New Mars Forums

That's an interesting plan.

What if you ran a electric current through your torus, like an induction motor stator.  The upper atmosphere being ionized might be caused to rotate counter to the rotation of Ceres to a null speed relative to the sun (As a reference point).  And you would have a magnetic field.  Ideally, you would somehow get the power for that from the solar wind itself somehow.  I have seen plans of how to harvest enormous amounts of energy from the solar wind, but I don't yet have a model for doing it in this case.

Alternately, perhaps an electric current can run through the plasma of the upper atmosphere.  I have read that the University of Wisconsin is doing that in a fusion reactor proto type, so that there magnets don't have to be as big.  Don't know if very thin plasma will conduct a current, don't know that it won't, don't know.

I think my plan of inhabiting the water would be a precursor to your plan.  It offers levels of safety that later will not be needed as much because of the build up of local capabilities to counter mishaps.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you have a ring partially powered by solar wind that also gently touches the atmosphere, then you have a means to change the rotation of Venus.  You could either make it tidal locked, or increase the spin.  If tidal locked, then with other components in place perhaps it would be possible to cause a continuous CO2 rain on the dark side in higher levels of the atmosphere which would bring cold down to the lower levels.  Potentially making areas of the surface more thermally compatible with mining, and also causing a quicker cool down.  Getting rid of the stratification problem.

Is it ok if I use your term "a topopolis" Karov?

From the thread: ""Terraforming" the Asteroid Belt by Tom Kalbfus"

So, rather ambitious, but still, how about a mostly Carbon Toroid, porous, not particularly pressurized, but by methods enriched with atmospheric gasses in it's interior.

With some tensile strength and compressive strength, just maybe does not have to have the correct orbital energy for the altitude that it dwells at.

The atmospheric and solar wind molecules which impinge on it providing both drag and in the case of solar wind thrust.  Thrust by sails deployed appropriately to either thrust with photons, or solar wind itself.

And of course you could use electrified tethers either up or down, to either generate electricity or thrust.  Unlike a space elevator, however, the severing of one tether is not a disaster.  Tethers can also draw ions up from below if you use the correct current flow.  Therefore the body of the device does not have to be a low risky altitude.

Seems to me that there is enough thrust to compensate for atmospheric drag already spoken of here, but of course more conventional thrust methods could be employed such as Ion thrusters, but I don't think they are needed. But also maybe the toroid might have magnetic and electrical stimulations, to provide thrust, where the toroid is like a rotor in an induction motor, and the Solar wind and atmospheric plasma like the stator.  And then there could be the inch worm method, where the toroid is has movable motorized elements that act against each other and so displace mass which I think might also potentially generate thrust.

So then from atmosphere for building materials, you have Carbon, Plastics, and Sulfur (Which is a metal in a vacuum I have read).
And nothing would stop you from capturing asteroids, or importing materials from Luna or Mercury.

I am of course intending that the exposure to atmosphere will be very rarified, and perhaps in the case of Venus, only encountered on the leeward side (The solar wind being the reference).

And I am thinking of using Adsorption in the Carbon, particularly if it is cold, and some parts will be.

Concentrating the molecules can be by cold and heat processes, or you might also consider flowing currents.  For water, it is possible to attract positive ions with a negative charge.

By way of static methods, you would then have a bottle charged inside to an even higher negative voltage, so that the ions attracted would form a skin.  An atmosphere held by electrostatic force, and electrostatic condensation.

And then a mechanical pump to pump that skin of gas into a container, and neutralize it's electrical charge.

Of course the interior of the toroid would be a passageway in a circle, and place where suited persons could work, and also their habitats could be inside of it or outside.

So then Venus has a major export.  Mined atmosphere, some bound for Mars perhaps.  Maybe a tropical Mars in the end after all.

Actually I am speculating that with Automation and 3D printers, it might be possible to mass produce such machines in an off planet location at a relatively low cost.  Parts interchangeable.

Have a repair station to salvage parts from broken machines that are going to be junked, and then repair the ones that can be repaired.  Use Carbon for parts where possible.  Build the machines for a life expectancy, and then use the materials for floating habs, after they are juked, unless they crash.

For power of course solar perhaps or perhaps somehow wind.  Part of their task might be to shoot Bullets of CO ice into the Exosphere.

