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Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#81

Post by vidarh »

internaut wrote: post #64
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…

Elon Musk's ticket to Mars will be less meaningful (if we take the word 'colonization' seriously) unless somebody can stick several thousand people into a hermetic sealed box and they are still alive and thriving after 10 years. I've been disappointed with the lack of progress in closed loop systems to date. There was Biosphere 2, a great ambitious start. Then a few years ago there was Kamen's Slingshot (outcome unkn…

The thing is, they don't need to be hermetically sealed for 10 years on a small scale. They just need to be self-sufficient long enough for the next supply wessels initially, until they can build up sufficient scale to be able to start solving the problems themselves and the environmental scale is sufficient that you buy time to fix problems that pop up.

Scale "solves" a lot of these issues by buying time and providing a population large enough to do the work required to fix things.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#82

Post by FreeFull »

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…

As far as I can tell, combustion of methane seems to produce significantly more energy (around twice as much) as burning hydrogen, for the same amount of oxygen. Note that burning carbohydrates also produces carbon dioxide in addition to water.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#83

Post by some1else »

bazzargh wrote: post #60
ape4 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully we can develop some light materials for radiation protection. So we can have radiation-proof domes and suits on Mars.

I have to wonder if the recently discovered ice deposits on mars would do the job https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mars-ice-deposit-holds-as-m... If this really is just a metre down and 80% water it's got to be an attractive target - relatively easy to mine (once surface is cleared, just use heat) and a hollowed out underground structure with 1m of ice above would be an effective radiation shield: http://space.stacke…

I'm wondering how contaminated are raw materials on planets without a solid magnetosphere. Could it be that most of the water out there is too radio-active for consumption?

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#84

Post by Sharlin »

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.

Note that if two meters of shielding blocks half of radiation, four meters would block three quarters, not all of it.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#85

Post by tracker1 »

Figs wrote: post #62
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…

I think you're probably right for the most part, but a few other thoughts occurred to me for energy sources not mentioned in the article: 1) Cryovulcanism is suspected to be present on Titan. Maybe it would be possible to tap into geothermal energy there? 2) Given that there's an atmosphere, we could fly balloons there. It might be possible to use high-altitude solar panels to collect energy with some sort of drone b…

I'm not sure of any generators that would be effective at colder than antarctic temps for use with hydro... I mean, most complex materials will become brittle and shatter. It's not a problem anyone I'm aware of is really trying to solve.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#86

Post by tracker1 »

ajuc wrote: post #33
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 :)

from ceramics, no less.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#87

Post by [deleted] »

iskander wrote: post #76
sliken wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

>Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere) Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars. (Mars is further from the sun and gets ~60% of our sunlight)

[deleted]

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#90

Post by nickparker »

This is exceedingly silly. Saturn's magnetosphere concentrates radiation primarily on Enceladus, Dione, and surprise surprise: Titan.

The atmosphere doesn't mean much when you're under the cosmic equivalent of a magnifying glass.

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