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I think that rather than thinking of a target world, the more valuable process is to look to the hardware in process of being rendered functional.
The attempt to make Starship robust enough to reach Mars, makes it also suitable for many other things.
The complement system I think now is the Stoke Space effort. If these two are made effective, then many good things could happen.
I think that the Stoke Spaceship might make a very good small Moon lander. Of course, I would also whish that it could be sized up to a big ship that could ride on SpaceX's Super Heavy, but it looks rather good to me.
I think the exhaust from it would not stir up the Lunar Regolith as much as Raptors would. So, it might be good at field landings without landing pads.
If it could be refilled on the surface of the Moon from polar water, then it might be usable to hop about on the Moon.
This might make sense after HLS will have established at least on big base somewhere near water ice, if it can be found.
The weakness of the Stoke Spaceship is boil-off, and it's heat shield might not be good enough to dive down from the Moon directly. So, I would expect it to be escorted from LEO Service to Lunar Service by other means of transport. That could be a modified Starship or an Electric propulsion method.
If there is enough water on the Moon, then the Stoke Spaceship might make a good tanker to bring Oxygen in large quantities to Lunar Orbit.
I think a good method for getting large amounts of Oxygen would be the use of Carbon and/or Hydrogen in a solar pyrolysis process to reduce Lunar Regolith.
These chemicals could probably be reused over an over many times for that purpose as the CO2 and water produced could then be broken back down into Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.
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I think that this matters a lot: https://www.msn.com/en-us/science/earth … r-AA1A1dc8 Quote:
Scientists discover the cause of Earth's longest ice age 700 million years ago
Story by Joseph Shavit • 16h • 4 min read
So, this suggests that the Earth is a chemical reactor, that can vary its rate of CO2 production, and entombment. I know that this can be a flimsy, excuse, but in realty do, we know what the production rate of CO2 is at this time, relative to that of the little ice age?
Simple logic indicates to me that more rain and snow will result, if a buildup of greenhouse gasses occurs in the atmosphere. This is because, the depth of atmosphere will be largest over water, and less so over land. So, greater evaporation will occur over water, and the land while perhaps warming up will not warm up as much as the water. (This would presume that the warming did not cause an increase in ocean water turn over).
So, with more rain and snow melt water then there should be more sequestering of CO2 into weathered rock materials due to more hydraulic erosion.
In figuring out how to control the Earth's climate, we should look for tools that could both cool and warm it. This is because a little ice age might greatly reduce the food production. More rain from more CO2 should make it more possible to farmland for food. A cooler dryer climate should reduce food production.
It is my suspicion that the climate doom goblins have been used by enemies of industrial and western cultures to erode the power of Industrial and Western cultures. We might look to where alien power is coming from. Alien Oil Money, China, and the general anti-colonial attitudes in the world.
I agree that the Colonial Era is best over, but I do not agree in the destruction of Industrial and "Western" cultures.
The input of CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere should to some extent be self-limiting. For each increment of CO2 accumulated the warming effects should be less and less, as there are only some wavelengths that CO2 can block. And the water cycle should be stimulated to circulate more water onto land to run off into the oceans. This then should sequester CO2.
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This is rather nice in being detailed more than any other related article I have seen: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … RM=VRDGARs Quote:
Geothermal Energy is Changing
YouTube
Real Engineering
22.3K views
1 hour ago
It is about Quaise Energy, with a special drilling method. It does not seem overly optimistic or pessimistic, so then explains to some degree the extent of the problems of the task.
So, I think it is worth watching the video.
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Due to the prior 2 posts and the idea of humanoid and other robots on the Moon, I think that the Moon could after all become a significant thing, provided it does have water that could be used to fill a Stoke Space type 2nd stage. This is not to discredit, the HLS Starship. Actually, the Starship as automated could be very good to bring big payloads to the Moon, and the ships themselves may be practical to convert into pressurized space for a base or bases.
I think the two will cover a great many desires as for accessing the Moon.
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A variation of the two-ship method mentioned in the last post could involve one Starship based ship orbiter, and a Stoke Space, 2nd stage.
This presumes that the Stoke Spaceship does prove to work and that it could be sized up.
The thing is that the Stoke Spaceship might be able to land on both Earth and the Moon and be refilled in full on both worlds.
I am running on the idea that the Stoke Spaceship could not tolerate an aerobrake from the Moon. So, some propulsive reduction in speed is required.
