Space Colonization Options (Orbiting Stations, planets/moons)

Kamen Rider Blade · Jan 29, 2022

Paul Weaver said:
with that amount of firepower you’d cause more damage pointing it at a city or the ground station.

The falling panels were not a intentional Terrorist Attack, it was the side effect of one where the

The Free-Electron Laser named "Memento Mori" mounted to the lower Orbital Ring was being used by the A-Laws, a Autonomous "Peace Keeping" force ran by the ESF (Earth Sphere Federation) which is the defacto World Government that has control over the Orbital Ring, Orbital Elevators, & all the Solar Power generated by the Solar Panels on the Outer Orbital Ring. The A-Laws were battling the rebel faction Katharon, who were opposed to the ESF and formed by many ex-military members from the previous 3 Major SuperNational PowerBlocs, who gathered together as a Anti-Authoritarian Government Resistance Group known as Katharon.

The A-Laws were planing on using "Memento Mori" to wipe out Katharons bases on Earth by blasting them from orbit and has used the same laser to destroy the half of Katharon's 1st Space Fleet.

Luckily "Celestial Being", the neutral and independent Armed Para Military group and the shows Protagonists was there to destroy the Super Weapon known as "Memento Mori".

Break Pillar Incident
Second Memento Mori
However, that wasn't the only "Memento Mori" FEL in operation, there was a second unit hidden on the Oribtal ring that was part way through construction and months later, it was revealed and brought into operation.

During the Federation Army's coup d'état attempt, in which the dissidents occupy the AEU's orbital elevator, La Tour, the A-Laws unveil another Memento Mori to destroy the elevator's low orbital station. Setsuna and Saji Crossroad sortied against the second Memento Mori in the 00 Raiser and tried to destroy it with the Raiser Sword. However, the attack only severely damaged the cannon, and it managed to fire and caused parts of the orbital elevator to collapse. Four months later, the repaired cannon was destroyed by 00 Raiser.

Paul Weaver · Jan 29, 2022

Asbo Zaprudder said:
At GEO, you would have attained orbital velocity by definition.

but not escape velocity. You’d be doing c 3kms (the upward vector of 300km/h doesn’t make much difference), you need an additional 1.3km/s to reach escape velocity from GEO, which is trivial with a constant acceleration up a tether from LEO, but materials mean you need magnetic coupling for that.

I wouldn’t count carbon nanotubes as a single cable of 30cm as trivial, let alone of 30,000+km. still a way to go. Maybe in 50 years though, and I hope I’m proven wrong.

Asbo Zaprudder · Jan 30, 2022

Yeah, just go farther along the cable and release where the rotational speed (v=rω) is higher:

Objects release from a terrestrial space elevator extended to 53,100 km would have Earth (but not solar system) escape velocity when released. Transfer orbits to Sun-Earth L1, Sun-Earth L2, and lunar orbit could be achieved by releasing at around 51,000 km.

Transfer to Jupiter for further gravitational assist would require release from 100,000 km. For more information, see the PDF linked above.

Kamen Rider Blade · Jan 30, 2022

Paul Weaver said:
but not escape velocity. You’d be doing c 3kms (the upward vector of 300km/h doesn’t make much difference), you need an additional 1.3km/s to reach escape velocity from GEO, which is trivial with a constant acceleration up a tether from LEO, but materials mean you need magnetic coupling for that.

I wouldn’t count carbon nanotubes as a single cable of 30cm as trivial, let alone of 30,000+km. still a way to go. Maybe in 50 years though, and I hope I’m proven wrong.

I wonder how much energy the MagLev Tether Trains would need to haul a significant amount of cargo into space, let's say 150 Metric Tons?

publiusr · Jan 30, 2022

What if the lunar elevator was just a Dyson Harrop powergen tether?

Solar tech
https://www.spacedaily.com/m/reports/Perovskite_solar_cells_protecting_the_Earth_999.html

Asbo Zaprudder · Jan 30, 2022

KamenRiderBlade said:
I wonder how much energy the MagLev Tether Trains would need to haul a significant amount of cargo into space, let's say 150 Metric Tons?

It's basically a problem of how much energy is expended carrying a mass up a very tall tower. Up to GEO, at least ma(r)h(r), where m is mass, a is the nett acceleration due to the combined effect of Earth's gravity and centrifugal force, which depends on the radial distance r from the centre of mass, and h is the difference in height between the Earth's surface and the release point. Any rotational energy can be "stolen" from the Earth via the cable. Beyond the GEO distance of 36,000 km, centrifugal acceleration for free can be used along the cable as the rotational velocity is higher than the orbital velocity for that distance. I'll do the integration calculation when I have the spare time. Someone probably already did it in the literature.

