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**The Ghost In The Machine**

In sci.physics,

wrote
on 10 Apr 2007 12:24:22 -0700
.com:
On Apr 8, 2:39 pm, The Ghost In The Machine
wrote:
So OK then. How does one convert CO2 to O2 in a 9.3 MPa, 860F
environment?

The same exact technical process as for doing Mars, except you don't
have to import a nuclear reactor for accommodating the necessary
process energy, nor having to wait for a year's worth of processing to
take place, and therefore roughly less than 1% the cost and
complications of doing Mars. I can't recall each of the technical
steps in that process of converting co2 back into the raw elements of
co/o2, but it's posted on the internet by the likes of Dr. Zubrin and
several others if we ever need to know such specifics.

Erm, the raw elements of CO2 are C and O2. CO is carbon monoxide.

In any event, you are postulating a trip to Venus L2 from Earth, are you
not?

Yes, why the hell not? After all, VL2 is rather nearby every 19
months.

This is fine, but one will have to work out exactly how much one
has to transport (are we talking 1 human, 1 family, 1 dozen families, 1
million families, all of humanity?) plus sufficient resources to keep
them alive, starting with a method by which they'd generate electric
power (recall that VL2 is in virtual shadow; the best they might hope
for there is some atmospheric refraction, if that), and whatever else
is needed to get them from here to there.

Even though VL2 is a relatively cool parking spot, there's actually a
bit more solar energy to behold while cruising within VL2 than you
might tend to think. It's also a halo orbit worth of station-keeping,
therefore you can expect and/or control as much solar energy influx as
you might need for those banks of PV cells to function, of which such
PV panels can be tethered out a good few km in whatever direction if
need be. Besides, the VL2 energy budget per accommodating each
individual shouldn't be 10% of the ISS energy budget that has to deal
with so much extra solar and secondary earthshine issues, along with
the little extra amount of IR/FIR that's coming off our moon.

Each POOF having it's own set of ION thrusters is what gives this
community of POOFs the collective borg like advantage, as well as
multiple forms of backup, and perhaps if all goes well enough, at most
we should only have to chuck two or three of the original manifest of
crew and passengers due to whatever unavoidable complications.

For argument sake, let us go for a bakers dozen (aka 13 souls, at
least 10 of which can be paying passengers), and remember that there
should also be more than a few corporate/commercial sponsors, such as
the various pizza, beers, self sealing barf-bags and on behalf of
those extreme containment diaper manufacturers.

To begin with, just pack as much pizza and ice cold beer as possible
along for the ride, the rest will follow suit. We can charge our
clients at least $100 million each (one way, as they'll have to fork
over another $100 million if they ever plan on returning to Earth).

The likes of wizard 'tomcat' will gladly R&D and supply his fat-
waverider or whatever go-fast SuperSkylon, or perhaps going for the do-
everything form of a composite rigid airship, although others are
likely more qualified. Bigelow and Russia or perhaps via China will
deal with creating and getting those nifty POOFs into place (a minimum
of 3 POOFs, although a community of 5 POOFs might be best since we'll
need at least one POOF for accommodating all of that pizza and beer,
with one other unit serving as their loony bin POOF, and of course
their SuperSkylon transporter standing nearby as their eventual ride
home, and/or possible OOPS! Plan-B get away)
-

Part - 2 - Life at VL2 is cool

Surviving at VL2's POOF city is offering somewhat tenuous odds, as
rather dependent upon how much shield is accomplishing how much actual
good, and of the naked physical truth of having to avoid whatever is
passing nearby or through your POOF that has your name on it.
Otherwise this POOF city should be nearly as safe as ISS, although
without benefit of a magnetosphere as shield from those waves upon
waves of solar wind that's continually blowing the upper atmospheric
stuff of Venus directly your way, is perhaps a bit more of an unknown.

The lack of magnetosphere shouldn't be a problem, though I'd have to
research the issue; most of the danger comes from the Sun, which is
occluded.

The to/from commute is by itself another potentially testy what-if, or
at best a somewhat iffy consideration, that's likely worth a good 6
months that'll add to your time and unavoidable TBI in space, along
with the 16~18 months spent at VL2. I'm not sure if banked bone
marrow will be sufficient, but I certainly would not bother going
without taking along a well isolated N2 frozen soild cache of my own
bone marrow.

Two years worth of serious BO and other unavoidable considerations may
be asking a bit much from most of us.

Two words: recycled water. In any event some bright NASA sort should
be able to figure out a zero-gee shower at some point, though the
current space crew have to make do with sponge baths.

Possibly at best that amount of
time spent off-world can be cut down to 21 months, though don't count
on it, as if anything it's more than likely going to take a combined
30+ months, and that's if nothing goes terribly wrong. Still all and
all, VL2 being within 100 fold the distance of our moon each and every
19 months isn't imposing 5% of what doing Mars is all about.

We can even utilize our gamma and hard-Xray shedding moon itself as a
gravity boosted exit phace in getting to VL2, and upon our return we
should be able once again to utilize that pesky mascon of a moon as
our gravity parking brake.

Only if one want to expose the participants to gamma and hard X rays.

Because the moon only has that thin sodium
and argon atmosphere to deal with, as such the near miss passage for
achieving the best gravity affect can be safely taken to within a few
km off that moon's physically dark and nasty surface.

As for accomplishing Venus itself is not worth hardly 10% of doing
Mars, as well as representing an absolute win-win for those planning
upon staying for the remainder of their life, as for the notions of
ever returning from any such other world or spore and virus infested
moon is actually not such a good option, that is unless losing a few
hundred million folks upon Earth from whatever can easily infect our
frail environment and otherwise traumatise our poorly engineered DNA
(that'll have not a clue as to how to go about protecting ourselves
from whatever weird little forms of such ET micro life), as for such a
biological what-if being a potentially moral and/or ethical problem,
especially if it were derived from whatever was robust enough for
having been associated with that other planet or moon, shouldn't be
excluded from this or any other argument.

Too bad we don't have those station keeping robust habitats at our
moon's L1 for safely accommodating such crew and passengers returning
from whatever other worlds or moons, or better yet of there being
something deep underground upon our salty moon would become nearly the
ideal biological isolation, offering the ultimate solution that's
close enough to home to suit for all but physical contact.

We can put them there, if you like. It's mostly a question of boost.

-
Brad Guth

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