It's been brought to my attention that 11 years ago, an architect made a mad plan to give us more space. To be specific, seven Earths of space, using the materials of the earth itself. Just one problem -- the original earth would be completely destroyed.
Specifically, the plan was to drill into four spots in the equator, and have it pumped up four space elevators, producing an ever-growing ring around the earth, which would be expanded over time into a giant hollow shell. As this worked, the sky would darken, gravity would shrink (due to more of the earth being above you than below you), and everything would slowly get moved up. Halfway through the process, all of our nature and civilization would have to be moved up to the hollow surface up top. Finally, the shriveled up earth collapses, raining down on the inner surface, providing it with the atmosphere and water it needs to survive.
Other engineers have pointed out just a minor rub in the plan. Namely, the nickle-iron substance of the mantle that he was planning to use as the primary framework could not withstand the strain of an object that big, and would collapse. With some slight reenforcement from asteroid-iron, it could survive that, only to get ripped apart by the lunar and solar tides. Ultimately, a stable lattice would require materials that have not yet been invented.
It's clear to me that eventually, we will need more space than the earth has. Every idea, even the completely crazy ones, will help.
Showing posts with label Geology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geology. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2015
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Great Underway
I don't think anyone really likes living near a highway. They're loud. (VRRRROOOOOOOOOSSSHHH!!) They're grey. They increase the amount of traffic near you. And when there's a traffic snarlup..... HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK, and then it promptly spills over to the nearby streets, because people get impatient. I'm sure the city doesn't like the loss of so much land either. So much land that could, I don't know, be a business district.
I'm imagining a layered highway. On the top layer, a two lane road with a business district on either side. Quiet. Calm. Peaceful. 35 MPH speed limit. And occasional lanes down to a lower layer. This one has no stop signs or traffic lights, and the speed limit is 55 MPH. It's enclosed, which reduces the sound the cars make, with paintings along the side showing what the next exit leads to. The exits are special lanes that go back up to the surface street. And in the middle, there's an occasional lane down one layer more.
The lowest level has speed limits of 120MPH (or higher). It's meant for the really long hauls, Interstate or further. Fans on the ceiling drop air resistance by a significant amount. Your massive rocketing speed remains unnoticed at the surface, as you are quite some way down. Exits lead back to the main freeway level every so many miles.
Ideally, this would use the earth as a sound absorber. If you lived near this freeway, you might not notice, even though the lowest level's outer lanes ran directly under your house. You would just notice that there were shops nearby, and when you needed to go in the freeway's direction, you could get going at a fast or ludicrous pace within a very short amount of time.
I have three concerns to work out. One is exhaust. If I don't vent it somehow, it will build up to lethal levels in the lowest tunnel. Another is water management. If this gets lower than the local water table, all hell breaks lose engineering wise. The last is breakdowns. If you run out of gas or your engine fails at the lowest level, then what?
I'm imagining a layered highway. On the top layer, a two lane road with a business district on either side. Quiet. Calm. Peaceful. 35 MPH speed limit. And occasional lanes down to a lower layer. This one has no stop signs or traffic lights, and the speed limit is 55 MPH. It's enclosed, which reduces the sound the cars make, with paintings along the side showing what the next exit leads to. The exits are special lanes that go back up to the surface street. And in the middle, there's an occasional lane down one layer more.
The lowest level has speed limits of 120MPH (or higher). It's meant for the really long hauls, Interstate or further. Fans on the ceiling drop air resistance by a significant amount. Your massive rocketing speed remains unnoticed at the surface, as you are quite some way down. Exits lead back to the main freeway level every so many miles.
Ideally, this would use the earth as a sound absorber. If you lived near this freeway, you might not notice, even though the lowest level's outer lanes ran directly under your house. You would just notice that there were shops nearby, and when you needed to go in the freeway's direction, you could get going at a fast or ludicrous pace within a very short amount of time.
