Thoughts on producing an atmosphere on the Moon

noosfractal · 2005-11-04 21:04:40

Why and how do you think the Moon should be terraformed?

The moon should be terraformed to create a stable biosphere in a shallow gravity well ( = less energy to reach the rest of the solar system ).

I imagine luna terraforming to include the following steps:
(a) bringing one or more comets into low luna orbit,
(b) solar heating of luna regolith with parabolic mirrors to release 1 mb of oxygen,
(c) slowly adding to the newly formed atmosphere by breaking up the comet(s) into small enough fragments that they burn up during deorbit, and
(d) establishment of a laser roof to slow atmospheric loss.
_

Dook · 2005-11-04 21:18:22

Bring one or more comets toward the earth? You are completely mad.

noosfractal · 2005-11-04 22:03:12

Bring one or more comets toward the earth? You are completely mad.

I promise to keep them below 2 on the Torino scale.

If absolutely necessary, I suppose I could park them at L5 and ferry the pieces from there
_

srmeaney · 2005-11-05 01:34:58

Global warming will soon cause Australia to become a total desert and solar radiation will greatly increase the skin cancer rates of your pale population who will hide indoors and lose their technical and governing ability over the country.
The true Australians, Aborigines, will finally have their country to themselves but this will only be temporary because Indonesia will then invade and no one will come to your aid because there is no oil there and the world's changing racial preference against white oppressors of original people.
Sucks to be you.

A dying people who occupy less than five percent of the total population of Australia. You can make the insults all you want but some of us on this planet care about life. Worse still relatives of me.

PS Australia has fifty percent of the worlds exploitable Uranium.

China wants to be our friend or Dominar?

As to you Dook, dont look now but some marines are coming up the drive. You have just been volunteered to die in Iraq.

karov · 2005-11-05 05:31:59

Why and how do you think the Moon should be terraformed?

Why? -- because the Moon being a pile of depleted and resource poor dirt, worths ONLY as gravity anchor for fluid-spheres ( atmo/hydro/bio), hence has value ONLY as territory.

How? -- generally the way Noosfractal depicts:

-- first release an atmosphere of O2 ( the only available volatile there ) using direct thermal decomposition of lunar rocks via concentration optics ( mirrors, fresnel planar soletas) or more sophisticated scenario involving self-replicating tiny and simple robots, which to use the direct or processed solar power to release oxigen, and with the remaining purified aluminium, silicon, titanium and iron to build their bodies , support infrastructure of their "techno"sphere, even build some human-necessary infrastructure as a by-product, etc. etc.

-- Import Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen ( no water, cause you already has plenty of oxigen)... in form of ready stuff from comets and asteroids ( these beyond the WaterIceLine of 4 AU)... such stuff could be dirtectly asteroid or cometary kerogen ( thermally depolymerized in more petrolium like substance using solar concentrators if found necessary), tar like sunstances, packed carbohydrates , ammonia, etc. These artificial comets could VERY easily be NO threat -- just make them no bigger than , say one metter wide -- thus they`ll not be able to penetrate the earth`s atmosphere if divert from course. We even have en-situ the necessary mechanical energy to transport the CHN-"shells" or "bullets" to the Moon -- any body in the Universe rotates. Expand "orbital towers" from the mined asteroid or comet, and use it as a slingshot for the packages -- eventually we have one slower rotating body with its mass decreased with the amounts sent... These little pieces will evaporate in the O2 innitial atmosphere and after releasing the mostly reducing chemically material, they will form CO2, H2O, etc... utilizable by plants and tech to form biomass... Not necessary to bring comets in low lunar orbit... the CHN containers can be fired directly from the Outer system with speeds of 50-100 km/s. In order the custom plane of space flights and statelite basing to be avoided the CHN mass-streams of this "machine gun" fire could be directed to come moslty from directions ending in the lunar polar areas.

-- roofing of Moon I agree shouldn`t be done by kinda solid sheet of material... rather "softer" technologies for laser cooling, magnetic field retention, plasma envelopes, would be sufficient to keep the exobase ions to reach escape velocity.
In order to minimize the solar ionization and decompsition which produces free hydrogen, just put some very steep tropopause "cold trap" -- if we manage to make say 100-150 K layer above the troposphere, instead of the earth's about (-) 50 degrees Celsuis, than NO water will go up enough to decompose. All the dynamic atmosphere retention techs could be designed to extract their operational power directly from the environment, ideally from the power influx which normally dissipates the gases. All several mechanisms which Sun "uses" to strip atmospheres could be reversed to keep it. For example an artificial M2P2-like plasma cloud could be powered by mag-sail-like MHD-generator from the incoming solar ion wind, thus the Moon sucking in the rare Hydrogen from the solar wind instread the high energy proton stream to knock out heavier oxigen, nitrogen, etc. ions...

