Targetting Ceres at Venus or Mars

Being very wet, I was wondering if it would be possible to target Ceres
at either Mars or Venus to aid in terraforming these. If we are to
terraform other planets it will be vital that we increase the water
supply there so simpler lifeforms can grow there and start the
transformation.

Or should be pick smaller watery asteroids instead?

I'm still hopeful some nation or rich individual will send a low-cost
probe to Venus' upper atmosphere to deposit microbes in it to alter its
atmosphere and hopefully stop its greenshouse effect, cooling down the
planet.

On 17/07/2011 8:10 PM, Anne Onime wrote:
Being very wet, I was wondering if it would be possible to target Ceres

Another Reece coward.

On Jul 17, 6:49*am, Alan Erskine wrote:
On 17/07/2011 8:10 PM, Anne Onime wrote:

Being very wet, I was wondering if it would be possible to target Ceres

Another Reece coward.

There may be lots of ice beneath the surface of Mars. This is
something we need to confirm or not, before importing more water.
Then, once we have water on Mars, we can then proceed to transform the
planet by heating it up. Either by adding an artificial sun, or
putting a large reflector at L2.

Then we need to ask is Ceres the right object for the job? The
depends on how much water we want to send to Mars.

Ceres is not unique. Mars has water under its surface. Ceres is
encased in ice. Comets have icy tails. Many of the moons of the
outer planets are largely ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_asteroids

Now Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and the major asteroids are far more valuable
where they are, as resources for Island Three and RAMA type space
colonies.

There are a host of Mars Crossing Asteroids

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars-crosser_asteroid

That can be deflected over time..

Another possibility is the use of icy moons of Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune.

Using advanced rail gun technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso

With a micro-fusion round detonated in precise relationship to an
object, can drive that object in any desired direction. This was
proven to work during the original Orion project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQCrPNEsQaY

Which can carry charges on board, or have charges fired at them.

Now, the Earth's hydrosphere masses 1.4e+21 kg. Earth's total area is
5.09e+14 sq meters. This means that 2,748.8 kiloliters of water exist
for every square meter of Earth's surface.

Alright, so Mars' surface area is 1.448E+14 sq meters. To cover the
planet with the same depth of water (assuming there isn't already a
subsurface sheet of ice of comparable thickness) we need to import
3.98E+20 kg of water.

This is a ball of water 912.6 km in diameter - about the size of Ceres
- but Ceres is made up of rock and water. This also doesn't take into
account gravitational compression.

Tethys - is an ice moon of Saturn. Its 1,062 km in diameter and
masses 6.174E+20 kg. So, it contains about 4x as much ice than
needed. In fact Tethys could provide enough water to put a sizeable
ocean on the Moon and Mars and Venus.

How do we get the ice from Tethys to Mars? Well, the vis-viva
equation gives the minimum velocity to travel from Saturn to Mars as
5.14 km/sec. But this is the hyperbolic excess velocity outside the
Saturnian system. To escape Saturn from the orbit of Tethys requires
we add 3.5 km/sec to our velocity - assuming the moon is moving in the
right direction. Which isn't too bad, because it takes only 1.887802
days to complete an orbit. Then, to escape Tethys requires we add
0.394 km/sec to our speed.

When Mars and Saturn are in the right position relative to one
another.

This is a change of speed of 8 km/sec to 12 km/sec is required, every
841 days - for a period of 180 days. Launches from the moon occur in
a 9 hour period every 45 hours and 17 minutes during this 180 day
period. Its about 100 launch windows every 841 days.

Now we want to transport 3.98e+20 kg of water to Mars from Tethys over
a 12 year period giving us 5 launch epochs with 100 launch windows of
9 hours each. This is a total of 4,500 hours of launch. Limiting our
acceleration to 4 gees we have 1.7 minutes of boost per launch. This
is 158,850 launch events if we don't want objects to collide on their
journey to Mars.

Each iceberg masses 2.5e+15 kg.

Composed of a sphere it would be 16.85 km in diameter - again not
counting gravitational compression.

A hexagonal prism of ice, 9.88 km thick and 19.76 km wide (an edge
9.88 km) has the same volume as the 16.85 km diameter sphere. And is
more easily constructed.

So, 13,971 hexagons are cut 9.88 km deep into the surface of Tethys
and undercut with small supports in the 1/100th gee gravity. A series
of small fission free nuclear charges is placed beneath the center of
each hexagon. Even smaller fusion based fission free nuclear charges
are placed at each vertex for guidance.

At the appropriate time, a guidance computer detonates these charges
in sequence, to lift the ice blocks off the surface of Tethys,
accelerate them in the right direction at the right speed to place the
ice block on a path to Mars. As the ice block approaches the planet
Mars, the guidance computer places the block precisely on the surface
there. Finally, when the ice block is falling toward the Martian
surface a series of small charges buried deep within the ice block
break up the block which spreads out in a huge cloud across the
surface of Mars, vaporizes during entry and condenses and rains out
'naturally'. If done accurately, the atmosphere of Mars is warmed
by the kinetic energy contained in the moving mass.

