tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6941720248134671438..comments2024-03-27T23:12:08.917-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Let's Lift the Earth!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14371491868581540282021-08-18T13:35:17.445-07:002021-08-18T13:35:17.445-07:00Isn't one hundred million years a bit soon? I...Isn't one hundred million years a bit soon? If the Sun's luminosity goes up by only 1%, I'm sure that Gaia could find a way to deal with that, even without human intervention. Also the Inverse Square Law would cut the increase to 0.5%. <br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11904405312428547035noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83965377352974502492017-07-09T11:07:11.442-07:002017-07-09T11:07:11.442-07:00I get that a hypothetically surviving civilization...I get that a hypothetically surviving civilization would have to deal with a rise of temperature because of increased solar activity, some of which could be solved by shading and increasing albedo.<br /><br />However, there is another major event in the future of our sun, and of our enire galaxy - the merger with our neighbor galaxy Andromeda. That event is most likely going to play havoc with any orbits of our planets, even assuming that those current orbits don't get disturbed through resonance effects.<br /><br />Assuming our (or a successor) civilization reaches a technological level that would exploit more of our star's energy, the change in radiation would be quite different anyway. Rather than using the L1 of the Earth(+Moon)/Sun system, an entire orbit further inward could be seeded with shades, collecting energy and solar wind, converting them to high density fuel (e.g. anti-protons) and construction material.<br /><br />The question is whether the civilization would still be a planetary civilization at this stage.sartarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11471333821456936168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53507206541895489142017-07-04T14:37:33.158-07:002017-07-04T14:37:33.158-07:00May I suggest a different approach to using the Ea...May I suggest a different approach to using the Earth - Sun system like a huge electric motor? A band of conductive material several hundred miles wide around Earths equator could be used to carry a current causing a push against the Suns magnetic field. The power could be supplied via solar power, generating more push as the sun expands and ensuring that only sections of the band facing the Sun generate a push as the Earth rotates.. Being on the ground, it would avoid the problems of orbital debris and built on this scale should be robust enough to survive he fall of the odd civilisation or two. I have some ballpark figures worked out for my novella "Under a Burning Sky", but these are the general principles.Richard Wrennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15505682025993635292017-07-04T12:32:42.582-07:002017-07-04T12:32:42.582-07:00I was thinking you could build a ring at geosync. ...I was thinking you could build a ring at geosync. Tilt it slightly into a cone shape so it has more surface area facing the sun. Tie it to the Earth with lots of tethers (the ones in the Pacific and Atlantic would be tricky to attach but you could use neutrally buoyant undersea cables). Then fill the ring with solar sails that rotate on magnetic bearings to provide an acceleration force. Put just enough solar cells aligned in the center of rotation of each sail to power automation needed to control stability and maintain the system. Or make the sails completely power generating to send power down the tethers.Iklawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17979221818730375959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58153860077664986012016-09-26T03:57:49.033-07:002016-09-26T03:57:49.033-07:00Did you know you can shorten your long links with ...Did you know you can shorten your long links with <b><a href="http://shortener.syntaxlinks.com/r/AdFly" rel="nofollow">AdFly</a></b> and <b>get dollars from every visit to</b> your short links.Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07287821785570247118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-490234253419172792015-05-26T07:24:40.203-07:002015-05-26T07:24:40.203-07:00WOW – now THIS is an amazing notion…..
An idea – ...WOW – now THIS is an amazing notion…..<br /><br />An idea – with Brin’s notion of cultural shifts and economics – fling out the wastes and hazards…. – any culture that stops removing it’s wastes is doomed anyway….. – AND – while some would argue we’d reduce the mass of earth over time – no – I think not – as asteroid mining comes into its own – we’ll also be bringing a lot down planet-side too – not too worried about the mass reduction as waste is ejected out.<br /><br />One concern within the discussion of using or moving the moon – earthly tides aren’t part of the consideration. Any impact to the moon and its impact to tides will have a huge impact on earthly tides and all shore eco systems which feed most of our population and impacts the weather. A much more substantial study of those potential impacts would seem in order before such a thing is considered.<br /><br />One other thing to ponder…… All of Brin’s notions are active ones….. i.e. – do this – get that…. But he doesn’t factor in passive factors……<br /><br />All of Brin’s active factors happen in orbit. We have ongoing debate on what the space debris field is doing and will do to existing and future efforts. And I think Brin needs to factor that in majorly as it’s going to get far worse before it gets better and is going to touch everything going up or down in our gravity well……. The issue w/ the orbital parasol shade to reduce sun heat transfer to earth…. Well, if the orbital debris cloud gets thicker, which it surely will, it’s going to shade the earth and rain down toxins into the atmosphere over time – Man will die of those results before we care about the effects of total global warming or goldilocks zone shift…..Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07014423483142971048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-970695109945145572015-01-06T20:25:27.468-08:002015-01-06T20:25:27.468-08:00Hmmm. Members of a species that is maybe ~7 Ma old...Hmmm. Members of a species that is maybe ~7 Ma old (according to its own best current estimates) are planning some serious expenditures of scarce resources to solve a "problem" that may (according to its current theories, observations and calculations - now at most ~0.0001 Ma old) eventuate another 100-500 Ma in the future.<br /><br />How is this not like a 7-year-old desperately planning to solve the problems his hypothetical eventual grandson may eventually experience in another century (minimum) if US Social Security is not reformed pronto? How seriously should we take his ideas and plans? <br /><br />This is an entertaining exercise, like specifying the ways to use a barometer to measure the height of a tall building, but I have the feeling that there are much more pressing problems for us to be dealing with. <br /><br />That kid may benefit more from some gentle guidance in the direction of self-examination and how to prioritize his efforts than from having adults take his long-term-future worries seriously.madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45695350938896912692014-11-09T10:51:10.993-08:002014-11-09T10:51:10.993-08:00Robert perfect segue to today's blog topic!
