might offer some really nice features if it can be made to work. For Starship, I was thinking that it could dive into the atmosphere, and then perhaps come to rest at the 5 to 10 bar pressure level. But that puts it in an acid bath. And since it is made to function in the vacuum of low orbit at least, this is asking a whole lot too much, I fear.

We could speculate on doing this with Ascender, but again, acid bath, and probably wind storms that might tear it apart.
But lets split functions. Lets have Ascender only come down to a certain level in the atmosphere, to meet with another airship that is not designed to operate in orbit, but to endure at least 1/3 bar of pressure. Perhaps as much as 1 bar of pressure. Doing this, the lower operating airship needs to be able to endure acid, and wind. But the Ascender can perhaps be kept above these hazards for Venus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
Image Quote:

OK, you have to be at least 100 km up to avoid the acid. But you probably avoid serious wind turbulence that could destroy Ascender. Your choices might allow some exposure to acid for relatively brief time, to allow a lower reach for the Ascender.

Keep in mind that the gravity of Venus is less, 90% that of Earth, and so the atmosphere will extend higher than for Earth. If you replaced the atmosphere of Venus with the total atmosphere of Earth, it would bulge higher, both from the lesser gravity and from heating of the atmosphere.

So, kdb512 has worked out some solutions for mining the surface of Venus, and I think that if we had at least 3 layers of aircraft/spacecraft, we could have total connection between the surface of Venus and the orbits of Venus. Ascender would be the upper one. The middle one might be capable of operating in acid, from 5-10 bars up to the bottom limits of Ascender. The a lower ship might operate from the 5-10 bar level all the way down to the surface. Perhaps more layers might be needed but I think 3 is the minimum.

The middle aircraft that might operate from 5-10 bars up to 100 km (Maybe less), might be a combination of airship and rocket, in order to bump itself up to the location of the ascender.

So, just on a guess, it would have a balloon shaped for lift if powered by a rocket. It might be able to achieve a temporary orbit in the high atmosphere of Venus to meet with the Ascender as it dropped down to it's lowest planned position. After being disconnected from the Ascender, it would glide down to the 5-10 bar level to be refilled with rocket propellants and whatever else it was to take on board, and repeat.

My previous view of how to begin with Venus, has the notion that we go to Mars/Phobos/Deimos, and then perhaps the inner asteroid belt for things like water and Carbon, maybe Nitrogen to bring to stony terrestrial crossing asteroids. Then we airbrake materials manufactured in those terrestrial crossers, so to begin an orbital community and possibly a cloud community. I have very much wanted to find a way to mine the atmosphere of Venus. Ascender might allow that.

If the Ascender could dip down into the atmosphere of Venus, it might collect things like Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen, even if no cloud cities were to exist. If it could fly in the "Bow Shock" of the solar wind as it would collide with the atmosphere of Venus, then Hydrogen and Helium might be obtained.

If you had those things brought to orbit with Ascender, and stony asteroid materials also available then you could set up an orbital community and eventually cloud cities.

If there is no life on Venus, then methods to swell up the atmosphere of Venus might make this plan work even better.

I know of 3 methods. 1) Impact the atmosphere with asteroids. 2) Greenhouse Gasses, 3) Particles.
1) Is dangerous if you have cities already.
2) Hydrocarbons manufactured might heat the atmosphere more, and also might block UV, decreasing the acid nature of the clouds.
3) Might heat the upper atmosphere more.

https://www.science.org/content/article … ts-thought
Quote:

Terraforming Mars could be easier than scientists thought
Tiny rods made from martian ingredients could trap heat and warm planet

Swelling up the atmosphere of Venus has the advantage that Ascender does not have to go as deep into the gravity well of Venus. But swelling the atmosphere may cause the atmosphere to be swept away by the solar wind, and I do not want to waste it that way.

So, to swell the atmosphere, then you may have to pay for a artificial protective magnetic field to protect it. Ideally this field would be leaky to let the solar wind in on the sunward side, but to hold it from sweeping away the upper atmosphere.

As the atmosphere has at least 3 times as much Nitrogen as does the Earth's of course that has value, and could be used to fill synthetic gravity habitats. The Carbon might be used to build orbital structure, and the Oxygen can be used in an Oxygen mass driver for propulsions.

So, I think that Venus could become a very valuable planet.

One final note, the solar flux will be better at Venus than Earth, if the Ascender is to be solar powered.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-18 13:59:33)

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