Neptune's moon Triton contains over 1e22 kg of solid nitrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_%28moon%29

100 times more nitrogen than exists in Earth's atmosphere, and 500
times more nitrogen than needed to build up Mars' atmosphere to Earth
levels. By breaking down only 1 in 150 of the ice blocks into
hydrogen and oxygen, by direct thermolysis of the ice using clean
nuclear explosions during entry, hydrogen escapes from the atmosphere
while oxygen is retained leaving Mars with an oxygen nitrogen
atmosphere similar to Earth's.

Solid nitrogen is slightly more dense than water ice. Its solid at
77.4K (-195.6 C). So, going to Triton and doing the same program with
the Nitrogen ice there, requires fewer than 10,000 hexagonal prisms of
Nitrogen be imported to Mars to achieve this.

158,850 - water ice shipments (Tethys)
9,000 - nitrogen ice shipments (Triton)
1,100 - water ice converted to oxygen/hydrogen (Tethys)

Using about 2 million miniature clean nuclear fusion devices placed by
20,000 nuclear fusion powered and propelled robots operating together
through an interplanetary network to a common plan.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqip_0Vjec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBsJwapanWI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18Z3UnnS_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQsRPJ1dYw

In 12 years we could not only terraform mars using this approach, but
also the Moon, Venus, and Mercury, while constructing billions of self-
contained pressure vessels around major asteroids and moons throughout
the solar system.

On Earth we could take the under utilized ship building industry and
build fusion powered spaceships at a rate of 600 per year - each with
75,000 tons take off weight - and each carrying 4,000 settlers and
3,600 tourists and 3,600 crew - along with 40,000 tonnes of supplies -
at one gee across the solar system. These ships would depopulate the
Earth within 12 years - and provide a continuing transport service
between worlds thereafter.

In this way we could turn Mercury, Venus, Luna, Mars, the following
asteroids

ASTEROID MASS (e18 kg)

Ceres 943.0
Vesta 267.0
Pallas 211.0
Hygiea 88.5
Interamnia 39.0
Davida 38.4
Eunomia 31.2
Juno 26.7
Herculina 22.9
Psyche 21.9

With provisions for 500 million people on each, including Earth.

Around the Asteroids and at L2 beyond Mercury and Venus, we build
space colonies like Island 3 or RAMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRUrIYKP944

Grounded versions of these sit on magnetic bearings on the Moon and
Mars.

O'Neil Island three type units carry 2.8 million people with farming
land in comfort. Truncated versions with low-gee farming and higher
gee habitation zones, on the Moon and Mars, carry 1 million. They
have their own fusion powered illumination.

Nuclear fusion powered tunnel boring machines that melt rock and cast
in place insulated spaces beneath Mercury and Venus, - forming spiral
cities under the surface, and powering those cities when complete.
Each city holds 2.8 million.

Only 1 million per city with room for natural growth. So, 7,500
cities spread across 15 worlds - 500 cities each.

Similar cities can be considered for the depopulated Earth beneath the
world's 500 largest cities.

I've posted elsewhere the details of Venusian terraforming - requiring
both water and iron - to take the CO2 and Sulfur levels down.

How do we deal with the radiation problem on Mars? Also won't the solar wind
strip away any atmosphere we add to Mars?

One more problem. The Martian day is too long. Human physiology can't adapt
to the longer days. NASA tested this years ago.



"Anne Onime" wrote in message
...

Being very wet, I was wondering if it would be possible to target Ceres
at either Mars or Venus to aid in terraforming these. If we are to
terraform other planets it will be vital that we increase the water
supply there so simpler lifeforms can grow there and start the
transformation.

Or should be pick smaller watery asteroids instead?

I'm still hopeful some nation or rich individual will send a low-cost
probe to Venus' upper atmosphere to deposit microbes in it to alter its
atmosphere and hopefully stop its greenshouse effect, cooling down the
planet.

On 7/17/2011 5:22 PM, Richard Stephens wrote:
How do we deal with the radiation problem on Mars? Also won't the solar
wind strip away any atmosphere we add to Mars?

One more problem. The Martian day is too long. Human physiology can't
adapt to the longer days. NASA tested this years ago.

I'm pretty sure we can adapt to days that are only about 40 minutes
longer than on Earth; test on people sealed in caves with no clocks or
day/night cycles in lighting showed that they went to a day that was
28-30 hours long.

Pat

On 17/07/2011 8:10 PM, Anne Onime wrote:
Being very wet, I was wondering if it would be possible to target Ceres
at either Mars or Venus to aid in terraforming these.

It would talke a significant change to its orbit. Hardly seems practical.

Sylvia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioZf4TjoUI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLAGYmUQV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cd36WJ79z4

http://youtu.be/f0vlrTVC2tQ

http://youtu.be/-fPJCEHumvE

The Case for Mars
http://youtu.be/BZ5sWfhkpE0