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Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#31

Post by sytelus »

david-given wrote: post #16
Entangled wrote: post #4

Terraform the moon. I want to look up to the skies and see a green moon every night. It is unfortunate we haven't spent a dime settling a moon base and studying the possibilities of creating a livable atmosphere on the moon being just a couple days away.

I've tried it: http://cowlark.com/flooded-moon/ The maths are interesting. I tried figuring out how thick the atmosphere would need to be, but I kept coming up with ludicrous answers --- one model I tried, in order to get breathable pressure on the surface, the atmosphere had to extend out at least two lunar radii. That would have made the moon just a simple white fuzzy ball in the sky, and you'd never see the sun fr…

This is excellent! I did not see any reference to the math. So you are saying, if there was an atmosphere that extended to two moon radii, it will stay with the moon and you will have breathable pressure on the surface?

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#32

Post by sgentle »

So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way.

I'm not convinced.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#33

Post by ajuc »

cstross wrote: post #12

They almost had me until ... On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie ready to be used for energy. Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen for breathing and to combust hydrocarbons as fuel. Riiiight. And you're going to get the power to electrolytically split that water into hydrogen and oxygen where, exactly? (Whoever…

On the other hand ambient temperature superconductors are possible there :)

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#34

Post by eganist »

sgentle wrote: post #32

So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way. I'm not convinced.

Yup.

Frankly, if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Martian gravity is also closer to Earth's, so Mars still seems like the better fit in the immediate term.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#35

Post by sytelus »

If we ever get to fusion or other unlimited energy source, it may be possible someday to thoroughly transform Titan, relocate 100,000 people on it and flung it in to space to another star. Titan can be our "generational spaceship" that goes forever to infinity and beyond. To colonize galaxy, using moons as spaceship would be necessary assuming there is no way to travel faster than speed of light. So all inter-galactic spaceships needs to be generational, completely self-sufficient in every possible way and have enough population that can evolve without too much of inbreeding for thousands of years.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#36

Post by oska »

> On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space.

Build a double-skinned geodesic dome with a 4 metre gap between the two shells. Fill the space between with water. Your 'sky' now has a water-shielding layer.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#37

Post by ajuc »

oska wrote: post #36

> On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space. Build a double-skinned geodesic dome with a 4 metre gap between the two shells. Fill the space between with water. Your 'sky' now has a water-shielding layer.

1 square meter of such roof would weight 4 tonnes (on Earth). 500 kg on Titan. That's quite a roof.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#38

Post by sliken »

eganist wrote: post #34
sgentle wrote: post #32

So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way. I'm not convinced.

Yup. Frankly, if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Martian gravity is also closer to Earth's, so Mars still seems like the better fit in the immediate term.

Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere), which makes solar much easier. So equipment, supplies, and solar could be on the surface, and the radiation sensitive humans could be a few meters underground. As you mine for water you could dump the useless stuff on the surface and use the emptied space for living quarters.

Question is why live somewhere that's tougher than the top of MT Everest or either pole? Guess a population big enough to repopulate earth in case of an extinction level event would be a reasonable safeguard.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#39

Post by redial »

hereonbusiness wrote: post #17

We expect human nature to stay the same. Human beings of the future will have the same drives and needs we have now. Practically speaking, their home must have abundant energy, livable temperatures and protection from the rigors of space, including cosmic radiation, which new research suggests is unavoidably dangerous for biological beings like us I would expect the complete opposite if we really want to colonize the…

In the episode The Science of Humans at War[1] of the StarTalk podcast, around the 25 min mark, they ask the question of human modification, specially for the harsh environments of space, and claim that in almost every case it has been tried, an engineering solution has been found that is both cheaper and more practical than to directly modify humans.

[1]: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-science-hu...

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#40

Post by david-given »

sytelus wrote: post #31
david-given wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried it: http://cowlark.com/flooded-moon/ The maths are interesting. I tried figuring out how thick the atmosphere would need to be, but I kept coming up with ludicrous answers --- one model I tried, in order to get breathable pressure on the surface, the atmosphere had to extend out at least two lunar radii. That would have made the moon just a simple white fuzzy ball in the sky, and you'd never see the sun fr…

This is excellent! I did not see any reference to the math. So you are saying, if there was an atmosphere that extended to two moon radii, it will stay with the moon and you will have breathable pressure on the surface?

I couldn't make the maths work, so the atmosphere in the pictures was picked solely to make them look good.

The moon's far too small to hold an atmosphere for geological periods of time; in real life it'll all leak away into space. The reason why my model produced such a huge atmosphere was that the more air I added, the deeper the atmosphere got; but the further away from the surface the lower the gravity, so I ended up with diminishing returns. Once you're a lunar radius away from the surface your air weighs only half as much as it did on the surface, so now you need even more, which makes the atmosphere even thicker, which means the portion up high weighs even less...

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