I have three concerns to work out. One is exhaust. If I don't vent it somehow, it will build up to lethal levels in the lowest tunnel. Another is water management. If this gets lower than the local water table, all hell breaks lose engineering wise. The last is breakdowns. If you run out of gas or your engine fails at the lowest level, then what?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Mining Space
NASA says that the solar system is rich in gold. (And some other things.) Meanwhile, demand for gold on earth has skyrocketed. If the other eight planets (and dwarf planets and meteors) are as rich in gold as the earth is, then there's quite a pretty penny in reaching it. I think the only reason why not is the immense cost of space travel. And there are ways of bringing that down.
A quick investigation into space fountains and railguns could, I think, cut the cost of space travel by a factor of ten. From $10,000/kg to $1,000/kg. Geologists would tell us the most likely locations to find gold, and automated probes would go mine and refine it. The immense cost of setting up this industry would be recouped within a year's operation.
If the price of gold collapses, other materials can be mined as well. Platinum, perhaps, or silver. Even bulk material like iron or lead could be mined in massive scale with no concern of environmental damage, as the non-earth planets of our solar system have no plants or animals to damage. Iron may sell for a mere 2c per pound, but when you can move a billion tons, that adds up to some serious money.
The cost of these materials dropping would be a boon to the manufacturers who make things from them, and and a disaster to the companies who mine it from the earth. (Though, if too many of them object, a change in focus would be doable, maybe even easy.)
Some places would be easier to mine than others. Mars would be easier than, say, pluto, which in turn would be easier than, say, Venus.
A quick investigation into space fountains and railguns could, I think, cut the cost of space travel by a factor of ten. From $10,000/kg to $1,000/kg. Geologists would tell us the most likely locations to find gold, and automated probes would go mine and refine it. The immense cost of setting up this industry would be recouped within a year's operation.
If the price of gold collapses, other materials can be mined as well. Platinum, perhaps, or silver. Even bulk material like iron or lead could be mined in massive scale with no concern of environmental damage, as the non-earth planets of our solar system have no plants or animals to damage. Iron may sell for a mere 2c per pound, but when you can move a billion tons, that adds up to some serious money.
The cost of these materials dropping would be a boon to the manufacturers who make things from them, and and a disaster to the companies who mine it from the earth. (Though, if too many of them object, a change in focus would be doable, maybe even easy.)
Some places would be easier to mine than others. Mars would be easier than, say, pluto, which in turn would be easier than, say, Venus.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tunnel Warfare
Are you fighting a war, and up against a significant barrier? Maybe your opponent has better firepower than you do. Maybe they've erected a ridiculously huge wall. Maybe there are so many landmines that a charge would result in unacceptable levels of losses.
Digging under such fortifications is a possible, and very under-used, tactic. Most military forces don't because it's an exceptional pain in the ass. Way too much work. But when was winning a war ever easy?
The plus side to this is both that they won't see you coming, and, if you've done a good job producing the tunnel, it's very hard to fight it. (Yes, there are bunker-busting explosives, and ways to detect tunnelling, even possibly at a distance. But their supplies are limited, and it's hard to tell where the tunnel even is without some serious heavy duty engineering, done under fire at that.) The minus side is that it's a lot of work, and incredibly slow.
And after the war is over? You could enlarge it into a subway system. Or collapse it and fill in the hole.
Digging under such fortifications is a possible, and very under-used, tactic. Most military forces don't because it's an exceptional pain in the ass. Way too much work. But when was winning a war ever easy?
The plus side to this is both that they won't see you coming, and, if you've done a good job producing the tunnel, it's very hard to fight it. (Yes, there are bunker-busting explosives, and ways to detect tunnelling, even possibly at a distance. But their supplies are limited, and it's hard to tell where the tunnel even is without some serious heavy duty engineering, done under fire at that.) The minus side is that it's a lot of work, and incredibly slow.