I am also presuming that SpaceX and Stoke Space made a deal to use the Superheavy to loft an upsized Stoke 2nd Stage to Earth Orbit.
I am presuming that the SpaceX Starship (Non-Lander), can give assistance to get to the Moon. I am just goofing here. It might bring extra Methane. The Stoke Ship could land on the Moon, do its mission, and then ascend to Lunar Orbit, possibly with extra Oxygen and just enough Hydrogen to reach Lunar Orbit.
So, then the Extra Oxygen from the Moon in the Stoke Space 2nd Stage and the Stored Methane in the Starship could give the method for both ships to get to the refilling orbit around Earth.
Finally, the Stoke Spaceship could be refilled with Hydrogen and Oxygen in that elliptical filling orbit. So, then the Stoke Spaceship could land on Earth.
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This video has some content about Stoke Space: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=VCGVRP
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I did this post elsewhere about the "Grey Dragon" notion(s): https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 27#p230027
Quote:
So, then "Grey Dragon".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAlkNATCVw8
Quote:SpaceX “Gray” Dragon to the Moon instead of NASA's $2B rocket!? Is This Possible…
TECH MAP
93.6K subscribersThe last option mentioned where a Dragon would be kept in LEO, suggests that HLS would be able to go to the Moon, land, relaunch and get back to the Dragon in LEO.
I did not realize that HLS had that much capability. I thought it was just abandoned in Lunar orbit.
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I am still not sure how realistic the contents of the video are actually. But it did make me think a bit more about things though.
Before HLS can be a real thing, tanker starships are needed. And probably before that to keep SpaceX's finances healthy, then the ability to service Starlink is needed.
Starships do not need to be human rated, unless it is HLS to land on the Moon.
But I did start to think how could you stretch the capabilities of HLS? The video implied that an HLS could land on the Moon and then ascend and go to LEO. I am not sure it could. But some interesting notions could be entertained.
We have elsewhere talked about stacking multiple devices in microgravity.
I am not suggesting replacing the SLS but eventually something interesting might be done.
What if you deployed two HLS ships to an elliptical filling orbit, one with cargo, and one without cargo.
If you could connect them nose to nose, then you could mimic the Apollo method for the Moon. They would both go to Lunar orbit, but the one without cargo, would stay in Lunar orbit for the duration of the mission. The one with Cargo would land, do a surface mission, and then ascend. The ship without cargo would have conserved its propellants. It is possible then that enough propellants would be reserved to get one or both ships back to an elliptical filling orbit.
In this plan, you would have the possible capability to abort on the way to the Moon, and return in one of the ships, if you had a major malfunction.
If over time LOX production on the Moon becomes a real thing then you could refill the Oxygen on the lander, while the orbiter might have extra Methane on board.
If space infrastructure becomes robust, then you might specialize the two ships. One for landing and one to be the orbiter. The orbiter might be stretched and not be fitted for landing on the Moon.
This might be sensible if a robust infrastructure in LEO would be able to send a rescue service, if the combination of the two ships was not enough to keep a crew alive, in some major event of trouble.
Sending two ships at a time might also give some additional radiation protection as well.
Supposing the two ships could do thrusting nose to nose, in coasting then they might align sideways, so that a crew might be protected from solar radiation and even some of the GCR, by getting the Methane tank of the orbiter in front of the crew section of the lander. This presumes a crew is involved.
Obviously, a scheme like that could be helpful for getting crew to Mars as well.
Methane, and also some types of cargo might be used to shelter the crew area of another ship.
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Of course, then you need some ship that can do Earth Surface<>Elliptical Refilling Orbit.
Perhaps a fortified Dragon or maybe even Dream chaser might do, or may Stoke Space will have such an ability.
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So, then "Grey Dragon".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAlkNATCVw8
Quote:
SpaceX “Gray” Dragon to the Moon instead of NASA's $2B rocket!? Is This Possible…
TECH MAP
93.6K subscribers
The last option mentioned where a Dragon would be kept in LEO, suggests that HLS would be able to go to the Moon, land, relaunch and get back to the Dragon in LEO.
I did not realize that HLS had that much capability. I thought it was just abandoned in Lunar orbit.
