Venusian Atmospheric Density

[YNM]

15 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

cheap fluids on Mars

*looks at Mars imagery*

They must be the best fluid bank ever, looks dry to me !

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, YNM said:

They must be the best fluid bank ever, looks dry to me !

Full atmo of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and two polar caps.

It's strange to read that Mars doesn't have this, while Moon and Venus do.

Edited July 6, 2018 by kerbiloid

[K^2]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

That's all we have to know about your further calculations and assumptions.
100 kg of water on Venus = 100 kg * 100 t / kg = 10 000 t of raw "air".

100kg of air per second. Yes, typo is my fault, but if you seriously can't even follow THAT derivation, I see no reason to continue discussion. You still haven't answered a single question posed. And the fact that you continue talking about nuclear power is a total reading comprehension fail on your end. Adios.

[YNM]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Full atmo of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and two polar caps.

Barely an atmosphere. (alright, yes, fluid, but not liquid.)

Space is hostile, until we have tamed it. And we won't tame it unless there's a damn good reason to.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, K^2 said:

Adios.

As you wish.
Though there is a good side in a huge air scoops on a Venusian floating island.
Collecting 100 t of "air" per every 1 kg of water (i.e. 1000 t of air per 1 kg of hydrogen) requires so powerfull scoops, that they will be also jets, pushing the island like a zeppelin around the planet.

Spoiler

Btw, about metrology.
Any measurement has its own accuracy (consists of different members, but doesn't matter).
Any measurement result has its error.
Conclusion of any experiment is a hypothesis taken with some confidence level.
So, any experimental "knowledge" is a probabilistic assumption, not an exact knowledge. This is what the science stays on. 
Refresh your course of metrology, please.

 

1 hour ago, YNM said:

Barely an atmosphere. (alright, yes, fluid, but not liquid.)

?
Fluids are liquids, gases, or something indistinguishable, what's wrong? 
When you are pulling a drilled substance it can be gaseous or liquid on some parts of its way. It even can form hydrates and become crystals.

1 hour ago, YNM said:

Space is hostile, until we have tamed it. And we won't tame it unless there's a damn good reason to.

Bad news. We live in space.

We're a like a doll house in the middle of a criminal district near a nuclear-powered chemical plant. What can go wrong?

Edited July 6, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

When you are pulling a drilled substance it can be gaseous or liquid on some parts of its way.

If that happens then whoever is designing the system is either

a. made complete balls of it

or

b. has coped with it.

And again, martian atmospheric density is only 3 g per m^3 max. Contrast to Earth at 1000 g per m^3, contrast to liquid methane on Titan at more than 422000 g per m^3 (atmo pressure 1.5 atm, temp barely lower than what we have for them on Earth).

In fact, water on Europa (or Enceladus, actually) has leaked to space anyway. It has more than enough pressure to push it to the surface.

And you can, presumably, sell them. Straight off the source.

 

Who wants martian steel, that needs loads of propellant and needs loads more of propellant for the (loads of money-worth) machinery ? I can sell you the ore for that with some margin of profit just from free-flying rocks.

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, YNM said:

And again, martian atmospheric density is only 3 g per m^3 max. Contrast to Earth at 1000 g per m^3

Yes, that's one of the reasons why humans should live on Earth, rather than colonize Mars.
Though this doesn't mean that you can't be using Martian atmosphere and cryosphere.

If somebody tells you that Mars is better than Earth, don't believe him!

13 minutes ago, YNM said:

contrast to liquid methane on Titan at more than 422000 g per m^3

And I totally agree with you, Titan is great and is a must-have thing for further expansion.
Though this doesn't mean the only one.

Of course, there is a little problem about Titan: it's covered with ice and hydrocarbons, and other Saturn moons are mostly snowballs.
So, it's some lack of metals there. Better deliver them from another place.

Also, Titan is inside a radiation belt. Not a real problem, but nasty.

And it's very cryogenic. Not a real problem, too. Especially if you enjoy cryovolcanoes under every base module

And delta-V is a little bit higher for both leaving Saturn and getting to Earth.
Not impossible, too. But definitely not the first bus stop on your way. More like the 4th.

Enceladus is in turn a great addition to Titan.
When you are already using Titan.

22 minutes ago, YNM said:

In fact, water on Europa

is inside a radiation belt.
Also, water is not a problem beyond Mars orbit, because it's enough cold there to keep ice for billions years.
Most of moons and "a half of" asteroids are water ice.

Water is a problem only inside the Earth orbit. It's hot.

Also, afaik, Europa looks not rich with metals and hydrocarbons. (If you have more optimistic info about that, I would read with appreciation.)
In fact, this is a just one more next-door partially liquid ice moon.

And Jupiter is three times farther than Mars, and has enough valuable escape speed.

So, maybe Jupiter moons have something useful except water and sulfur, but anyway they are definitely not the first bus stop on your way. 3rd.