ETA: From section V of PKASpace Elevators.pdf (wpi.edu):

The space elevator affords an inexpensive and easy way to get payload into space: we simply have to make it ride up the elevator! One way of appreciating the advantage afforded by the elevator is to compare the ideal energy cost of getting a piece of payload into a geostationary orbit without and with the elevator. Without the elevator, the ideal cost would be the sum of the potential and kinetic energy costs in raising the payload from the surface of the Earth to geostationary orbit. If the payload is sent up on the elevator, the kinetic energy cost is saved because the elevator automatically imparts the necessary velocity to the payload.

...the fractional savings in energy in getting to geostationary orbit with the elevator is (R/Rg)/(2−(R/Rg)), which works out to about 8%. This savings may not seem like much, but it should be remembered that if payload is sent up on a spacecraft, a huge additional cost is incurred in sending the spacecraft up along with its load. Proposals have also been made to use the tower as a linear induction propulsion system that would recover energy from a descending capsule and reuse the energy later to propel a capsule up the tower.

My calculations show an energy expenditure of about 48.4 MJ/kg (48.4 megajoules per kilogram) so 150 metric tons (150,000 kg) would require 7.26 TJ (terajoules) of energy to reach GEO using a space elevator.

publiusr · Jan 30, 2022

A flyby rotorvator doing a skyhook payload snag would be something to see. Cable backspin and only a few hundred km long.

That might lift a massive payload from the ocean with SRBs only used to get the payload going and to reduce cable strain, with an asteroid bola at the other end to wind it up.

Might that lift an oil Derrick to LEO?

Asbo Zaprudder · Jan 30, 2022

I would have thought air resistance - both of the cable and the payload - would be the main problem.

Santaman · Jan 30, 2022

Uugh, can't we just make a 300KM high mountain and be done with it?

Gingerbread Demon · Jan 30, 2022

Santaman said:
Uugh, can't we just make a 300KM high mountain and be done with it?

Make it a pyramid shaped Arkology

valkyrie013 · Jan 30, 2022

In 00, there's a low ring, and there's a station there.
Was wondering what the gravity would be there?
I think it said 10,000 km high. It would basically be a REALLY tall mountain, would you still have gravity pulling you down at that height? I think I saw something that you would still be at maybe .75 G even at that hight as your technically Not in freefall because your not at orbit velocity.

Asbo Zaprudder · Jan 30, 2022

If stationary in a tower at the equator at R=16,371 km from the centre of the Earth (10,000 km + Earth radius of r = 6,371 km), the nett acceleration from gravitation (applying the inverse square law) and centrifugal acceleration would be:

a = (g(r/R)²) - Rω²

Acceleration due to gravity at Earth's surface g = 9.81 m/s²
Angular velocity of Earth ω = 0.00007272 radians/s (2π radians per day)

So a = (9.81*(6371/16371)²) - 16,371,000*(0.0000727)² = about 1.4 m/s² or 14% of g, slightly less than gravitational acceleration on the Moon (1.62 m/s²).

Kamen Rider Blade · Jan 31, 2022

valkyrie013 said:
In 00, there's a low ring, and there's a station there.
Was wondering what the gravity would be there?
I think it said 10,000 km high. It would basically be a REALLY tall mountain, would you still have gravity pulling you down at that height? I think I saw something that you would still be at maybe .75 G even at that hight as your technically Not in freefall because your not at orbit velocity.

I talk about the Orbital Tower & Ring from Gundam 00 in my post over here.
There's 2x Orbital rings, one at 10k km, another at 40k km.

Asbo Zaprudder said:
My calculations show an energy expenditure of about 48.4 MJ/kg (48.4 megajoules per kilogram) so 150 metric tons (150,000 kg) would require 7.26 TJ (terajoules) of energy to reach GEO using a space elevator.

I wonder, how would the Space Elevator compare to the equivalent Rockets to get the same cargo to space?

I wonder how that would compare to Transporters.

Obviously Transporters will have the Speed / Timeliness / Safety factor advantage for moving cargo.

But Energy Efficiency to cover the same distance might be far worse in comparison to move a similar amount of cargo via Orbital Elevator & having Work Bee's move the objects back & forth between Storage Docks & your cargo holds.