This is roughly the Moon terraforming design and scenario which rellies on proven, even ancient tech -- only solar power and natural mechanical power, etc...

Of course there are possible lots of other ways...
\

Srmeany, actually I like your idea abouit the aminoacids, regarding it as solution of the light ions escaping -- just replace them with heavier "quants" of atmosphere..., but in direct sence "aminoacids atmosphere" means and worths nothing.

srmeaney · 2005-11-05 05:57:29

I suppose at some point those wispy fibres pushed about by the Solar hydrogen they collide with interact to form heavy globs and roll about on the lunar surface like tumbleweeds picking up soil and creating bubbles of dust. It is uncertain whether life would form under those conditions.

In the end we will probably wind up manufacturing an ocean surface.

noosfractal · 2005-11-05 13:58:47

All several mechanisms which Sun "uses" to strip atmospheres could be reversed to keep it. For example an artificial M2P2-like plasma cloud could be powered by mag-sail-like MHD-generator from the incoming solar ion wind, thus the Moon sucking in the rare Hydrogen from the solar wind instread the high energy proton stream to knock out heavier oxigen, nitrogen, etc. ions...

This is an awesome idea! The luna aurora will be very beautiful.

_

Earthfirst · 2005-11-07 14:43:30

srmeaney Hello from the God loving christian world, Christian a minority group? Christians world wide are the single largest faith group over one billion. In the western hemisphere almost every one is christian, so the U.S.A does not really fear becoming a minority. Also Why do you want to turn your back on your freinds for china? China trades more with america so why would they care about the folks down under. The moon is open land with lots of space, I think china and america can both have little moon colonys with out fighting. Also china has a lot of socail problems to solve and as a socailist nation they have to solve them. Unlike the US were the poor can go to hell as far as we care. America has a better chance of getting to the moon first, we did it before. We are more ahead in tech, china has just a maned orbitor. The US was doing that 40 years ago, big deal!
America will get to the moon first and claim it as an international study area like Antarctica. So no single nation can claim it for it self.
America rocks you communist dog, why dont you move to china and see how wounderful it is. GWB for king of the world! 8)

srmeaney · 2005-11-08 05:06:37

America is 1/24th of the world population. I believe the answer you meant to give is "How High Sir?"

Earthfirst · 2005-11-08 12:45:25

270 million hard working people that have all the power in the world, best tech, and the most pretty too. 1/24th in world wide population big deal, when most of the people in the world are uneducated, poor, sick with many kinds of body and moral decay. China has more people big deal that does not mean they are more powerful. Most people in china are poor farmers not much better off than they were under feudualism. Also china has too feed all those people, china grows more food than any other nation other than the US but still has too import foods to feed its people. China gets most of its food from the good old USA, millions of tons of wheat, and corn is exported to china from us. I remeber once by the columbia river I saw about a dozen of cargo ships from china all filled with tons of wheat grown in America headed back to china. If china went to war it could face starvation, Terra Astrailes with its salty desert soils could never grow enough food for them. The Maura Darling has been used up, and envirnomentalist of stop the snowy river project from transporting water to western Asuzie lands.
America power comes from the land, food, minerals, people, and money.
China will never be are equal, and with the help of the CIA disbruting their economy china will have it tough.
America no push over weak liberal state like europe, 911 woke use to the fact that people hate us because are ways are better than theirs, being the best allwise makes evryone hate you for loving you so much. Like miss America all women want to be like her but can't so they hate her. Hoping that she will fall and break her nose is just a pipe dream, just deal with the fact that you are a ulgy duck like china, and no amount of capitalism will fix your ulgy face.

karov · 2005-11-09 06:44:31

Earthfirst, don`t be so radical and chauvinistic ( are you a teenager? )!!!

I also like more USA than China, and KNOW that China can not maintain its economic grouth parameters without the door to the USA market of cheap goods to remain open. I also don`t believe that China`s evolution leads it to the status of real super-power...

But, on global scale the overall balance is too fragile, in order we to be able to put so firm evaluations of the future strength of the countries and unions.