29 minutes ago, YNM said:

And you can, presumably, sell them

Sell to whom?
Every planet except Venus and Mercury has enough water.
(Moon doesn't, but why need Moon when there is Earth).

33 minutes ago, YNM said:

Who wants martian steel,

Martian steel itself - nobody. If just plan to build a metallurgical plant far from Earth.

34 minutes ago, YNM said:

that needs loads of propellant

Local propellant, that's important.

35 minutes ago, YNM said:

I can sell you the ore for that with some margin of profit just from free-flying rocks.

First get to that rocks and back. They are twice farther than Mars. 

Mars is the most logical first step and a transit port on the road.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, YNM said:

If that happens then whoever is designing the system is either

a. made complete balls of it

or

b. has coped with it.

And again, martian atmospheric density is only 3 g per m^3 max. Contrast to Earth at 1000 g per m^3, contrast to liquid methane on Titan at more than 422000 g per m^3 (atmo pressure 1.5 atm, temp barely lower than what we have for them on Earth).

In fact, water on Europa (or Enceladus, actually) has leaked to space anyway. It has more than enough pressure to push it to the surface.

And you can, presumably, sell them. Straight off the source.

 

Who wants martian steel, that needs loads of propellant and needs loads more of propellant for the (loads of money-worth) machinery ? I can sell you the ore for that with some margin of profit just from free-flying rocks.

Only Martian want steel made on Mars, you can not export it, it might however be cheaper than importing it. 

As said before if you want an large colony it need to make money in the long term. Note that this does not apply for bases who might be pretty large and long term like South Pole bases, but they are not colonies. 

Orbit or the L points is the obvious one because its an way station between Earth and the rest. Moon is another but asteroids wins over moon long term. 
Venus is far behind both the gas giants and mercury, that is until we teraform it (note that dinosaurs is mandatory)  

[YNM]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Sell to whom?

All the interplanetary cruise ships stopping by ! Y'know, interplanetary highway service areas 

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Local propellant, that's important.

Easily available on Titan. (and all the gas giants.)

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

First get to that rocks and back. They are twice farther than Mars.

But is available in helpful movable chunks and doesn't involve escaping from the gravity well of a planet.

 

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

As said before if you want an large colony it need to make money in the long term.

yup.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, YNM said:

All the interplanetary cruise ships stopping by ! Y'know, interplanetary highway service areas

Is it a space opera?

2 hours ago, YNM said:

Easily available on Titan. (and all the gas giants.)

You should start with Titan, it's much closer than Mars.

2 hours ago, YNM said:

But is available in helpful movable chunks and doesn't involve escaping from the gravity well of a planet.

Which exactly asteroid are you planning to start with?

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Only Martian want steel made on Mars

Nobody wants steel made of Mars. Exactly like steel made on asteroids.
But Mars anyway will be by definition the first industrial base.
It's first product will be fuel for Earth-Mars and Mars-Mars travels.
Metals are just a by-product to support your Martian infrastructure.

But when you need a few of metal, and you already have a puny Mars/Phobos metallurgy, there is absolutely no need to mine the same rust on ast-ore-oids.
That's why Mars-Phobos will highly likely be the first and the last metallurgucal facility in Solar System except Earth.

Also, when you already have fluid facility on Mars, there is not much need in mining ice-teroids.

Don't forget also that on Mars there is gravity. You can use vertical stills and vats, i.e. use gravity for free to separate things (both fluids and metals).
On asteroids you must use centrifuges or so, spending a lot of energy.

Unlikely ice-teroids have a lot of carbon-nitrogen, while Mars has.

And there is still a problem how to deliver your workers to the belt, keep them, and get them back.
A travel to Mars takes 8 months maximum, you can use just a small medical centrifuge in a gym, you don't really need a huge rotating thing, heavy and hardly balanced.
On Mars you have 0.4 g for free, so your personnel also can use the same small medical centrifuge in a gym. Several years later they return home more or less healthy.
So, Mars is the farthest place where you can get without fusion engines or monstrous ships. This makes it a kind of threshold and makes to hang around for decades.

Btw where should the personnel live on ice-teroid? Even rotating cylinders should be made and equipped somewhere else, and then delivered.
You already have Mars to do this. You had built its industry, so there is no need to additionally build a Ceres metallurgy plant, when you anyway already have a metal warehouse on Phobos.
 

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

As said before if you want an large colony it need to make money in the long term.

Space opera. A space settlement will never make enough money.
It can only be a government (whatever this word means in future) thing.

All space money will be being made on Earth. Contracts to support the government thing.

Titan is great, and much greater than Mars, but it will never be a metallurgical plant, and this is a next task.
When you start using Titan, Mars will be its support base.

Mars is a compromise between the great Titan and much greater Earth.
Almost all industry you have on Earth. Almost all fluids you have on Titan.
Mars is the place where you build and equip crafts and send them to Titan and other places.