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In post #6, Calliban said:
Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,921
A geostationary ring built around a dwarf planet or asteroid, would be a useful tool for mining the object. It would allow material to be lifted out of the gravity well without need for propellant.In fact, if we allow a tether to extend beyond geostationary, we can use the angular energy of the dwarf planet to power the tether. So lifting material out of the gravity well will not cost us any energy, until the dwarf planet's rotation starts to run down. On a fast rotating body, a tether could be a considerable source of power. We can use it to extract energy from the rotation of the body.
A very nice idea. But now consider the "Relativistic Electron Beam".
I may not understand this technology, but I hope it can be used internal to our solar system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativis … ctron_beam
Quote:
Relativistic electron beams are streams of electrons moving at relativistic speeds. They are the lasing medium in free electron lasers to be used in atmospheric research conducted at entities such as the Pan-oceanic Environmental and Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) at the University of Hawaii and NASA. It has been suggested that relativistic electron beams could be used to heat and accelerate the reaction mass in electrical rocket engines that Dr. Robert W. Bussard called quiet electric-discharge engines (QEDs).[1]
So, after you fling a payload, can you beam heat and inertia to it? Could you do it in such a way that you not only assist propulsion to the payload released but could spin up the Anchored ringworlds spin by using the recoil. Then could you give modification to the path and speed of an incoming payload, and also use the recoil to spin up the Anchored ringworld?
I understand that unlike Photons which only carry inertia, Electrons do have mass.
Forced distillation does reuse the heat from the compression of steam to distilled water. The heat is shunted back to the boiler/evaporator/vacuum chamber.
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So, while Isaac Arthur has presented a sort of extremely long rotating cylinder, I now tend towards non-rotating main structures which can be tubular or spherical, depending on how much heat you want to shed and other factors.
I don't consider the I.A. spinning concept as wrong, just it is another option.
I have included the idea of special sections where spin gravity could be as much as 1 g. Also, I have considered the notion that methods to deal with microgravity promoted illnesses could be treated by methods other than 1 g conditioning.
A non-rotating shell, will need air cleaning, and humidity control. So, I anticipate slow rotators inside of the main shells where near the hub, cooling will promote condensation. This may also remove particulates out of the air. The condensed water then of course could be a resource. These rotators might be slow but it may be that plumbing of some sort would work with them. Crops could be grown in them. Of course Mushrooms, Algae, and Yeast come to mind. These will not need light, but perhaps some light would be provided for the sake of humans.
Vascular plant crops might be grown in a similar fashion where some light is provided, but chemicals would mostly promote their growth.
These slow rotators would likely have cowlings around them to reduce the air friction, expenditure of energy.
The relatively small amount of light needed might come from Diodes, or perhaps Fiber Optics could bring some in from the space environment.
So, although over time ice might be developed as a building material, for now I am more looking at Slag/Tailings made into thick structure and having tensile reinforcement wrapped around them.
So, then rock processed for some metals and maybe Silica and Carbon, could contribute the Slag/Tailings to a main structure concept(s).
Ice might also be benefited by embedded tensile structure as well.
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I will want to review the video in the previous post again.
But I have some notions which I think can apply to ice formation in Scandanavia.
First thing is seasonal temperature variation. If Scandanavia, had a constant temperature of +1 C in the average of sunlight, Day/Night, then no ice could accumulate, except for an occasional snowstorm, or Hail. But even then, it would melt.
At -1 C, then snow, Hail and even frost would accumulate on the ground. The only thing that would melt the ice would be ground heat. Here I am presuming that weather would be monotonous, not bringing in temporary warm air from elsewhere.
Apparently because of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles , Scandanavia, tends to accumulate ice cap when the summers are cooler, and the winters are warmer than normal.
This probably means that when you have cooler summers, you get less melt-off, and if also the winters are warmer, you get less ice cover on the adjacent sea, which is often warmed by the gulf stream, so then with a warmer winter you would get more snow in Scandanavia.
In an ice age then ice cap may accumulate until you again get warmer summers and colder winters. Until that change, then the albedo of the ice cap would reflect much sunlight into space locking the region into its icy nature even more.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=milankovi … 1&hsmssg=0 During the last ice age was a grassland instead of an ice cap. Its sea may have had much more ice cover, so then this land in Siberia was to a large extend a cold grassland. But I presume that being remote from a maritime moderation, the summers could still warm enough to melt the small amount of snow that accumulated. It was a Cold Semi-Desert almost.
