B Interplanetary travel, Arctic sea ice

[sophiecentaur]

If you really want to paint the desert you could stick that in as a rider. Might be easier to claim it was to create jobs in the south west. Get paint manufactures in the northeast to lobby their congressperson. Keep the argument focused on whether or not Washington should worry about factory workers in the northeast and painters in the south west having a job.

I was really thinking in terms of method that would involve very little cost by minimising the number of workers involved. The problem is that the most suitable places for 'painting' would not be the most accessible nor the sort of places that humans operatives would work best. I was assuming large areas being part-covered by aerial application. These days it would be cheapest by drone. The difference in cost would probably outweigh the 'employment' argument - but I see where your'e coming from. I would have thought that 'making the desert bloom' would be a good selling point. The 'blooming' would be in the gaps between the painted bits, when the rain starts to fall due to the lower local temperatures.

 

[sophiecentaur]

even though they really do secretly like big rockets.

I have a big problem with that attitude that starts with the method and finds applications for it.
Since I bought my new Multi-Tool, I have found all sorts of little jobs to do with it. But the cost of the machine was very low.
I am not particularly in love with drones or paint brushes.

 

[nikkkom]

I'm hearing the "omg omg we are all going to die from global warming" thing almost as long as I remember myself.

The effects are seen, but they are rather small. 20 cm sea rise in the last 100 years, and such.

Interestingly, as some dire predictions' time came and they failed to materialize (Arctic did not completely melt by 2014, West Side Highway not underwater), another type of "global warming" became evident: if you are not sufficiently scared and dare to say that it's not such a big deal and we probably will be able to deal with it without drastic civilization-scale efforts, you might find yourself roasted. Actually, scratch "might". You WILL find yourself roasted. It's socially unacceptable in "scientist circles" to be insufficiently worried by GW.

 

[mfb]

The effects are seen, but they are rather small. 20 cm sea rise in the last 100 years, and such.

Significantly more tropical cyclones
More extreme precipitation
Much more extreme low temperatures
More extreme high temperatures
All as graphs
This is what we have today. Future warming will make all these things worse. Here are some estimates.

By the way: 20 cm sea level rise might sound small if you don't live close to the sea, but in Bangladesh for example 20 cm means the sea moves many kilometers inwards.

 

[nikkkom]

By the way: 20 cm sea level rise might sound small if you don't live close to the sea, but in Bangladesh for example 20 cm means the sea moves many kilometers inwards.

I did live near the sea. Therefore I know from my own experience that 20 cm is insignificant. Waves are usually higher than 20 cm even in calm weather, and tides are higher than 20 cm even in insular seas. On the ocean shores, they are usually in the range of meters.

 

[JMz]

I did live near the sea. Therefore I know from my own experience that 20 cm is insignificant. Waves are usually higher than 20 cm even in calm weather, and tides are higher than 20 cm even in insular seas. On the ocean shores, they are usually in the range of meters.

Go back to the Bangladesh point. And the fact that most of the warming from current human activities has yet to occur.

Will humanity go extinct from this (or from the wars that ensue over it)? No. But there are many dire effects short of that, and most of them are unpriced by people who prefer the benefits of the status quo. (The insurance companies are an exception, although even they aren't concerned about effects 30 or 100 years from now, when their existing policies will have renewed at appropriately higher premiums... or when they will have exited the insurance business.)

[Edit: Removed an initial, erroneous sentence from a different reply.]

 

[sophiecentaur]

I did live near the sea. Therefore I know from my own experience that 20 cm is insignificant. Waves are usually higher than 20 cm even in calm weather, and tides are higher than 20 cm even in insular seas. On the ocean shores, they are usually in the range of meters.

"I know from my own experience" would allow you to take up smoking, not to buckle your seat belt or refuse to have a child immunised. Statistics can have big effects on large numbers of people. It is not valid to express strong views / beliefs about such things until you understand about Statistical Significance. If you really need a personal experience to believe something then why are you making and reading posts on PF? For the past hundred years, at least, many of the "Scientific Facts" that have emerged have been based on results with high variation. CERN's results are always based on statistical evidence and a very fuzzy needle on their meter.
Events due to coincidence of Tide, barometric pressure and wind direction that used to be considered a 'Once in a Hundred Years' have become 'Once in Ten Years'. The Thames barrier is a good example.