And after the war is over? You could enlarge it into a subway system. Or collapse it and fill in the hole.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Geothermal Desalinization
I suddenly have the idea of using the earth's internal heat to purify water.
You will need:
* Supply of lava from fissure or volcano
* Heatproof ceramic pipe
* Seawater
* Steam Condensing Unit
Pump the seawater into the volcano, producing steam. Capture the steam. Let it cool in various radiators. Pump the now fresh and warm water to the consumers.
The salt in the water probably melts with the lava. Then what?
You will need:
* Supply of lava from fissure or volcano
* Heatproof ceramic pipe
* Seawater
* Steam Condensing Unit
Pump the seawater into the volcano, producing steam. Capture the steam. Let it cool in various radiators. Pump the now fresh and warm water to the consumers.
The salt in the water probably melts with the lava. Then what?
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Most common material on Earth
Quick, what's the most common material on earth?
In terms of atoms, it's oxygen, followed by sillicon, then nickel and iron. In terms of material, sillicon dioxide. Better known as sand.
Sand is industrially useful. It can readily be turned into glass by heating it, and by heating it more in the presence of carbon, one can purify the silicon for use in microchips.
Does this mean that every time you buy a computer, you've contributed to global warming?
In a word, yes.
However, this is reversible. Every time you buy a computer, plant a tree. The tree will suck its own weight of carbon out of the atmosphere.
And if we ever run low on carbon in the atmosphere for some reason?
Dig a huge amount of coal, take it to the Saraha desert in north Africa, and make a gazillion computers. Run them with coal power and yeah that problem is solved.
In terms of atoms, it's oxygen, followed by sillicon, then nickel and iron. In terms of material, sillicon dioxide. Better known as sand.
Sand is industrially useful. It can readily be turned into glass by heating it, and by heating it more in the presence of carbon, one can purify the silicon for use in microchips.
Does this mean that every time you buy a computer, you've contributed to global warming?
In a word, yes.
However, this is reversible. Every time you buy a computer, plant a tree. The tree will suck its own weight of carbon out of the atmosphere.
And if we ever run low on carbon in the atmosphere for some reason?
Dig a huge amount of coal, take it to the Saraha desert in north Africa, and make a gazillion computers. Run them with coal power and yeah that problem is solved.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Volcano Diversion
It would make me very nervous to live near an active volcano. Sure, I'd probably have some hints to evacuate before anything went seriously wrong, but knowing that at any time, my house would be destroyed in an explosion of flame and earth is a scary thought. (Compare this to my previous two homes that were vulnerable to shaking earth and flying water, respectively.)
Okay, but can I make it safer? I think so.
Pipe jack a pipe of thermal ceramic into the core of the volcano, and connect the other end to either a deep unused valley, or the ocean, whichever you have handy. Angle it at least 10 degrees, with the volcano on the high end. Lava escaping through the pipe is lava that cannot build up pressure enough to erupt, so the volcano erupts much less often, if at all.
Too much work?
Okay, dig a big ditch in the way that you'd prefer lava to travel, all the way up to the top of the volcano's cone. Not all lava will obey it, but it does make the path of least resistance the one that you'd prefer it to follow. (And after the eruption, it'll be full of that rich, fertile, volcano soil that encouraged people to live near the volcano in the first place.)
Okay, but can I make it safer? I think so.
Pipe jack a pipe of thermal ceramic into the core of the volcano, and connect the other end to either a deep unused valley, or the ocean, whichever you have handy. Angle it at least 10 degrees, with the volcano on the high end. Lava escaping through the pipe is lava that cannot build up pressure enough to erupt, so the volcano erupts much less often, if at all.
Too much work?
Okay, dig a big ditch in the way that you'd prefer lava to travel, all the way up to the top of the volcano's cone. Not all lava will obey it, but it does make the path of least resistance the one that you'd prefer it to follow. (And after the eruption, it'll be full of that rich, fertile, volcano soil that encouraged people to live near the volcano in the first place.)
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