Travelling To The Next Star

[All Seeing Eye]

Space 1999 seems far fetched right? the Moon travelling off into Space with a base on it. Well maybe the next best thing isn't far fetched.

What if we looked a little further afield to the Moons of other planets instead.

The Moons:

Rhea
Oberon
Titania
Umbriel
Ariel
Dione

just to name a few are pretty small compared to our Moon and there are some even smaller. We could build safe underground self sustaining complexes on one of these tiny Moons.
All we need to do then is get it to break orbit with it's parent planet. If you wait until the Moon is at the stage in its orbit where it's travelling away from the Sun towards the outer solar system you could add some thrust to the Moons momentum and give it enough speed to break free and leave the solar system.

If we can do this on a Moon rich in resources and water they could be used to expand the underground complexes if the need arises.
I'm not sure but do any of the Moons have self sustaining geothermal energy? that would remain should it leave the solar system?

What kind of engine could break a small Moon away from it's parent planet? if we ever developed nuclear fusion could an engine be created from that technology? It would obviously need to be a large engine built into the Moon itself.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Item First: You said you weren't going to post new stuff in here. What changed?

Item Second: This is even less practical than your "pyramid to orbit" scheme. Even if you could produce enough thrust to make a moon or planetoid go a travelling from its orbit, you're still talking about a ridiculous velocity compaired to velocities needed to cross any interstellar distance in a human lifetime.

Guidance would be a problem.

Natural spin of your moon would be a problem.

Item Third: if we could get far enough out in our solar system to build and attach an engine powerful enough on one of those distand moons, we would have easily mastered the construction of craft large enough to go onward without moving a celestial body.

 

[T'Girl]

If we could build a "underground self sustaining complex" on a moon, we could do the same thing in open space. A giant space ship. Io, a moon of Jupiter, gets it's "geo"-thermal activity from it's proximity to Jupiter. Broken free of it's orbit, it would in time cool off.

 

[Supreme Admiral]

If we could build a "underground self sustaining complex" on a moon, we could do the same thing in open space. A giant space ship. Io, a moon of Jupiter, gets it's "geo"-thermal activity from it's proximity to Jupiter. Broken free of it's orbit, it would in time cool off.

How? How can we get Io, a moon of Jupiter, to get broken free of it's parent planet's orbit? Sorry to disappointing you, dear one, I don't see it how.

Granted, we should send humans to live there to built cities and do search to find water there to survive off the moons there, but won't it be poison for humans to drink such strange water there? At least, Titan, a moon of Saturn, does have water there, more research needed there before we make any move.

Titan is truly beautiful orange moon and very earth-like. We should study three parent planets' moons, we can survive there, I have my good faith in humanity who can survive anything that throw off at humanity.

Not so sure about cats and dogs that can survive...is it possible that those creatures can survive?

 

[sojourner]

The cost outweighs the benefits.

 

[Zachary Smith]

If we could build a "underground self sustaining complex" on a moon, we could do the same thing in open space. A giant space ship. Io, a moon of Jupiter, gets it's "geo"-thermal activity from it's proximity to Jupiter. Broken free of it's orbit, it would in time cool off.

How? How can we get Io, a moon of Jupiter, to get broken free of it's parent planet's orbit? Sorry to disappointing you, dear one, I don't see it how.

Simple. Disintegrate Jupiter! JEEZE!

 

[Supreme Admiral]

If we could build a "underground self sustaining complex" on a moon, we could do the same thing in open space. A giant space ship. Io, a moon of Jupiter, gets it's "geo"-thermal activity from it's proximity to Jupiter. Broken free of it's orbit, it would in time cool off.

How? How can we get Io, a moon of Jupiter, to get broken free of it's parent planet's orbit? Sorry to disappointing you, dear one, I don't see it how.

Simple. Disintegrate Jupiter! JEEZE!

You don't have to shout! My good god!

But won't it be putting too much work to disintegrate Jupiter?

 

[Zachary Smith]

How? How can we get Io, a moon of Jupiter, to get broken free of it's parent planet's orbit? Sorry to disappointing you, dear one, I don't see it how.

Simple. Disintegrate Jupiter! JEEZE!

You don't have to shout! My good god!

But won't it be putting too much work to disintegrate Jupiter?

Well, you asked "how to do it". You never said anything about making it cost-effective . . .

 

[Trekker4747]

just to name a few are pretty small compared to our Moon and there are some even smaller. .

You know what else is smaller than our moon? A reasonably sized space-ship, something whose mass is going to be hard enough to push to high enough speeds to get to nearby stars in anything less than a lifetime.

The power that would be needed to push a moon-sized object, even a "small moon," would be enormous; probably more power than the power the planet has ever generated.

Stop getting "great ideas" for cheesey 70s sci-fi shows.

 

[Zachary Smith]

You know, though, I actually had a thought several years ago about whether it would be possible to shift the orbit of a few decent sized asteroids so they would regularly intersect with the orbits of planets at regular intervals. NOT so close as to slam into them, of course. But close enough to just, say, hop from Earth to the asteroid passing by, land there and ride it until it swings around Mars, jump off and land on Mars. Now, it might be difficult to coordinate FREQUENT fly-bys of any one particular asteroid, but if you managed to arrange several of these regular asteroid visitors there'd always be another one coming by soon to piggy-back on. You don't necessarily have to travel back on the one that brung ya, in this case.