Once the snow had melted the grasslands would absorb more heat from sunlight than would ice cap. Allowing for even better summer melt process.
But in relation to residual winter snowpack, there can be below snow vegetation and emerged vegetation. Trees are emerged Vegetation. Grass can be submerged until the melt-off. A snowstorm can partially cover them in white temporarily, but wind and drying, or melting can remove this coating rather effectively in most cases.
I do not know about all emergent vegetation, but I do recall reading that conifer trees in the north need at least 2 weeks of temperature above 50 degrees F to reproduce. So, then 2 weeks of 10 degrees C.
Also, trees are limited to some extent by shallow thaw in the soil. If the permafrost is too strong, there is limited soil available for the trees so wind can knock them over easier or at least twist them about so to damage the root system, I presume.
Plasticene park is a location were animals are being used to try to convert the land back to grassland. The animals may do damage to trees and tundra vegetation, and also may pack the snow down to be packed down so that frost will penetrate further into the ground. This then tilts the plant cover towards conversion to grasslands. That allows the soil layer to become thinner, and not favorable for trees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park
Image Quote:
Quote:
Restored grasslands in Pleistocene Park
It can be seen that the trees in the background look darker than the grass, even when the grass is not dried out.
So, I could argue that the trees themselves might create a warmer summer microclimate so that they may succeed in reproducing. If they can get 2 weeks of 10 degrees C at least in some years, then they can propagate.
In doing so, the trees then might march north, over time, warming the air nearer the ice caps, that might exist. If they can help to melt the ice and snow cover, then can then create conditions where some summers, it is possible to reproduce.
So, I would say that it is not just as simple as increased CO2 warms the air, although it may well do so. But there is an argument, that if the CO2 has already blocked most of the wavelengths they can block, adding more CO2 will have diminishing returns for warming. And warming will be more so over water than land, so then this should increase snowfall.
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A good topic. Probably the next thing after Mars. Actually, it might divert settlers from Mars after a while, as it may offer a great deal to people.
I believe that this falls into the vision of Dr. Zubrin as I have read it. If we then simply say that our Moon is a wild card, then we might get most people to converge on a popular plan, I hope. Over time our Moon may rise in value to be part of a trade pattern it gets included into, or it may only then be a sort of a scientific object for study. Allow it to become what it will.
The method looks good for many worlds, but with Mars/Phobos/Deimos as a steppingstone, the Major Asteroids may become very attractive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e … _asteroids
Image Quote: ![]()
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For the last two posts here is a possible implementation of an instance of a machine: 
This would perhaps be a way to store a snow cloud in microgravity were, it could be used as a coolant in a batch process.
For instance, if you are running a Metalysis process on some regolith.
So, your power load would not be continuous over time, but in batches of "Runs".
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Regarding the last post, perhaps a closed loop CO2 heat engine where you use a powdered snow slurry to cool the cold side of the heat engine, it's closed radiator.
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Due to Calliban and Terraformer, I have decided to alter the title of this topic.
Quote from post #1:
Note, 2/24/2025, changed title to "Index» Terraformation» Building Space Structures which include Ceramics, Ice" by adding ", Ice"
So, now we can better consider ice processes in this topic.
I have already been toying with "Habitable Radiators", conversations recent have caused me to expand that.
If I make a mistake in my produced notions, please advise me.
If I expand the idea of a Habitable Radiator to the environment of Antarctica, then I am on the edge of Habitability, but still with the proper tools humans might inhabit the environment, at least temporarily.
I am thinking snow makers, associated with heat engines. I am trying to get a deeper heat sink for a heat engine.
In any case we are going to try not to get frost on the cylinder walls themselves, but it is inevitable that it will so some kind of removal process will be needed. Maybe a robotic scraper?
I think I will let this brew for a while.
Heat engines and such work for Engineers, is a bit beyond my skill levels, but not my imagination.
I would value ideas from the other members, perhaps more capable.
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I will start in Microgravity but assert that it might also be possible to do something like this on worlds with a small gravity well, and perhaps maybe in some way even on Earth.
So, in microgravity, let's suppose a cylinder enclosing a cold interior. If we have a lot of sunlight, we will put a sunshade in place to block the sunlight from the habitable radiator.
What if it snows in microgravity? This is not likely to be a natural process, but the "Habitable Radiator" will not be natural so we could make snow.