O...Robert perfect segue to today's blog topic!<br /><br />Onward!<br /><br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87568878918407872802014-11-09T10:24:46.189-08:002014-11-09T10:24:46.189-08:00And now for a glimpse at something a little bit cl...And now for a glimpse at something a little bit closer - <a href="http://spaceflightnow.com/2014/11/07/comets-brush-with-mars-more-dramatic-than-expected/" rel="nofollow">It seems that the decision to "hide" satellites on the far side of Mars during the closest approach of Comet Siding Spring was a smart idea</a> as it's likely the dust tail would have damaged or destroyed satellites. A couple tons of dust and fragments were deposited on the planet; they speculate the meteor storm would have been spectacular to observe.<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85668421598789320992014-11-07T21:08:58.034-08:002014-11-07T21:08:58.034-08:00As a sanity check, the HL Tauri disk and possible ...As a sanity check, the HL Tauri disk and possible protoplanet orbits are on a very similar scale to the dust disk and four superjovian planets around HR 8799: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799Mike G.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27387778030455017562014-11-07T21:00:15.203-08:002014-11-07T21:00:15.203-08:00Tony,
Nicely calculated...
Comparison of HL Tauri...Tony,<br />Nicely calculated...<br /><br />Comparison of HL Tauri with the solar system: <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1436e/" rel="nofollow">http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1436e/</a><br /><br />...agrees with your calculations.<br /><br />[Aside, it's not a photo. It's computer created from data gathered by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. But it's real. Each pixel comes from real data. Not just an artists extrapolation. <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1436/" rel="nofollow">http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1436/</a> ]Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81346379514079369432014-11-07T20:41:45.639-08:002014-11-07T20:41:45.639-08:00OK. From the data accompanying the photograph (450...OK. From the data accompanying the photograph (450ly distance. fov: 0.03 arc min) I calculate the image scales to about 260 AU across, so Pluto's orbit (40AU) would be about a third of the way from the centre. Saturn(10AU) would be roughly where the inner dark band is.<br /><br />The resolution *is* impressive.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31390346085787103592014-11-07T20:15:53.855-08:002014-11-07T20:15:53.855-08:00@Paul451, has anyone mentioned a scale for that ph...@Paul451, has anyone mentioned a scale for that photograph?Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65671000692757780212014-11-07T20:01:04.931-08:002014-11-07T20:01:04.931-08:00Daniel the SHkadov thruster requires huge investme...Daniel the SHkadov thruster requires huge investment of desire and meticulous maintenance and control, or the sail quickly goes unstable. Re terraforming… see the classic book of that title by Martyn Fogg. Of course colonizing the Oort Cloud is portrayed in HEART OF THE COMET.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-5536735071069586832014-11-07T19:33:33.658-08:002014-11-07T19:33:33.658-08:00This is an actual image.
That's important. Th...This is an actual image.<br /><br />That's important. This is not an artists impression.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1436a/" rel="nofollow">http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1436a/</a>Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55918497985781040282014-11-07T18:34:09.942-08:002014-11-07T18:34:09.942-08:00Parasols and mirrors?