All we in this forum are pro-space, and all we know that exporting huge enough part of the worlds economy off-planet will FOREVER dwindle the political power significance of the nation-states to nothing beyond territory night-guards and nothing more important that, say the nowaday status of the organized religions.

ONE single asteroid-mining company with capital of less than $ 1 Giga US, comperativelly soon will have more firepower than dozens of times the total global nuclear arsenal.

Power is relative and instable.

What happens with USA, when after 5-10 years UK and Norway enter the Euro-zone and the petrol price is calculated in euros, instead of the artificial USD fixing?

karov · 2005-11-09 06:55:09

Returning to the topic:

Nobody is going to claim the Moon or other body.

The juridical status of the Outer space is clear enough after the 1967 Convention.

It sais that THE MANKIND owns the universe, and that no nation has the right to establish souvereignity over extraterrestrial objects. The problem is that this legal formula says nothing for the exculsive proprietor rights... How one to be sure that as on earth his right to own , say an asteroid, excludes the right of all others to touch it.

The only thing this legal base misses, is if you or I or else want to buy land on Moon or Mars, who to address as a seller.

The answer is logical: When UN establishes mechanism ( Notary, Land registry, etc. ) which institution to have the authority to officially recognise property rights to distinct subjects over distinct space objects, THEN one could buy, occupy, possess someething out of the Earth.

In similar way is still designed the situation in Antarctica, except th two major details that nobody can have private property there, and that not all the nations are presented, the ATO ( Antarctic treaty organization) is a closed club society, not fair and just mechanism.

MarsDog · 2005-11-14 01:58:24

It says that THE MANKIND owns the universe, and that no nation has the right to establish souvereignity over extraterrestrial objects.

Still comes down to Might is Right.
International space laws are not worth the electrons used to display it on your screen.

karov · 2005-11-14 14:09:51

It says that THE MANKIND owns the universe, and that no nation has the right to establish souvereignity over extraterrestrial objects.
Still comes down to Might is Right.
International space laws are not worth the electrons used to display it on your screen.

THE ESSENCE of any law is Might is Right. Law without enforcement is nothing. Luckily the present space law was invented by superpowers which at least formally have legal culture and tradition from the last 20 centuries or so, and which at least formally try to establish any legal frame of this activity.

The dual empire USA-USSR until recently held the progress in the space colonization, but soon , very soon, the legal issues up there will come into practical discussion:

Example: two companies want to mine exactly one spot on exactly one and a same asteroid -- who to do it?

MarsDog · 2005-11-15 00:53:46

Srmeany, actually I like your idea abouit the aminoacids, regarding it as solution of the light ions escaping -- just replace them with heavier "quants" of atmosphere..., but in direct sence "aminoacids atmosphere" means and worths nothing.

If you could design a molecule with certain properties:

Very high molecular weight, but very low density. An extremely large buckeyball.
It would act like a miniature balloon with very low velocity.

=======================================

The animo acid, spider web, tumbleweed concept could be looked at as a sponge with osmotic pressure from one temperature to another. How to design special effects into the molecules is a problem. Miniature structures which discriminate bouncing different speeds in different directions ?

SpaceNut · 2005-12-02 15:18:28

This article is about gobal warming and how to reduce it but if you export the CO2 that has been locked up in this metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). We could then export it to the moon and reuse it to help in the process of teraforming.

Crystal Sponges Excel At Sopping Up CO2

MOFs can be made in large quantities from low-cost ingredients, such as zinc oxide---a common component of sunblock---and terephthalate, which is used in plastic soda bottles.

By breaking it down to use the oxygen you are left with the carbon needed for smelting iron and zinc to make use of.

karov · 2005-12-03 10:22:41

Srmeany, actually I like your idea abouit the aminoacids, regarding it as solution of the light ions escaping -- just replace them with heavier "quants" of atmosphere..., but in direct sence "aminoacids atmosphere" means and worths nothing.
If you could design a molecule with certain properties:
Very high molecular weight, but very low density. An extremely large buckeyball.
It would act like a miniature balloon with very low velocity.
=======================================
The animo acid, spider web, tumbleweed concept could be looked at as a sponge with osmotic pressure from one temperature to another. How to design special effects into the molecules is a problem. Miniature structures which discriminate bouncing different speeds in different directions ?