 

[nikkkom]

"I know from my own experience" would allow you to take up smoking, not to buckle your seat belt or refuse to have a child immunised. Statistics can have big effects on large numbers of people. It is not valid to express strong views / beliefs about such things until you understand about Statistical Significance. If you really need a personal experience to believe something then why are you making and reading posts on PF? For the past hundred years, at least, many of the "Scientific Facts" that have emerged have been based on results with high variation.

In this case, I'm not referring to what happens to me, and not making statistical inferences. I'm referring to having experience with the sea, waves, tides in general. Statistics does not enter this picture. 20cm is insignificantly small sea rise, mitigation is trivial. Netherlands mitigated about 7 meter local "sea rise" due to subsidence. They have designs how to counteract 7 more meters of sea rise if necessary.

 

[sophiecentaur]

In this case, I'm not referring to what happens to me, and not making statistical inferences. I'm referring to having experience with the sea, waves, tides in general. Statistics does not enter this picture. 20cm is insignificantly small sea rise, mitigation is trivial. Netherlands mitigated about 7 meter local "sea rise" due to subsidence. They have designs how to counteract 7 more meters of sea rise if necessary.

Not all 20cm rises have the same significance.
The Netherlands are rich enough to cope with the results of a 'brief' overtopping of their sea defences. There are flood reservoirs (or some such term) which can cope with an overtopping of a few minutes or a couple of hours and they can be pumped out over the medium term. Poorer countries have no such facility. If your 'sea wall' happens to be a sand bank, a small wave can trigger a massive flood as it washes the top away. Some growing land is lost for ever. It's a different situation entirely. Bangladesh are constantly losing agricultural land and it will get worse if there's 20cm of maximum sea level. You can ignore that if you want to but it's really happening to some 'other people'. I imagine you would be prepared to lend some money (assuming you had a spare $100k) to a house building project in the Netherlands. Would you honestly be prepared to lend the same money to a farmer in Bangladesh? Why? (I have already assumed your answer.)

 

[nikkkom]

Poorer countries have no such facility.

<< Mentor Note -- Post edited to remove offensive content >>
I'm from a poor country, unlike you. Let's listen toy somebody from a poor country, shall we?

Poor countries will continue to have tons of problems as long as they are poor. The only solution to this is to help them to become more prosperous. For this, we we need to fix the _reason_ why they are poor: bad governance, lack of democracy, corruption, and cultural reasons which prevent those things from being changed.

You can ignore that if you want to but it's really happening to some 'other people'. I imagine you would be prepared to lend some money (assuming you had a spare $100k) to a house building project in the Netherlands. Would you honestly be prepared to lend the same money to a farmer in Bangladesh? Why? (I have already assumed your answer.)

Donating $$$ per se does not help. It did not much help for my country - this "help" almost entirely gets stolen by the local ruling... er... "elite"... with the help of NGOs, some of which increasingly looking like being designed to perpetuate the flow of said "help".

But since you already "assumed" that I'm willing to help Netherlands but not poor << Deleted by Mentor >>

 

[sophiecentaur]

<< Quoted text deleted by Mentors >>

I was talking in terms of Investment and not 'help'. With help you don't expect get your money back.
PS Where did this Nazi stuff come from? I was arguing statistics and how to interpret them. My only point was that personal experience is never reliable and I assumed that the question of putting one's money where one's mouth is tends to bring out one's rational streak. I cannot defend myself for being comfortably off but I do count my blessings.

 

[nikkkom]

Hmm. I'll try to dial back my at times confrontational and snarcastic style.

I am indeed from a poor country, and I have something to say about how well-meaning people go about helping such countries.

Just throwing money, or humanitarian supplies on them usually does very little good. Basically, shipping food to 10 million starving Somalians, in the best case, will save many of them from dying. But if you do that, and do nothing to change what's happening in Somalia, in 15 years you will have 20 million starving Somalians. Rinse, repeat.

There's a way to do better.

You need to (1) research the problems this country has, (2) force people who benefit from current situation to change this situation. (Naturally, the resistance will be immense).

There are people in all these poor countries who can give you necessary information. There are young, still idealistic and not-yet corrupted politicians. There are investigative journalists. And Western countries do have spying agencies who are professionals in analyzing data (among other things they do).