For Extraction from the Exosphere there are many notions already, but I am thinking that since the atmosphere of Venus often has a tail like a comet, an orbiter higher up than you might think, where when not in the tail solar wind is used to add energy to the orbit, and when in the tail collection of atmospheric molecules would be implemented.  I am fairly aware of how much energy has to be disposed of for that, but I have some ideas that might be a suitable starting point.

I wonder if Iron Pyrites.  Maybe too hot for it though.  One trick I might think to try to employ to get rid of the acid clouds, would be to inject iron dust.  Then that would condense.

Alternately, I am thinking automated floating machines, which extract Carbon from the atmosphere to make soot.  Nuclear winter notion.  The carbon would also react with the acid clouds changing the chemistry.

Smog?  SO2 clouds instead?

Anti-Greenhouse effect like Titan.

And then there would be the notion of just extracting CO, that would be like releasing a fuel into the acid clouds.  Of course you would be releasing a lot of O2, but that can likely dissolve into the atmosphere and stay out of the way long enough to make chemical changes.

Having a sooty atmosphere with possible S02 clouds, perhaps the Acid clouds would be driven down far enough to react with the rocks of high mountains and dissipate.

The robotic floaters, making the soot and CO, could be visited by humans occasionally when certain repairs are required, but I see no reason why you would want to put people at risk until the environment was greatly improved.

I am more interested in harvesting chemicals from the atmosphere, by intercepting them in the very highest layers, capturing them and so using them.  I see value in using Carbon in Orbit, to assist in that project.

And Karov I am interested in figuring out a way to capture and use the solar wind as well.

I might have missed it, perhaps it was already said, but a highly skilled person capable of productive behaviors hired for mineral extraction from asteroids and or Mars, must likely draw very large wages, and upon finishing that career might choose to settle on Mars, having a lot of wealth, being able to be a significant investor in business activity on that planet.

Mars would support the asteroid mining, Earth & Mars would get needed minerals.

As for another method, since there are so many people who might wish to go one way to Mars, perhaps a lottery.  Some of them would be willing to buy a ticket periodically, knowing that they were supporting the effort and had a small chance of winning a ticket.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/italian-firm-a … es-1470226

http://3dprint.com/17179/wasp-3d-printed-houses/

Mud would have limited value on Mars.  Quality mud not being that likely, and it's strengths being poor.

However if you do have a green house that can be low pressure and can grow a plant that will provide suitable fibers, and have a binder, then I can see where this could be useful to make complex artificial wood objects.

I don't have a better plant, so I will mention Rhubarb leafs, but I would want something with a waxy surface and then remove the wax with a solvent.  That might suit air filled
greenhouses.

But if you could have water filled greenhouses, perhaps like iin my previous post;
Even better if possible, I believe that Elodea was originally a terrestrial plant before adapting to fresh water.  I suggest that it might be possible to get it to regress to some degree where it provides plant fiber, celulose.  I am thinking of genetic engineering of course.

A upgrade wasp printer might be good for fiberglass, if you can make that.

I will present this as well as I can.  I do understand that like all systems it will be subject to degrading over time and exposure to the elements.

Knowing that I can already think of concerns.  However the first step is to conceive of doing something and then hope to do it much better.

Plastics have already been considered for greenhouse construction, and water has also been mentioned.  To that I will add clear or translucent oils.

I don't see this as a "First" greenhouse option, (But it could be considered), but as a potentially highly expandable greenhouse which may be well adapted to some locations on Mars, and which would require no glass, and very little metals.

The plan calls for a trench in the soil of Mars,

Within that place a large long plastic bubble made of a suitable type of plastic.  It will not have to put up with extreme temperature changes and will not as a rule be exposed to U.V. wavelengths.
This balloon is to be filled with water.

Above that place smaller long balloons of plastic crossways.
These balloons will be filled with water or oil.

If oil, then they can serve as reserve fuel tanks for a future need.  Perhaps a global dust storm.
Otherwise they are to serve as a transparent to translucent insulating window.  Performing the function of blubber for a whale.