So, what air pressure in the radiator? https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php
An air pressure of 338.8178 mbar could be habitable. And the vapor pressure could be 72 C, I think.
But since our radiator is to be occasionally habitable, we might drop the air pressure more to lower the vapor pressure.
If we temporarily go down to 123.0665 mbar, then we can get the vapor pressure down to 50 C.
So, we could dump steam from a heat engine into this, and get a nice pressure drop. If too much steam enters then steam may become a significant part of the internal atmosphere, and so the pressure would go up. If we released steam into the center of the cylinder, we might get a bubble of water vapor in the center and that might push the other gasses to the edges of the cylinder.
I would not expect convection as natural to this. But we could induce convection. If we pulled very cold gasses from the edges of the cylinder and squirted it into the vapor cloud, we might induce condensation. Mostly we only want powdered snow. Other condensations would be less useful.
So, a slurry of a carrier gas and powdered snow might be obtained as a coolant.
So, then if we would mix this slurry coolant with the output of a heat engine, then we may drop down even perhaps to supercooled water vapor.
I am quite a bit confused, in these ideas. So, give some allowances, there are probably things for me to learn.
I am looking for a heat engine that eats snow slurry as its solid phase cooling and uses a thermal source for a high-pressure hot side of the heat engine.
I like Oxygen as the carrier gas, but know it would be unfriendly to the turbines, and evaporator process. Nitrogen would be better, if you can get it, but I hate to waste Nitrogen. Argon would be available from Earth, Mars, and maybe the Moon.
CO2 might work well as to be heavy relative to Oxygen, but of course it may be corrosive when mixed with water.
But maybe only CO2? Can you do super critical down to Dry Ice?
Could you generate Powdered CO2 snow and put it into a slurry?
I decided to put this here, as it does have political implications. I have not reviewed it very well. Was listening to it while doing breakfast and shower and so on. I will want to review it again: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=WRVORC Quote:
Valentina Zharkova: Grand solar minimum is underway | Tom Nelson Pod #278
YouTube
Tom Nelson
54.8K views
1 week ago
I think that indeed we need a more intellectual/scientific evaluation of processes, rather than "Hair Shirt Pseudo Religious Evaluations".
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Here is another video, in a large amount dealing with Stoke Space: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ee605ac09c Quote:
Big Metal Cooling Heat Shield! Stoke Space is Trying to Complete What SpaceX Starship Hasn't...
YouTube
GREAT SPACEX
467 views
2 days ago
I think it is likely that both Starship upper Stage and the Andromeda method will have value in the future.
If up Mass were water or CO2, then as a tanker it might be relatively safe, so launch facilities might be requiring less isolation from civilian facilities.
Of course, a big dump of CO2 could be dangerous as per an asphyxiation event possibility.
Just some reaching speculation.
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I like that, but in the asteroid belt we may struggle to make ice a stable building material. Going further out then yes it becomes more likely to be helpful, indeed.
I am currently running on the idea that Mars/Phobos/Deimos will be settled first, with the Moon being a wild card.
Then for a next step I am interested in major dwarf worlds, which could include Ceres, a recognized Dwarf Planet, and other items like Vesta, and 10 Hygea, maybe 16 Psyche.
I am very interested in Vesta, as it is supposed to be the last surviving Terrestrial Dwarf Planet/Dwarf World. (It would probably be a Dwarf Planet if it had not had a big chunk(s) of it blown off by impacts).
Those impacts may have exposed the Mantle. So, we may be able to think about very deep mining and getting into some very interesting ore bodies on Vesta. Maybe Copper, which is going to be harder to get elsewhere. We presume that 16 Psyche may provide Iron/Nickle. Then most of the other big objects in the asteroid belt will be Carbonaceous with some likelihood of ices.
With sun shading perhaps building with ice may have some merit, but for Vesta, I am anticipating lesser amounts of Hydration.
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The title is annoying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlsYCn6jjmc
Quote:
It's Over For SpaceX... This Small Company Just Changed Space Travel Forever!
Space Frontier
Typical binary Zero-Sum evaluation method it seems to me.
It is obvious to me that if this company is able to make this work, then the next question is "Can it be sized up?".
If it can then perhaps it can go on top of New Glen, or New Armstrong, or SpaceX Superheavy.
But the upper stage of this device is said to have to run on Hydrogen, not Methane, so that is tricky. Also, some have ventured that its heat shield method could only work from LEO.
I don't expect the device to replace Starship, but the two upper stage methods may be complementary in nature, increasing the capability of space travel.
Of course I like that.
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In my opinion a very mature example of this would be a electric propelled platform, which may move between various altitudes of orbit, in this example around the Earth.
My own view is that this could be powered by solar, but I do not exclude nuclear as an option. It is just that solar is easier to gain permission for internationally and nationally.
So, in this example, I am presuming (1) A loading event in LEO> (2) Transit to HEO> (3) Cooking propellants> (4) Launching Chemical Stage> (5) Return to LEO.
I am supposing that the electric propulsion may be Argon based, although it looks like Neumann Drive and Magdrive could use solid propellants such as metals, Silicon or Carbon as propellants. Also there seems to be some sort of plasma drive using water, being proposed/developed.
1) Early versions of this could provide Methane and LOX directly to the platform in Low Earth Orbit. But it is my opinion that it would be better to load water and CO2 into the platform, as they present less of an explosive potential in LEO. We don't want a big platform exploding in LEO and contributing to a Kessler Syndrome. In LEO, a propellant such as Argon also must be brought up from the Earth's surface.
2) Transit to HEO. This then would consume the electric power at that time to rise to a Higher Earth Orbit.
3) Now you are no longer consuming electric power to do a change or orbit, so you can cook the H20 and CO2 into Methane and LOX.
4) Now you can refill a Starship, which has arrived by some method or other, then it can be launched to a mission.
5) Much of the Water, CO2, and Argon have been consumed, in the previous 4 steps, now if you have sufficient Argon or a substitute propellant, you may bring the platform down to a lower orbit for refilling.
In reality the filling orbit of the platform could be elliptical and not LEO.
Something like this could be set up for Mars also. It would be tempting to go with solid electric propellants from Phobos/Deimos/Mars, but Mars can provide Argon, and water if needed.
In both the case of Earth and Mars, the platform does not suffer from diminishing sunlight as an electric mission from Earth to Mars would. In the case of Mars, very light weight mirrors may be helpful to increase the solar flux to solar panels, or heat engines.
As this refilling method might come to exist, it is possible that the tank size of a Starship may be reduced and so to reduce its dry mass. At least for the interplanetary ship type, and possibly for Lunar types.
So, with these platforms, it may be possible to exceed the efficiency of Chemical propulsions alone, I feel.
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I wanted to resist a new topic, but I think this is to be of value. Other similar efforts may end in Cul-de-sac results.
Isaac Arthur has something to say about very long habitats in space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBqGJl3A4tU
Quote:
Topopolis: The Eternal River Space Habitat
Isaac Arthur
807K subscribers
It runs a bit close to some things I have tried to do on a much smaller scale.
It is a good "Dreamer" exercise, to explore how far you can go with a less usual concept.
It is fun, but I have a tendency now to not only adapt space materials into Earth replications, but to also consider how over long periods of time humans can be bio formed to be more tolerant of the space environment.
This is a source of fun and learning, I feel.
(th) has made a request in this post in another topic: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 31#p229931
Apparently, my prior materials are inferior to a proper method of teaching/explaining.
Perhaps this can help:
Just now, I am moving in the direction of "Buds". I see a linear habit as the trunk of a plant, more than a river, and although the emphasis at its core is that "Stem" or "Trunk", branching and "Buds" are enhancements that could be included.
A "Bud" could be internal or external to the "Main", ("Stem" or "Trunk").
OK, we can try this: 
I am currently exploring the idea that "Trunks", "Stems", and "Jars" can be microgravity, and of a range of types of pressurization. But they may have "Buds" attached to or inside of them, to provide synthetic gravity.
In general, my notion is to have a private vacuum shell around each centrifuge.
In the drawing, the "Blue" items are what I might call "Spin Locks". They could be variable in spin from 0 to Max, 1 g. Some though would not be intended to provide more than "Sanitary" synthetic gravity.
Such may be a bathroom, a kitchen, or a bedroom or other choices.
The greater volume of pressurized space could be in microgravity. In adapting crops to grow in such, I anticipate future discovery, of how life maintains form in 1 g, and how it responds and tries to cope with microgravity. Over time I anticipate that discovery will say how to stabilize a human moving from 1 to 0 g habitation.
It may eventually be possible to signal chemically, bone maintenance, and muscle maintenance. We don't know how that works yet but perhaps can discover a method.