 

[sojourner]

You know, though, I actually had a thought several years ago about whether it would be possible to shift the orbit of a few decent sized asteroids so they would regularly intersect with the orbits of planets at regular intervals. NOT so close as to slam into them, of course. But close enough to just, say, hop from Earth to the asteroid passing by, land there and ride it until it swings around Mars, jump off and land on Mars. Now, it might be difficult to coordinate FREQUENT fly-bys of any one particular asteroid, but if you managed to arrange several of these regular asteroid visitors there'd always be another one coming by soon to piggy-back on. You don't necessarily have to travel back on the one that brung ya, in this case.

Do a search on "cycling spaceship" and "transfer orbits". NASA had this idea for Mars transit, but skipped on the un-needed asteroids.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Just built a giant balloon around Jupiter. Glue your moon to the end of the balloon opposite from the neck. When you're ready to troupe into the cosmos, untie the knot and let her fly at incredible velocity!

NOTE: For guidance, you may need to tether some llamas to the neck of the balloon. They could then pull the balloon neck in the direction opposite from the desired vector of travel.

Also, as Jupiter is discharged from the balloon, you'd leave a really pretty trail of colors for everyone on Earth to see your progress by!

 

[Silvercrest]

Are you sure the llamas will all pull the same direction?

 

[Icemizer]

LLamas are very uncooperative in groups. Better to use cows as they can be herded in a similar direction. You know we would all like to see Space Cows.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Are you sure the llamas will all pull the same direction?

2 words:
Cyborg implants!

Note: as long as we're adding those to the Llama Guidance System (LGS) we might as well add lasers and make it the Llama Guidance and Defense System (LGDS).

 

[All Seeing Eye]

The power that would be needed to push a moon-sized object, even a "small moon," would be enormous; probably more power than the power the planet has ever generated.

Stop getting "great ideas" for cheesey 70s sci-fi shows.

You could knock a Moon out of it's orbit by adding only 1 Newton of force and we could easily add more than that.

If you do it over a long period of time you can slowly cause the Moon to move further and further out away from its parent planet until eventually it breaks free. Keep in mind that the Moon we would choose to use would already have a velocity of its own.

Rhea for example orbits Saturn at about 8.48 km/s, so you only have to add 3.52 km/s in order to get Rhea out of Saturn's orbit for good because to get it out of Saturn's orbit Rhea would need to be travelling at 12 km/s.

The benefits of using a Moon rather than a ship is quite simple. A Moon is large enough for development of a colony, the journey to the next star would be quite long and you'd need a hell of a big ship to make that length of journey, if you use a Moon not only do you have plenty of room to expand you have resources at your fingertips and ultimate protection against space radiation and meteor bombardments. A ship hit with just one tiny meteor or comet if it's travelling fast enough would rip through it killing everyone onboard, a Moon would offer full protection.

Many of the craters on the Moon surface could be converted into telescopes and other systems for studying space. As it approached the next star system it could look for planets there early and adjust it's course. Due the the area available on the Moons surface the telescopes and other systems could be made quite large compared to if you simply built a ship.

Once the Moon is at the next star system it could be put into orbit around any planet there that could potentially harbour a new colony. With the original colony Moon in orbit colonisation of another planet would be a lot easier not to mention the resources the Moon offers could be utilised.

 

[Silvercrest]

If you do it over a long period of time you can slowly cause the Moon to move further and further out away from its parent planet until eventually it breaks free. Keep in mind that the Moon we would choose to use would already have a velocity of its own.

Rhea for example orbits Saturn at about 8.48 km/s, so you only have to add 3.52 km/s in order to get Rhea out of Saturn's orbit for good because to get it out of Saturn's orbit Rhea would need to be travelling at 12 km/s.

Really, is that all? Wow, the distance to the Alpha Centauri system is only 41.5 trillion km. At 12 km/s, it will only take 11,000 years to get there!! Let's get started!!!!

(Someone check my math on that, please.)

BTW, once you've gotten Rhea free from Saturn's orbit, how much will it take to break solar orbit? That's a different question, you know.

And Taccy, I don't think we have a means to build a closed biosphere and a guaranteed power source with an 11,000-year lifespan. Minimum. It's a modest way farther on to the next closest star system.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The power that would be needed to push a moon-sized object, even a "small moon," would be enormous; probably more power than the power the planet has ever generated.

Stop getting "great ideas" for cheesey 70s sci-fi shows.

You could knock a Moon out of it's orbit by adding only 1 Newton of force and we could easily add more than that.

You want to push a moon out of its orbit by applying 1 N of force?
Do you realize how big a moon is?
You'll have to apply this force for several million years to free a moon from its orbit! And then there is the solar gravity well - here goes another few million years.

And what will you have then?
A huge mass (most of which is dead weight) who's moving at a snails pace in a direction you can't control - unless you want to wait another few million years with your 1 N push.

I Am Legend, we're not living in a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon. You can't bend the laws of physics because something sounds cool to you.

 

[Silvercrest]

I Am Legend, we're not living in a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon.

Don't be too sure. A lot of his ideas are pulled right out of hammerspace.

 

[sojourner]

^to add to that, you can't use the laws of physics to argue your case if you don't know what they are.

Edited to add: If it's going to take millions of years to break orbit using one newton of force, how in hell do you propose to establish orbit in your destination star system?

Aerobraking?