============

Yes, that`s what occured to me instantly, too -- but how we could breath carbo-baloons???
What about the biota designed to produce and exchange gas/liquid ( fluid ) packages in something like this form:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=bg&q=re … reitas&lr=

such way -- the "bucky"sphere of the planet wouldn`t contain any free atom or molecule , but all be packaged, and element of a smart fluosphere, s.t. like huge ersatz-atmosphere of utility fog...

MarsDog · 2005-12-06 03:01:04

utility fog

Fog sinks, maybe you could have utility balloon molecules in a gas or colloidal suspension in a liquid ?
In a dense fluid I am thinking of oceans or atmosphere of Jupiter and Venus.
In air, the large floating molecules would behave like balloons, forming a layer, perhaps sticking together ?
Instead of gas pressure inside the balloon, structures to keep it from collapsing ?
Then there is the problem of Van der Waals forces.

holger2401 · 2006-02-15 04:07:37

srmeaney you are crazy to think China will take the moon from America! As soon as the first commie sum set foot on the moon the American people will demand that are government get to work and keep the moon for America.
Also Australia would side with its Anglishs brothers America, Cannada, Angland, and New zealand over and China commie sum. As a American I alwise thought of the fellow Anglic countrys of freinds. Also if Australia turned its back on a Anglish speaking country Americans would feel bad but it would have little effect on the US economy. China is also very dependent on the US for its developing economy, it would be unwise at this early stage to force America embargo on them. The US could easy force other countrys to embrgo china too. Chinas economy would be set back years, hurting their chances to get to the moon. America could easly just buy cheap goods from other developing countrys who would be more than happy to lick are boots clean. An economic embrgo would only hurt The US economy for a short time, we would just find new country to use. In a short time America would better than ever. But china closed off from the world would fall apart like the soviet Union did.
No China not powerful enough to show its cards, they of crouse don't mind waiting a 100 yrs, once their economy is powerful then it will make its move. China thinks that the US will decline like the rest of the west, since America still young it will take longer than Europe did. But with great leaders like GWB America wont be cowering for peace any time soon.
Also why did you bring by the US, China relation in a post about the moon? Please post that in the political forums. Also it a neat idea about amino acid air but please you dont have to blame America for every one of your troubles.
FYI America doing great, thats why you hate us so much. Why don't you just make another movie about crock hunters and shut up. I dont care about Asutralia, dont make Americans mad at you or we will liberate you like did to Iraq.
America is the Earth government, lick are boots or we will kick you like some stry dog. God Bless the USA! and Germany, Chile, and Bangcock. The best places on Earth.

Where have you learned English? Even if I am a non-native speaker, i think your written English sucks!

karov · 2006-02-15 04:40:07

Guess: American from state at least 1000 km from the coast.

Earthfirst · 2006-05-02 21:52:27

My English is great, I learned to read and write at public schools in Arizona. When I write I like to change letters of some words for fun. That does not mean I can't speak or write in english.
Also Arizona is about 50 miles from the sea of cortez, I go to rock point mexico for fishing and stuff.
Karov if you have never been to Arizona don't judge it, please come and visit in June it is the best time of the year here.
I cant wait for the new missions to the moon, we will learn so much more about our moon.

karov · 2006-05-04 05:03:36

Earthfirst, I`m joking offcourse - I`ve never been in US at all...

MarsDog · 2006-06-05 03:58:32

http://www.google.com/search?hs=f4&hl=e … tnG=Search

Fog sinks.
But if you could design a molecule with directional kinematics.
Absorb incoming light molecule, then eject toward gravitatinal attraction.
Floating the utility fog molecule, forming a containment vessel.

Earthfirst · 2006-06-05 09:38:41

Karov, you should really think about visiting the US. My home state of Arizona is filled with many wonders and great people. As I post it is June and it is 112 F, as you can sea it is a great time to come and visit.

For airless worlds larde domes would work well. I think it been called paraforming, or tenting. Basicly the wieght of the dome is balanced by the pressure of the air inside. These domes can cover intire worlds with a roof, and can start small and grow with the worlds needs. The moon could be changed this way, but I think that the ice moons of the outer planets would be the best canidates. They have lots of water, and other frozen compounds like NH3, CO2 in abundence. But for living on them thre gravity is low, the best way to use these moons is to taraform the largest ones, roof the small ones and use them to grow food.

MarsDog · 2006-06-05 16:31:55

Air quality is not well regulated.
People get used to the smog slowly killing them.
Smog is worse in the summer.
http://www.weathersmith.com/index.html?WsSmogPics.html
http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/c … te_code=04

If Arizona had more rain, pollution would be washed from the air.

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