Money and/or humanitarian supplies have their uses as tools to persuade corrupt local politicians to do reforms they would rather not do. "Oh, mister Prime Minister? You are bankrupt, you need IMF loan or else you will default? Sure, we might help with that. But here's this 'Freedom of Information Law' we are talking about for the last year, and you are stonewalling it despite your party having 77% in your parliament. How about you guys vote for this law, and *after that is done* we give you the loan?".

_This_ use of $$$ would help. Used consistently, it can help _a lot_.

Sadly, I rarely see Western financial assistance used in this way. More often, it's like "we will finance a hospital construction". Do you plan to finance all our hospital construction in eternity?

 

[stefan r]

You mean plants?

There is the azolla event. It is not correct to claim humans are the only species to change the climate.

Hmm. I'll try to dial back my at times confrontational and snarcastic style.

This thread is sliding off topic. The original post was about using physics/engineering to tamper with the climate. Wearing tin foil hats to reflect more sunlight by increasing Earth's albedo is on topic. Simple ways of avoiding the problem, like birth control or cannibalism, are not high tech methods of forcing the climate to cool. Deciding that you personally do not care about global warming or you do not worry about runaway feedback should not matter. Designing something does not mean that you want it to be used. We can figure out who is responsible for what in a polisci or sociology forum.

I noticed that we are on 4 pages of replies and only one post addresses this:

...converting the potential energy of the asteroid's current stable solar orbit, into a free-ride to a distant planet using less on-board propellant than it would otherwise use going direct?
.

Bandersnatch covered it in post #2.

...You don't gain any energy from riding an asteroid and then detaching from it, while you do need to expand (a lot!) of energy to change its orbit...

Gravity assists, tethers, and mining of asteroids/comets for volatiles are ideas that utilize objects in space for momentum and can reduce launch mass.

A 1 km radius asteroid could produce millions of square km of foil. Solar shades do not need to be launched on rockets from Earth. You can also use sunlight to move the foil into place. At 1 au the force on a million km of foil is greater than the 3 main engines on the space shuttle (5 x 10⁶ N).

 

[sophiecentaur]

A 1 km radius asteroid could produce millions of square km of foil.

How do you suggest that could be achieved as conveniently and cheaply as manufacturing on Earth? OK in principle but it needs to be thought out in detail before it's worth considering. Capturing a suitable asteroid is not trivial.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed for a bit for Moderation...

 

[berkeman]

I don't know if this will work, but thread re-opened after some clean-up. Let's please try to stay on-topic an civil. Thanks.

 

[stefan r]

How do you suggest that could be achieved as conveniently and cheaply as manufacturing on Earth? ...

Rolling and extruding should be easy to do in space. There is no atmosphere so you can keep the material hot and you do not need to worry about oxidation. Extremely long pieces are reasonable in free fall. On Earth a railroad track or a building column ships in truck length pieces which are welded later. If you have the steel in space you could directly extrude a track the length of a continent. Hot rolling long sheets should be easy. The width is limited by the size of roller you are willing/able to manufacture. The rolls will need coolant and radiators for the coolant. If you are content with long thin strips then rolling is easy. Sheets can be stacked and rolled again. That can be used for mixing.

There will be challenges replacing parts of processing that use gravity. The traditional iron refinery blast furnace would not work. Slag does not float. Quenching would be tricky.

Since the only stress on our sheet is from sunlight then rolled, slow cooled, pig iron is easily good enough. People will want something higher quality for habitats and storage tanks. Some of the other elements might be usable too. Magnesium and sodium are not fire safe so we do not use them much. The should work fine for a reflective film.

 

[sophiecentaur]

and you do not need to worry about oxidation.

Are you expecting to find pure metals out there? From what I have read, metals will be in the form of ores, which need to be extracted. The reducing chemicals would need to be imported in comparable mass to the metal you get out.
I think you need to rethink your proposal to take that into account. Processing pure metals is the least of your problems.

 

[stefan r]

Are you expecting to find pure metals out there? From what I have read, metals will be in the form of ores, which need to be extracted. The reducing chemicals would need to be imported in comparable mass to the metal you get out.
I think you need to rethink your proposal to take that into account. Processing pure metals is the least of your problems.

Most of what I have read about ISRU the oxygen is one of the goals. The oxygen gets used in rockets. There is a lot of metallic iron in asteroids. Carbon is also common in asteroids and that is used on Earth for iron redox. Ancient Egyptians worked meteoric iron into finished pieces without refining. