Interworld Para Terraforming

Void · 2024-11-08 22:04:38

The way I look at a produced Moon atmosphere, is that the Moon itself is fairly high up in the Earth's Hill Sphere.
So, if you took Oxygen from the surface of the Moon, you may have an advantage in some missions.

But if you have Oxygen Atoms/Molecules bouncing around either from the surface of the Moon or from another Oxygen Atom/Molecule, you have sub-orbital Oxygen. That is it has some of the energy of an orbit, at times the altitude with low speed, and at times speed with a low altitude.

The differential speed of such elevated Oxygen to the orbit of an object can be different. It is more for the Earth's upper atmosphere, and less for the Moons proposed very thin atmosphere. So, I believe that the machine I have been proposing is possibly going to work better for the Moon than for Earth, Venus, Mars, and other higher gravity worlds.

We have at least 2 reasons to not want the Moon atmosphere to be very thick. Dust, and the desire to use Mass Drivers.
Dust is a real thing, so we would not want the 5.5 mbar of Mars on the Moon. But the Moon may have higher differential temperatures than Mars due to the month-long day cycle on the Moon. Calliban thinks that Mass Drivers could work for Mars with it's current atmospheric pressure, so keeping the Moons atmospheric pressure below 5.5 mbars would be good enough. But again, the dust suggests keeping it much lower. Lets suppose .5 mbar or less.

This thin atmosphere would also not impede chemically launched ships from the surface of the Moon, I think.

It may be quite possible to bring metals and ceramics up to orbit then, even maybe with a Mass Driver. But I expect that with Robot Labor, and Magdrive and Neumann Drive metals and ceramics could come from the asteroids.

So, for the Moon, we might focus on making Oxygen to release to the created atmosphere, and also materials to build things on the Moon like factories and power production facilities that use sunshine.

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

A next question could be would you be able to aerobrake into the thin Moon atmosphere? You can with considerable difficulty aerobrake into the Mars atmosphere. The Moon atmosphere is likely to be thinner, but also having a greater height than such a pressure for a world with a greater gravitational force. So, maybe you could find a compromise to a thicker atmosphere that does not promote dust storms.

Next, I have suggested making organic dust to impact with the Moons atmosphere. Solein is one possible.

This would be manufactured from icy/carbonaceous asteroids, or worlds like Callisto. Once manufactured you might give this payload a "Kick" to the sunlight. I suggest some sort of chemical propulsion for that. Then the use of Magdrive or Neumann Drive to finish the path to the Moon, and then eject the payload to burn up in the Moons atmosphere. The ship then follows an elliptical path back out to the asteroid belt perhaps.

We don't need to care so much if the organic materials burn up in a thin Moon atmosphere. This will make condensable like water vapor or CO2, maybe Methane, and also Nitrogen may be a gas in the atmosphere or might end up as a compound. The condensable would then migrate to the shadowed craters to condense. The Nitrogen in the atmosphere might be worth extracting.

The Solar Wind is a question then. If you do not harvest it it will carry off some of your produced atmosphere. It may be worthwhile to make a leaky magnetic field, to try to get the solar wind to mix with your Oxygen atmosphere, and yet block the exit of the mixture from the Moon. This then may capture mostly Hydrogen and perhaps 8% Helium.

From the just prior post:

The planet Mercury I believe has a natural magnetic field that is somewhat leaky:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury%2 … onomers%29.
Quote:
Scientists noted that Mercury's magnetic field can be extremely "leaky," because MESSENGER encountered magnetic "tornadoes" during its second fly-by on October 6, 2008, which could possibly replenish the atmosphere (or "exosphere", as referred to by astronomers).
The magnetic field might also reduce the rate of loss of atmosphere.

So we would want a complex magnetic system where we could open the doors to let the solar wind into the atmosphere of the Moon but would want to close most or all of the exits. Since the Moon rotates the noon part of the Moon would move. The noon is where the doors should be opened. The sunset and sunup would be where you want to close the doors.

Anyway other ideas are welcome.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-08 22:36:04)

Void · 2024-11-09 09:01:10

So, we might try to create this economic backbone:

Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Mars/Phobos/Deimos>>Earth/Moon
Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Earth/Moon (Organic to the Moon)
Icy Objects (3.0 AU Asteroids)>>Dry Stony Asteroids>>Venus>>Earth/Moon

And so this would leave our Moon to be more an Organics collector from the 3.0 Asteroids, and perhaps from the Solar Wind. But then the Moon may donate Oxygen to the solar system economy. Oxygen can be a monopropellant if used in a on ship mass driver system.

But the Moon could also be a set of giant solar farms. I don't care if they are Photovoltaic, or Solar Thermal. So then these might shine power to orbiting atmospheric collection devices, collecting mostly Oxygen.

But the solar power may also be exported to the Earth, perhaps by way of intermediate orbital power exchange stations.

If the Moon does develop some advanced material projection system, then it might export metals and ceramics. That could be Mass Driver, Rail Gun, Skyhook. But the dry asteroids should be able to deliver lots of metals and Ceramics to Mars, Earth/Moon, and Venus orbits.

Keep in mind that this is to a great deal done by robots powered by solar energy. So, old notions about economics will not apply.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-09 09:07:48)

Void · 2024-11-09 11:10:11

So, I am thinking about shapes to catch molecules and atoms. Cups, Rings.

This is an old article from the "New Scientist": https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … nexpected/

OK, Venus has a tail. They detected Carbon and Oxygen atoms in it. I expect that their might be a bit of Nitrogen as well. My hope would be that you could station a molecule/atom collector in the Venus L2 location and collect this as well as solar wind items like Hydrogen and Helium. But the solar wind does not project out from the sun in strait lines, so, the tail may miss the L2 location. I don't know at this time.

Time for a Nap.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2024-11-09 11:16:09)

Void · 2024-11-10 10:01:59

I have some materials I want to put in this post that are not directly related to this article, but the article needs a home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n3punkST2s
Quote:

Nuclear Fusion: Updates & Impacts
Isaac Arthur
795K subscribers

Actually, he has two items I like a lot which may relate to what I will word-out in this post.

1) A fusion reactor is possible already, using Hydrogen Bombs in a large enclosure. I think this could be true more in space with a vacuum inside the enclosure.
2) Fusion power probably will not be better than solar power at the orbit of Mercury. (Actually, we simply will not know until fusion power appears).

So, from my point of View, both Venus and Mercury may be quite valuable for that reason, at least.

So, my current schemes are a bit of a progression of 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Venus>Mercury
But we could settle for this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Venus
or this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Mars/Phobos/Deimos
or this: 3.0 AU asteroids>Trans-Terrestrial asteroids>Earth/Moon

In this process, I am going try for a plan that uses metal mirrors as propellants, radiators, and solar power collection.

-At the ~3.0 AU very large mirrors could collect energy. These made of metals for the most part.
-We then want to make some of those into spaceships.
-We want to give them a "Kick", possibly using a chemical burn resembling the ALICE rockets or some other solid rocket technology.
-On the way into the more inner solar system, more ALICE propulsion might be used, but also perhaps Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive.
-As the sunshine concentration goes up we may "Eat" holes in the mirrors to provide propellants. A bit like a caterpillar chewing holes in a leaf. https://www.corrys.com/resources/what-p … %20instead. Image Quote:
-This lowers the mass of the spacecraft, and provides propellants.
-We may do a gravitational slingshot of Mars.
-Our goal is a trans-Terrestrial Asteroid.

Pause for Breakfast................

The goal in this is to present a balance of metals and silicates, and organic chemicals to trans-terresrial habitats and objects, and to do the same for the orbits of the Planet Venus, and maybe later Mercury.

As it happens "Stony Asteroids" now appear to have some water, at least. While they may pick up water from the solar wind, I would say if they were once part of a parent body which may have had a metal core, a stony mantle, and a wet/icy crust, there can be water locked into minerals from that as well. Many asteroids may have started as "Mud-Balls", heated by Aluminum-26, for a few million years. Then if the parent body was busted up, still the rocks might have some water in them.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/16/worl … index.html
Quote:

Finding water on dry cosmic surfaces
The amount of water the team detected was roughly equivalent to that of a 12-ounce bottle of water trapped within a cubic meter of soil, Arredondo said, which is comparable SOFIA’s moon finding. The telescope picked up on the signature of water molecules in one of the largest craters in the moon’s southern hemisphere in 2020.
Like the water found on the lunar surface, “on asteroids, water can also be bound to minerals as well as adsorbed to silicate and trapped or dissolved in silicate impact glass,” Arredondo said.

So, the trans-terrestrial asteroids may be partially self-sufficient in water needs. But we would want to bring more organics from the original ~3.0 AU asteroids.

I had mentions Solein as a organic substance to bring along. But we might consider things like wood and plastics and Carbon as organic structural materials to help make the ships.

I will admit that processing rubble piles will be a challenge. I think microwave methods may be used to render stones to dust, or to melt them or to sinter them.

Just because I know a little about it I will pick asteroid Eros: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros
Image Quote:

Green=Eros
Dk Blue=Earth

It comes nowhere near Venus or Mercury. But if you had regular deliveries of organics from the ~3.0 asteroids, then you could set up a processing facility mostly having robots but a few humans as well. Then you cold send shipments to the orbits of various planets including Venus.

Venus actually has a lot of Carbon and Nitrogen, and some Hydrogen, so, the emphasis of shipments from Eros to Venus would be to send Metals and Ceramics to it's orbits. (This presumes that we can develop effective ways to obtain organics from Venus itself. I do not have too much against cloud cities, but I much prefer the idea of orbital habitations for Venus. This is why we would ship metals and Ceramics to Venus.

We have done repeated metamorphosis of structure to get from ~3.0 asteroids>Eros>Aerobraking to Venus?

So, as a ship goes on its way to Venus, it might be considered if it could in part or whole be made capable of aerobraking to orbit of Venus. A mirror structure sort of might skip off of the atmosphere. But you might need to give some sort of ablative coating to its convex side to do that.

If you do not aerobrake to orbit then you would most likely use Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive to attain orbit of Venus.

So, then this would be to support growing communities around Venus. The hope would be to capture atmosphere in the orbits of Venus and perhaps at the L2 location of Venus, (If Possible).

This is an interesting article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … 1cd1&ei=14
Quote:

The Earth and the incredible discovery of the third energy field that surrounds it and changes how we understand it
Story by Alberto Zaragoza Lerma,Greg Heilman • 2mo • 2 min read

Venus has a stronger effect than Earth, I believe. It lifts Oxygen out of the atmosphere of Venus, to be snatched by the solar wind. My hope is that we could capture the Oxygen and other atoms and molecules for use.

Eventually Venus might have enough orbital structure around it to shade the planet. This might permit some eventual terraforming.

Mercury might be treated in a similar way, but of course it does not have a significant atmosphere at this time.

Ending Pending

Need Rest.

Last edited by Void (2024-11-10 11:55:22)

Void · Yesterday 17:24:13

So, I want to explore the idea of a patchwork mirror. This would be a mirror frame where you would be mirror facets together to make a large part of a mirror.

So, a patchwork mirror might start out with all patches filled, as leaving the ~3.0 AU "Wet/Icy/Hydrated" major asteroids. My notion is that this mirror assembly would be given a kick. You can choose. Chemicals, Nuclear, Mass Driver? Anyway the kick is to give it a sendoff to an elliptical orbit where it perihelion will be closer to the Sun than 3.0 AU, considerably closer. The main function of this ship would be to bring a power plant to a stony object, and also to being organic materials. So the structure could in part be composed of organic structural materials, and could carry a cargo of organics as well. Structural materials could be wood or plastics for instance. Organic materials could be Solein, maybe water, other things.

The mirror being a part of a power supply would need less and less mirror surface to supply a heat engine or solar panels as it moved towards its perihelion getting more and more sunlight.

From post #29:

-On the way into the more inner solar system, more ALICE propulsion might be used, but also perhaps Magdrive and/or Neumann Drive.
-As the sunshine concentration goes up we may "Eat" holes in the mirrors to provide propellants. A bit like a caterpillar chewing holes in a leaf. https://www.corrys.com/resources/what-p … %20instead. Image Quote:
-This lowers the mass of the spacecraft, and provides propellants.
-We may do a gravitational slingshot of Mars.
-Our goal is a trans-Terrestrial Asteroid.

I will make a drawing:

I did not work to hard to create that. The thing is when the mirror was at a ~3.0 AU asteroid you would need the whole mirror, as sunlight might be ~15% of Earth normal. But as you got nearer Mars, you might need less mirror to feed the heat engine. So you could feed part of the mirror perhaps circular pieces to a sort of a metal muncher, that would make it into propellants for ALICE, or Magdrive or Neumann Drive. So, at perhaps Eros, you would need considerably less mirror. This would lighten the dry mass of the ship, while using the expelled mas to impel the ship.

Once at Eros, it would disgorge its organic structure and cargo to that little world. and would replace structures with Ceramics and Metals. The blank spots on the mirror would be filled back in, and a much bigger heat engine would be put into the ship. The ship would also be loaded up with metal propellants. So, then it might set off for one of the Terrestrial planets from there. But Venus is currently my main interest.

To arrive at Venus, a question is, "Are you going to try to employ Air Braking to Orbit?". If you have enough metal propellants, then you don't have to. But if you could fortify and morphically alter your ship perhaps it could do a air brake capture to Venus orbit.

So, like various organisms we would have a flight where we employ various stages of metamorphic alterations.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (Yesterday 17:48:07)

Void · Today 08:18:50

It is possible that it would make sense to bring organic chemicals to Mars orbit from the ~3.0 AU Asteroids, but I think it would be more sensible to get what you could from Phobos and Deimos, and if necessary, bring materials up to orbit from Mars itself.

I am working myself in the direction of microgravity manufacturing. This will be very important for Earth, so, it only makes sense that if you are going to put 1,000,000 people on Mars, then you will want orbital microgravity manufacturing for Mars in a similar time period.

While eyes are on the Moon for Starship as a priority, I am going to guess that we may be perhaps a year away from Starship being able to support microgravity space manufacturing for Earth's needs.

In this respect Starship answers some needs should it actually workout that way. You could have human labor in space with some assistance from robots. And the Ship is supposed to be able to give life support to 100 people for a very prolonged time. But for Space Manufacturing in microgravity, I would suppose just a handful of people on board.

I am seeing the potential of making a Lunar Starship type into a space station and visiting it periodically with a Atmospheric Starship with flaps and heat Sheid. In that case after being orbited the two propellant tanks of the Lunar Starship could be converted into warehouse space. And a large installation of solar power could be attached to the Lunar Starship.

That way the Atmospheric Starship would not need to be heavy on Life Support. In fact if you could do the personal changes using a Dragon and/or Dreamchaser, the Atmospheric Starship would not need life support at all. It would simply bring 50-200 tons of materials up and down. So, you could have relatively frequent personal changeovers, so then limiting the degree of microgravity illnesses.

Eventually Vast Space could have a space station with synthetic gravity that people could operate the Lunar Starship Factory from remotely. Maybe only 1 or 2 people would be stationed in the Factory Station at a time, in case some repairs were needed.

So, once Starship is ready to support Starlink, and the Lunar Starship is well developed, it may be relatively easy for SpaceX to get into a bulk manufacturing mode, and make a lot of money, I think.

I know that the ISS is reported to be able to recycle water at a 98% efficiency, but SpaceX is aiming to tighten that quite a lot. So, then for Mars Orbits Stations should not require that much import of Hydrogen or Methane from Mars.
In some ways import of Methane makes sense, as you can react it with heat with the regolith of Phobos and Deimos, and get water and some CO2, perhaps. The CO2 could be manipulated to yield Carbon for various purposes.

I have been thinking about Phobos, and tethers. I am a bit phobic about tethers, as I expect them to get severed by impactors, but still as it happens, I have realized that if you view Phobos in a certain light, it represents a power supply.
I have the notion to dangle an atmospheric mining platform on a tether, to tickle the upper atmosphere of Mars. Then over time dragging Phobos downward and atmosphere upwards. Without altering the nature of Phobos then we would expect it to break up once it would get to the Roche Limit: https://www.bing.com/search?q=phobos+ro … 1&hsmssg=0
Quote:

Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons at 22km in diameter, is slowly falling toward Mars and will reach the Roche limit in about 20 million years.

But we would be exploiting the inertia of Phobos to lift things off of Mars such as atmosphere. We also might fling things to a higher orbit using a tether. Both of these would lower the orbit of Phobos. So, we would hasten the end of that moon, unless we converted it into a ring of space stations having more strength than a rubble pile.

Some people might become horrified at the notion of "Stealing Atmosphere" from Mars. But what if we only did borrow and exchange? Processing Phobos would yield Oxygen, much of which may prove to be a waste gas. It could be dumped over to the Atmosphere of Mars. And the materials you lifted from Mars may contain a lot of Oxygen, but you would more want Carbon, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen. You could return the excess Oxygen into the Martian atmosphere.

The return method could be a Mass Driver to shoot Oxygen out at a speed that it would drop into the Martian Atmosphere. This would delay the decay of the orbit of Phobos.

So, early on the resources of Phobos and Deimos might be tapped. And if you have mirror technology that I have been talking about for the asteroid belt, then you can have means to terraform Mars using orbital power plants and also directing sunlight to desired locations.

Using Magdrive and or Neumann Drive, and Oxygen Mass Drivers, it may be possible to capture new moons for Mars, from Mars crossing asteroids. There could be a possible use of Ballistic Capture for that.

So, for that after all you might get organic chemicals from the ~3.0 asteroids and deliver them to a Mars crosser asteroid. Then set up facilities and gradually nudge an asteroid to an orbit of Mars. Perhaps some gravity assists might be employed to get that set up.

The use of tiny fibers to warm up Mars appears to be able to evaporate all the CO2, and so doubling the atmospheric pressure. The use of Microwaves, Infrared Lasers, and reflected sunshine, could perhaps turn each polar cap into a sort of cold sea, perhaps mostly covered with ice.

So, by orbital methods and the greenhouse things, I think a beneficiation of Mars could happen rather quickly.

Ending Pending

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scienti … e%20effect.
Quote:

The researchers designed particles shaped like short rods—similar in size to commercially available glitter. These particles are designed to trap escaping heat and scatter sunlight towards the surface, enhancing Mars' natural greenhouse effect.

So, those materials might be released from Phobos to warm the planet.

Once you had some sort of water cycle, even just snow that evaporated organisms might grow and they would likely release greenhouse gasses.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (Today 08:59:29)

Void · Today 14:26:04

I have had some further thinking on processing Phobos and Deimos, and other rubble pile objects.

Skyhooks have been contemplated by others for the moon Phobos. I think it would be something to come much later in the processing of Phobos, and if it is done, I would feel much better about it if it was "Skyhook(s)", connecting to a platform. In that way if a impactor might sever one tether, repairs might be possible.

I have had previous ideas about this and I also recall others, especially Calliban having notions. I would be happy to have an evaluation from such people. What I am chasing at this time is sintering and cables.

Calliban has had the notion of a "Ring" with digging arms. I am not contemplating a ring sintered into the top materials of an object like Phobos. Others have considered making landing pads for the Moon by sintering.

This query will reveal some of them: "Sintering landing pads on the Moon"
General Response: https://www.bing.com/search?q=Sintering … 96&pc=DCTS

So, this might be done while inserting anchors and leaving portals to dig into. The anchors could be connected together with some sort of cables. It is likely that the process of sintering may lead to cracking and also the thermal fluctuations would as well, so if while the regolith were softened by sintering, it might be possible in insert anchors and then wire the anchors together.

If you then could dig under this sinter shell, you could produce an area of relative protection.
Depending on the thickness of the shell you could get some radiation protection and some thermal protection and some protection from small impactors. You could add additional protections over time, particularly to make "Storm Shelters" for additional protections from radiation storms and accumulated GCR.

The moon itself would give some protection from about 50% or more of the sky.

If were on the Mars facing side you would get some protection from Mars itself, but would face secondary radiation coming from Mars. But "Secondary Radiation" may be easier to shield from.

We will want radar scanning of Phobos to reveal "Underground Truth", and probably sample returns.

In the beginning the sintering and linking with cables and fasteners would have to incorporate a substantial enough mass that a ship could anchor to it and carefully allow the entering of the undergrounds though a portal.

But elsewhere smaller slabs could be sintered with anchors and the slabs lifted off to become protection for a synthetic gravity space station near Phobos.

In time under the original sinter patch, a method to process the additional regolith and extract gasses and metals from it could be incorporated. So, then the sintering could be expressed around the circumference of Phobos, with slabs, anchors and cables. Under this could be built metal structures. Attached to it could be power method on the outside.

And I think that this basic method for starting could be implemented on Demos and many asteroids. We do not know if Phobos has a bit of water and other organics in it's rocks, it might, but probably Hydrogen and Nitrogen could be brought up from Mars as Ammonia, and if Carbon is needed that could be brought up as well.

Eventually the structure of Phobos could be made advanced enough to set up skyhooks, both down into the atmosphere and up higher to fling loads.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (Today 14:54:37)

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Re: Interworld Para Terraforming

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