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http://www.paulbirch.net]www.paulbirch.net -- about how to terraform, move, spin planets quickly..., also pay attention to the concept allowing with the use of existing or proven materrials and technologies to terraform astronomical bodies with very high mass and abcense of solid surface -- gas giants, brown dwarfs, main sequence stars, white dwarfs, neutron and quark stars, black holes... the materials include also vast mentioning and parameter estimates for the macaroni-habitat -- the logical extreme of the cilindrical rotating space colony design ( see also: http://www.distant-star.com/issue13/jan … fibers.htm about the latter):
http://www.paulbirch.net/SupramundanePl … lanets.zip
the Supramundane actual worldbuilding concept shows how to deal with and utilize huge natural gravity wells, bodies with surface gravity much higher than 1G (i.e. with higher "H-value"). The macaroni-idea depicts the way of effective megastructural colonization of star systems with lack of substantial bodies ( including star mining for non-H/He elements).
Inbetween these two ways (and of cource combined with them, depend on the innitial/natural body supply en situ) lies the realm of the bodies -- planets, planetoids, moons -- with mass lower than this of the earth, with less surface gravity, etc... from the scale of the Pluto, Mercury, Mars, the earth`s/gas-giant`s moons, huge asteroids, etc. According to the proposed to the International Astronomical Union planetary taxonomy by Gabor Basri (ask Google about: "Gabor Basri", "planemo", "fusor"), every body having substantial self-gravity to provide it with round shape balancing the lithostatic precure of the body, is "planemo" = planetary mass object (including dozens of bodies in the Solar system now out of the planets` list: Sedna, Ixion, Ceres, Vesta, the Moon, Triton, the Galileans... + the planemos free roaming in the interstellar space) and these with mass big enough to start nuclear fusion in certain period during the life of the body (including the brown dwarfs) are "fusors".
There is a notion that the fusors in the galaxies are accompanied with vastly outnumbering the big planets hosts of sub-terran in mass "planemos" in every formed system (as it is in our case here in the Sol system), that many of the stars would lack earth-mass bodies, and the mankind should learn how to terraform these midgets ( which have enough gravity to make uneconomical their disnmantle for rotating space colonies...). Notice in the works of Paul Birch and Freeman Dyson, that the energy supply of the any kind of habitat (from the rotating space colonies, through the terraformed little planemos and eartsized planets, to the supramundane gigantic artificial ecologies) is practically independent form the distance to the certain fusor: soletas for the distant ones -- out to 2-3 ly from the fusor, parasols for the most star-neared bodies...and sollar lasers. The arcology = artificial ecology (see "Soleri") could be illuminated by any means of creating, redirecting, modifying light.
All this in the post was aimed for the purpose of formal generalization of the terraforming and covering the whole spectrum of the item: Lets assume that terraforming is: any kind of activity providing atificial environment capable of suppoirting unaugmented or unmodified human life during it`s full life-cycle, than we have three levels:
1.From lesser bodies (meteoroids, asteroids, comets, dust, interstellar medium... anything under planemo size) -- non-planetary included material + the stars themselves -- extract materials and biuld rotating colonies (from hollowed-out and baloon-formed asteroids, packedged ice structures and Stanford designs up to many thousands of light years long macaroni/spagety megastructures ).
2.Terraform directly every planemo with solid/liquid surface -- from the lower bound of 500-600 km in diameter to slightly bigger than Earth (actually little more than 1g surface gravity or the H-value is the limit) -- including micro-terraforming, partial and suboptimal terraforming, world domes/tents, artificial magnetospheres, sollar-wind hydrogen-scoop resupply devices and other "hard technology" shortcuts for preserving the atmospheres from dissipating, runing the hydrological cycle... everything...
3.Everything over 1g surface gravity -- supply with terraformed supramundane shells.
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Here is an article by Paul Birch, where is in-short outlined the topic about constructing terraformed supramundane shells and terraformed rotating tube worlds, together with the necesarry for the "plain" terraforming of terrestrial planets:
http://www.paulbirch.net/CustomPlanets. … anets.html
Described is also the Pat Gunkel "topopils" rotating space habitats` concept.
Namely in this text is depicted the "three-level" habitat engeneering taxonomy, about what I was talking about in the begining of the "supramundane" thread: tubes where we have not natural gravitational anchors, natural terrestrial planets terraforming and supramundane shells. May be very reallistic the autor tends to describe (except with Mars case) almost only about 1 Gee habitats. Such way the terraforming efforts are entirelly focused on worlds with equal or bigger surface gravirty than earth`s.
Legitimately arises the question: "what to do with the smaller terrestrial worlds?". Excluded from the terraformation options` list I think that we should pay them little more attention in regard of their numerousity. Like in every mass-numerousity distribution in this universe, as smaller are certain entities as bigger is their number. My notion is that we must not exclude them from the terraform-list, and in the way the biggest natiral masses could be made earthlike, a "Supramundane oceans" or other world-envelope techs could be used to be human-livably converted their surfaces.
In the Solar system there are more than 30 astronomical bodies discovered,which have solid surfaces and are shaped round by the balance of their self-gravity & internal structural force (i.e. passed the Wild bound). Being unique and more valuable as distinct places/planets-with-names than mere materials` sources, the opportunities for their colonisation has to be seriously took under attention. Such way the gap in the gravitational "Main sequence" in the cathalogizing of the terraformable objects would be closed.
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