This leaves at least 2 other major concerns.
1) The inner ear/nausea.
2) Blood Pooling in the upper body.
Both of these might be handled by a cyborg method.
1) Inner Ear? Look into Neuralink, I think.
2) Blood Pooling? a alteration of the vascular system with adaptation methods from internal machines, such as pumps and valves. But of course, this invites blood clots and causes strokes among other things.
So, rebuilding a human body to rapidly adapt to variable gravity fields, microgravity to 1 g, will require some special hard work, to discover what can be used that will not have bad consequences.
Tired of this for now.
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Indeed Terraformer, I think that Pykrete could be a good foundational material.
The Pluto/Charon subsystem will have the materials to grow organic wood-like fiber with, that and energy of some type.
So, then Pykrete would be as you said icy, but even better than ice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete
Quote:
Pykrete (/ˈpaɪkriːt/, PIE-creet)[1] is a frozen ice composite,[2] originally made of approximately 14% sawdust or some other form of wood pulp (such as paper) and 86% ice by weight (6 to 1 by weight).
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I agree.
Charon could be a very interesting case. I think that in the end, some form of Fusion will emerge that can generate greater energy than it consumes. It is not certain if that would be competitive with solar in some locations, or nuclear fission in others.
But Charon could have a massive cave system carved into it.
And then shelters you have suggested might be built from those extracted materials.
I am going to presume that the ices of Charon hold Deuterium.
I am going to imagine a solar system where stony/metal materials could be projected from sources to a place like Charon.
I like the idea of a building inside of an ice cave where heat pumps pull heat our of the ice cave and into the building. Of course, depending on activities heat may build, up, but evaporative cooling may work quite well for Charon.
I am not sure, but I am imagining that if a magnetic field could be imposed on Charon, then you could vent water vapor to the surface to radiate excess heat, and may fall back as a snow, to be reused.
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I have so far drifted towards tubular structures in a geosynchronous orbit.
But Pluto/Charon, suggests a possible binary method, that is to emulate Pluto/Charon, using a major asteroid as the subtractive body and to then build a satellite and then binary partner with additive methods using that which is subtracted from the subtractive body.
Here is Isaac Arthur about Pluto/Charon: https://isaacarthur.net/video/colonizing-pluto/
I obviously did not work too hard on this illustration: 
(th) has given posts here and also Calliban in post #6:
Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,906
UK gas cooled reactors use concrete pressure vessels. The tensile strength actually comes from steel tensioning cables that put the structure under compression. But it has the advantage that you can swap out the tensioning cables if they show signs of degradation. And very large pressure vessels can be made in this way. A space colony could be built this way too. We need about 2m of cosmic ray shielding for a free space colony. The heat needed for sintering can be provided by concentrated sunlight in space. So it should be cheap. The tensioning cables do not need to be steel. Carbon or glass fibres could work as well.
So, as a parent body might be mined, the materials extracted could be formed into "Jars", with such tensile assistive methods. The metals and other materials of interest such as volatiles, then the "Tailings" could be formed into such Jars.
If you have a cluster of Jars, the spaces between Jars are improved as per harshness of deep space, and so, clustering gives value, as the Jars also protect each other from radiation, temperature swings, and impactors.
A Jar then could be pressurized as little or more than is desired. Some may be almost vacuum, and some might be farms. Jars with less pressurization might host synthetic gravity machines.
But Jars with more pressurization might have spin gravity "Wet" rooms. This would be where you may be able to deal with hygiene issues, and in other cases to do things like cooking or sleeping. They would probably have a very low spin gravity.
Adapting life to use small amounts of light as signaling, and large amounts of chemicals also to grow, will begin to adapt humans to live outside of significant gravity wells.
Methods of maintaining clean air and fixing plants to surfaces would need development. I suggest that a cooled centrifuge might condense humidity, and also then collect small particles.
Eventually if we learn how to adapt life to microgravity it may be discovered how to do this for humans.
So, in post #3, (th) has referenced a very old notion like this:
tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 20,395
The innovative topic created by Void reminded me of a famous moment in history:"The Brick Moon" is a science fiction novella by Edward Everett Hale that was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1869. It is considered the first fictional description of a space station and an artificial satellite. [1, 2]
Plot: [1]
Ceres, Vesta, 10 Hygea, and others might be handled in a manner like this.
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