Piece of cake:
http://ne...Parasols and mirrors? <br /><br />Piece of cake:<br /><br />http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/10/brute-force-terraforming-of-mars-moons.html<br /><br />Releasing oxygen from Martian rocks requires melting the rock, usually composed of about 30% oxygen, and breaking the chemical bonds. What results is a melt of mixed metals, like iron, and semi-metals, like silicon, and oxygen gas, plus hardy compounds like aluminum oxide. For every kilogram of oxygen released, about 30 megajoules of energy are needed. Earth-normal oxygen levels require a partial pressure of 20 kilopascals (20 kPa), which means a mass of 5.4 tons of oxygen for every square metre of Martian surface – 775 trillion tons in total. The total energy required is 10 yottajoules. Adding 80 kPa of nitrogen, like Earth’s atmosphere, requires mining the frozen nitrogen of Neptune’s moon Triton, doubling the total energy required. Shipping it from Saturn’s moon, Titan, as Kim Stanley Robinson imagines in his “Mars Trilogy”, requires 8 times that energy, due Saturn’s less favorable gravity conditions. Warming Mars to Earth-like levels, via collecting more solar energy with a vast solar mirror array, means collecting and directing about 50 petawatts of solar energy (equal to about 10 laser-sail starships). Before we use that energy to gently warm Mars, it can be concentrated via a “lens” into a solar-torch able to burn oxygen out of Mars’s rocks. With 50 petawatts of useful energy the lens can liberate sufficient oxygen for breathing in a bit over 6 years. Using 17.5 petawatts would require about 18 years.<br /><br />The final task, creating an artificial magnetosphere, is puny by comparison. A superconducting magnetic loop, wrapped around the Martian equator, can be used, powered up to a magnetic field energy of ~620,000 trillion joules (620 petajoules), by about 12.4 seconds of energy from the solar-mirrors. This is sufficient to create a magnetosphere about 8 times the size of Mars, much like Earth’s.<br /><br />To terraform the other suitable planets and moons of the Solar System requires similar energy and power levels. For example, if we used a solar-torch to break up the surface ice of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, into hydrogen and oxygen, then used it to ‘encourage’ the excess hydrogen to escape into space, the total energy would be about 8 yottajoules, surprisingly similar to what Mars requires. The nitrogen delivery cost is about 6 yottajoules, again similar to Mars. Ongoing energy supply would be 10 petawatts – two starships worth.<br /><br />Further afield than the Inner System, or even the Outer Planets, is the Oort Cloud, a spherical swarm of comets thousand to ten thousand times the Earth-Sun distance. According to current theories of how the planets formed, there were thousands of objects, ranging in size from Pluto to Earth’s Moon, which formed from the primordial disk of gas and dust surrounding the infant Sun. Most of these collided and coalesced to form the cores of the planets, but a significant fraction would have been slung into distant orbits, far from the Sun. According to one estimate, by astronomer Louis Strigari and colleagues, there are 100,000 such objects for every star.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74991112280972242982014-11-07T18:28:11.905-08:002014-11-07T18:28:11.905-08:00Lift the Earth?
Hah! Mere child's play compar...Lift the Earth?<br /><br />Hah! Mere child's play compared to moving stars around!<br /><br />http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/shkadov-thruster-and-stellar-engines.html<br /><br />One of the simplest examples of stellar engine is the Shkadov thruster (named after Dr. Leonid Mikhailovich Shkadov who first proposed it), or a Class A stellar engine. Such an engine is a stellar propulsion system, consisting of an enormous mirror/light sail—actually a massive type of solar statite large enough to classify as a megastructure, probably by an order of magnitude—which would balance gravitational attraction towards and radiation pressure away from the star. Since the radiation pressure of the star would now be asymmetrical, i.e. more radiation is being emitted in one direction as compared to another, the 'excess' radiation pressure acts as net thrust, accelerating the star in the direction of the hovering statite. Such thrust and acceleration would be very slight, but such a system could be stable for millennia. Any planetary system attached to the star would be 'dragged' along by its parent star. For a star such as the Sun, with luminosity 3.85 × 10^26 W and mass 1.99 × 10^30 kg, the total thrust produced by reflecting half of the solar output would be 1.28 × 10^18 N. After a period of one million years this would yield an imparted speed of 20 m/s, with a displacement from the original position of 0.03 light-years. After one billion years, the speed would be 20 km/s and the displacement 34,000 light-years, a little over a third of the estimated width of the Milky Way galaxy.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76501347592818342072014-11-07T17:22:44.039-08:002014-11-07T17:22:44.039-08:00If the moon has anything Mars needs, you could rai...If the moon has anything Mars needs, you could railgun it such that you launch when Mars is due to intersect your package because you fired it towards the sun.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6789868308325310302014-11-07T15:26:12.522-08:002014-11-07T15:26:12.522-08:00Tugging the Moon directly away from the barycenter...Tugging the Moon directly away from the barycenter (in Earth's prograde direction) would increase its orbital eccentricity to the degree that the Earth didn't follow along with the Moon.<br /><br />I'd have to see the math, but I don't think you could avoid that. In turn, this would increase the Earth's eccentricity around the barycenter as well. (At right angles to the Moon's.)