While you are utilizing Mars, you have its metallurgy to support its main task - producing fluids.
When you start utilizing Titan, you have Martian fluid plants to support its main task - produce metals.

No ast-ore-oid required in addition (nobody will give you money when you are already mining Mars and Phobos).
No reasons to give you money to start mining some of 25 000 000 _{(according to wiki)} asteroids sooner than Mars.

Some ice-teroids are useful. Just like Mars.
But they have mostly water, nothing more. So, their application is limited.

As well as Jup moons. They are also both in a gravity well and a radiation hell.

Venus is a punchbag. 
Moon and Mercury are useless pieces of slag.

Titan is greater but later.

Edited July 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Is it a space opera?

No.

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Which exactly asteroid are you planning to start with?

Whichever is made of metal.

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It's first product will be fuel for Earth-Mars and Mars-Mars travels.

Sabatier reaction ? You still need a hydrogen precursor.

[mikegarrison]

NO ONE KNOWS how easy it will be to get water on Mars. We do know that hydrogen is quite rare on Venus and that the only source for water would be sucking in gaseous acid and doing chemistry on it to turn it into water.

There is basically zero chance people are going to try to colonize Venus before Mars. Neither one is going to be easy.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

Whichever is made of metal.

Let it be Psyche.
(I like its icon: , kinda Robinson's island with a palm).
It's really fine that it is 200 km big, and "observations indicate that Psyche has a fairly pure iron–nickel composition".
It's a pity that every piece of fuel and water should delivered there from another celestial body.
But you can be sure, after 20 km Phobos will be depleted (including its underground ice, if any), Psyche will be the next, I promise.

1 hour ago, YNM said:

You still need a hydrogen precursor.

I know one. Water. 

9 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

NO ONE KNOWS how easy it will be to get water on Mars.

Does anyone know how easy is it on Psyche?

Basically, we have:
ast-ore-oids like Psyche. Full of metal, no fluids.
ice-teroids. Full of ice, no metals.
frosen dirt similar to Phobos. They are like Phobos, but much farther.

Anyway it would be interesting to watch how somebody asks money to mine iron on Psyche, instead of "colonize Mars".
When you have bad and ineffective fuel/polymer/metal industry on Mars, asteroids become an additional bonus.
When you have a steel plant on Psyche, nobody needs steel from Psyche. Order of sequence is important.

Edited July 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[mikegarrison]

On 7/5/2018 at 2:34 AM, ARS said:

The public opinion of airship plummets after the Hindenburg disaster, just in time where aircraft transport become much more practical, thus, airships are considered as a waste of money due to their suggish movement and eat a lot of space. However, aside from that, an airship is also the closest that we can get as a floating structure, for example, The Hindenburg. As a luxury liner, she had a huge amount of space to begin with- the A deck alone was larger than an entire 747 in floor space, all dedicated to just 100 passengers and crew. She was designed to use non-flammable helium as the lifting gas, but the company had to settle for flammable hydrogen due to an embargo. Coincidentally, this change also meant she had roughly 10% more lift per volume. The extra lift was used for the addition of first-class cabins. Its sister the Graf Zeppelin II could carry nearly twice as many passengers. That much space is far more than an overkill for space research/ floating colony purpose

You know why you need a blimp to have all that space? Because you need to live on it for several days to cross the ocean, whereas in an airplane you just sit in a seat for a few hours.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Not politics, but just can't stop myself from.

Just imagine what will happen with steel income taxes if begin mining Psyche...

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[ARS]

13 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

You know why you need a blimp to have all that space? Because you need to live on it for several days to cross the ocean, whereas in an airplane you just sit in a seat for a few hours.

You know why you need a Venus Aerostat to have all that space? Because you need to live on it for several months to conduct research and doing daily activity, whereas on a blimp on earth you just live there for a few days.

Edited July 7, 2018 by ARS

[kerbiloid]

What research requires a crew on that blimp?

They can't gather stones, can't drill.

Edited July 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

43 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

I know one. Water. 

Very energy intensive. Combined with the heating for Sabatier reaction...

47 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

It's a pity that every piece of fuel and water should delivered there from another celestial body.

I mean, that's what many ships and planes do today anyway, just for the cheap fuel.

30 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They can't gather stones, can't drill.

What, you think aerodynamics is easier than geology ?

[kerbiloid]

55 minutes ago, YNM said:

What, you think aerodynamics is easier than geology ?

They don't need Venus to study aerodynamics.

[NSEP]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

What research requires a crew on that blimp?

They can't gather stones, can't drill.

The one of the only things humans can do that robots can't is researching ourselves. But in a place protected from solar radiation, and with simulair gravity, there is nothing much to be researched that we can't do here at home.

[YNM]

12 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They don't need Venus to study aerodynamics.

If you want to know what happens in a catastrophic failure inside your acid vat then it's perfect.