If you don't need a massive ton of cargo to be ready to go right away; going the slow route up to orbit via Space Elevator, then having Work Bee's move it from Orbital Docks to your Cargo Holds might be more energy efficient when time or energy costs aren't a critical factor.

Kind of like modern shipping & logistics of Cargo Ships vs Air Transport for mass amounts of goods.

There's a clear energy cost difference when moving each kg and cubic meter from A to B.

Asbo Zaprudder · Jan 31, 2022

Or move mining, manufacturing, and construction off the Earth as soon as possible to stop having to drag megatonnes of stuff up out of its gravity well.

XCV330 · Jan 31, 2022

publiusr said:
A flyby rotorvator doing a skyhook payload snag would be something to see. Cable backspin and only a few hundred km long.

That might lift a massive payload from the ocean with SRBs only used to get the payload going and to reduce cable strain, with an asteroid bola at the other end to wind it up.

Might that lift an oil Derrick to LEO?

if Ron Howard's film of Neil Stephenson's Seveneves does get made into a movie (that was supposed to happen , I haven't heard a peep since covid), there should be at least one significant scene involving using a rotorvator. It's a pretty big book and tucked towards the last section that honestly should be its own movie, so I don't know if we'd even get to that point. I don't want to say more about it as I am getting into a huge spoiler part of that novel.

If moon mining ever became profitable, I could imagine a lunar rotovator being made. There are a lot of physical challengers for an Earth rotovator due to atmosphere.

Asbo Zaprudder said:
Or move mining, manufacturing, and construction off the Earth as soon as possible to stop having to drag megatonnes of stuff up out of its gravity well.

That's been my main issue with the idea of the SE. It's really only useful for cargo, and by the time a spacefaring civilization is well along and ready to build it, the infrastructure to do so out in orbit means it isn't really needed.

It's a bit like the Tenn-Tombigbee Canal. An absolutely huge project. 234 miles long, 10 locks, 2 billion dollars (in 1970s money). Longer than the White Sea-Baltic or Suez Canals, connecting the Great Lakes, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers to the Gulf. It should be one of the busiest most revenue generating megaprojects in history.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-88.3/centery:33.9/zoom:9
oh wait.

but as you can see here, hardly anyone uses it. It was designed to wrong specs and pronostications about how shipping would work. Barge trains got bigger and wider, leaving the Lower miss as the only real economic option. Now it's just there, used just enough to keep it from being closed, and no one remembers or talks much about it. The railroads, so scared that it would bankrupt them that they tried to sue to keep it from being constructed, send freight over it on their own bridges hour after hour.

Kamen Rider Blade · Feb 1, 2022

shapeshifter said:
<GULP!> Armored? As in a steel plate? Megatons? How does that get lifted, put in place? Seems that task alone makes the project too expensive, unless built from ground up? Not to be overly pessimistic but...

It's never stated as to what the plates are made out of, but they're strong enough to stop most basic things like Wind, Birds, Insects, Rain, Radiation, probably low caliber stray bullets.

They obviously don't survive Beam Rifle blasts since they get vaporized by them.

It seems like the Foundation Series also has a "Terrorist" problem as well.

Kamen Rider Blade · Feb 1, 2022

shapeshifter said:
My original question was about space junk.

shapeshifter said:
A ceramic may be a better option if strong enough. Lighter for sure. Okay, I am out. Thanks for your time and attention.

Ceramic Tiles would be a good option as Armored Panels against most basic things they need to protect a Orbital Tower.

Cost, Mass, Replaceability, etc.

Modern Body Armor uses ALOT of Ceramics to stop high caliber Full Powered Rifle Bullets.

So I wouldn't be surprised if Space junk flying that fast hitting Ceramic Armored Tiles would be a good stopper of Space Junk flying really fast.

XCV330 · Feb 1, 2022

again more and more ridiculous H.G. Wells infrastructure for a device that would never really be needed.

publiusr · Feb 6, 2022

XCV330 said:
It's a bit like the Tenn-Tombigbee Canal. An absolutely huge project. 234 miles long, 10 locks, 2 billion dollars (in 1970s money). Longer than the White Sea-Baltic or Suez Canals, connecting the Great Lakes, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers to the Gulf. It should be one of the busiest most revenue generating megaprojects in history.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-88.3/centery:33.9/zoom:9
oh wait.

but as you can see here, hardly anyone uses it.

publiusr · Mar 26, 2022

Space Colonization Options (Orbiting Stations, planets/moons)

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