<br /><br />What I don't know is which would be dominant - the increase in orbital velocity or the increase in eccentricity.<br /><br />I think you have to account for some of the energy going into a more eccentric orbit around the barycenter for both though, and it might be bad enough to where you can't get significant increases in Earth's orbital velocity. The more eccentric the Moon is around the Earth in Earth's prograde direction, the less tugging you could do in the direction you wanted to go due to the increased distance.SteveOnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15627756051185688752014-11-07T11:36:04.881-08:002014-11-07T11:36:04.881-08:00How that last relates to Doxxing: many of the rece...How that last relates to Doxxing: many of the recent doxxing attacks started with "hit lists" posted to forums, prompting forum members to attempt to get the personal information to publish, exactly like a smart mob, exactly like transparency.<br /><br />What would reciprocal transparency look like here? Really looking forward to that post.sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62726823684267648152014-11-07T11:30:49.210-08:002014-11-07T11:30:49.210-08:00For Brin's upcoming blog post about Doxxing:
...For Brin's upcoming blog post about Doxxing:<br /><br />This page (mostly of collected and ordered twitter posts) demonstrates the problem when Smart Mobs turn to misogyny and hate.<br /><a href="https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/youtube-patreon-and-the-rise-of-the-professional-v" rel="nofollow">https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/youtube-patreon-and-the-rise-of-the-professional-v</a>sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82903312583837142642014-11-07T11:14:05.973-08:002014-11-07T11:14:05.973-08:00Mike G. Tugging on the moon hs different effects i...Mike G. Tugging on the moon hs different effects if you are pulling outward, along a radial, than if you push FORWARD along the direction of velocity. If you do the latter, then you will increase the size of the moon’s orbit till it escapes. If you do the former, as in my tether system, then you get an effect that only changes the orbit a little, but Maximally the Earth follows.<br /><br />Alex T Electrodynamic tethers have been used in LEO several times and work fine. GEO is another matter. But we are talking about cutting the SUN’s mag field with a tether way out at the moon.<br /><br />Pulling Earth sunward is not a “failure mode” but would have to be done deliberately and meticulously across millions of years.<br /><br />Joel G the gravity lasers of EARTH are a way cool concept. Unlikely, but fun.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24674814212877933162014-11-07T06:41:58.106-08:002014-11-07T06:41:58.106-08:00Pffft. According to our future world almanac (Eart...Pffft. According to our future world almanac (Earth c1991), we'll have micro black holes in 2038. I'm sure we can place them strategically and with sufficient mass to tug Earth into a higher/faster orbit.Joelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09707861909013671695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2624515059544908292014-11-07T02:42:18.147-08:002014-11-07T02:42:18.147-08:00In a hundred million years, deserts will spread an...<i> In a hundred million years, deserts will spread and the oceans will start going away. We’ve got to get out of here!</i><br /><br />Where is this time line coming from. Planetary scientist James Kasting puts it at over 0.5 bn years out, when CO2 levels have fallen to near zero and terrestrial plants cannot survive.That is well beyond the likely lifetime of the human species, even post human ones.<br /><br />Looking at the proposals:<br /><br />1. <i>Imagine a space elevator that is electrically conducting – cutting through the earth’s magnetic field. </i><br />Does a geosynchronous space elevator cable cut across Earth's magnetic field? The Earth's core moves very slowly in relation to the Earth's surface, less than 1 degree/my. This means that the cable is not cutting the field lines. <br /><br />2. <i>A cable on the moon interacting with teh solar magnetic field. </i><br />That might work in theory. But maintaining the circuit - that may be a challenge even if the parasol of solar panels is possible. <br />And what if teh system fails during a civilization fall , perhaps even pulling the Earth sunward?<br />Surely 50k x our current power usage could be used much more productively?<br /><br />If the main objection to a parasol is stability at a lagrange point, why not acheive the same thing with orbiting parasols? Each object would be a silvered, reflective mass. Sure they would laso need some correction for light pressure messing with their orbits, but the energy requirements would be a lot less than moving Earth.<br /><br />Moving the earth is an intriguing idea, but if it was desirable, I suspect that there are better ways to do it than building a huge tether on the moon and associated power sat that must be maintained or replaced every so often. Building a billion space habitats might be childs play in comparision!<br /><br />An alternative that might be worth expoloring is making the sun less massive and therefore cooler. It seems harder, but it might be easier to use the sun's own energy to accomplish it (one solution is Benford & Niven's <i>Bowl of Heaven</i> approach to extract mass for propulsion). Could that be done within a civilization cycle, extending the long term HZ?Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23002577573126069182014-11-06T23:35:39.994-08:002014-11-06T23:35:39.994-08:00Hmm... Some of my books are still sitting in boxes...Hmm... Some of my books are still sitting in boxes in my garage, so I can't check the numbers. However, whatever happened to Drexler's notion of lifting layers of the Sun instead?<br /><br />100 megayears is a lot of time for Black Swans to appear... both good and bad.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.com