Above those cross member balloons, place a plastic tarp specifically to block UV light and to serve as a sacrifice layer for abrasive dust.  It will be changed out periodically as needed.  It will be subjected to temperature extremes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lethbridge

This device upgraded with modern methods:
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7124

See posts 2014-10-04 16:42:02 & 2014-10-06 03:25:05

So, I contemplate a long canal like structure where sunlight enters through the layers.  A partial counter pressure of water and (water or oil).
If it is entirely water, then the typical maximum temperature at 39 Degrees Fahrenheit / 3.88889 Degrees Centigrade.
If the cross member balloons are oil filled, then higher temperatures are possible.
The special suit would allow a person to function in such an environment, being basically a submarine with arm ports.
There will have to be a hydrocarbon industry on Mars, so this can fit in.  There is also sufficient water.
If the system were to overheat, then you can simply pull a partial vacuum on some of the water and draw out vapors to be compressed into usable water.
The plants which could be grown might be microscopic, or arctic pond plants, or with higher temperatures perhaps Elodea or other warmer water pond plants.
This would fit in with your plans for personal cleaning with water, not T.P.
It would be useful in the support of large communities, where what I suggested previously for personal hygiene involving freezing and T.P. substitute would be suitable for outposts.

I guess I might support the idea of exports to Earth if it is true that a fusion method could power a space ship.  Mars having deuterium-tritium (The tritium would have to come from Lithium Salts?)

In that case you might not care about a little radiation resulting since you are in space.  That would perhaps change the game a lot.

One thing I think the device could be useful for early and perhaps aid in a push to Mars would be an Earth/Moon local factory utilizing captured small asteroids, which is what NASA is intending to demonstrate, and some space companies are proposing to do as well.

I have for quite a time been in favor of a small shell world, even before I was aware of other thinking on shell worlds.  Those ideas are currently very well out of reach for actually doing, but this one is not so unrealistic.

I intend for a metal shell world, not a very thick wall either.

It is to serve several useful purposes.

It can hold solid objects that are manipulators, and solid objects that are to be manipulated.

It can hold devices like the Parent/Child devices we have spoken of, the third kind of spacesuit.

It will protect them from drifting away.  Nuts, bolts, tools, etc.

It is also a micrometeorite protection.

You can mount solar cell panels on the outside of it.

You can have a door on it so you can bring small asteroids into it.

You might have several chambers.  For instance if it were a cylinder, you could partition off each end, and have a baton type centrifuge such as you champion GWJohnson, one on each end.  That device if designed to simulate .38 Gee maximum, would test human adaptation to that, and on it's smaller radius floors, simulations of gravitation for various smaller solar system objects could occur.  And of course having a prototype would allow the bugs to be worked out for when it was used for an actual mission to Mars.

Ideally all the shell chambers could hold molecular pressure, but not viscous pressurization.  Every air locks leaks, and various industrial processes will shed volatile substances.  If you hold them in the shell, then you can try to build a collector, and recycle them.  For my part I would attempt to use a bottle with a high static electric charge inside of it relative to the rest of the place.  The intention is that will cause molecules to collect upon it's outer surface.  Then I would try to use a piezoelectric pump to compress that skin of collected molecules into a pipette.  Applying an electric force onto the crystal to make it oscillate making a plunger like situation which could push that skin of molecules into a funnel.  Very tiny.

Lets call end chambers 1 & 2.  And then there would be an middle large chamber to this shell world.  You could put a double wall in place in certain places, perhaps you would not do that where the large door would be that you bring small space rocks (Asteroids) into, but otherwise you would have a double wall.  The purpose is so that you can pinion the child devices, this 3rd type of space suit between walls.  You could then electrify one wall as negative and positive, one each.  Then you have a power buss, and can place machines into the gap between walls, and this would be your factory floor.  Then you could actually have spacesuit type 3 (With the arm ports), in this location as well, to navigate through hallways between machines.  Then you could have tires, that contact each wall, hold the device steady, power the suit, and propel the suit to locations where the human augmented arms can manipulate machinery.  In this case, I could recommend a disk shaped suit as one option but there would be many other configurations.  The suit should be able to move in any direction within the space between the two walls, and should be able to spin on their axis, providing quite a lot of ability to reach valves, junction boxes, ovens, pressure vessels, robotic arms, and other devices.

If this option was done.  Then why can't you also do it at Mars?

But you would not have to before you set up a colony on Mars.  The financial output from a factory such as this might pay for most of the development costs, for devices which could also be quite a bit of what is needed for hardware to access Mars, and to provide propellant.

From such a Shell world factory could come the projection of humans to various places in the solar system, including the Moon after a while.  Mars of course, and since Phobos is the theme of this thread, I will mention it as well.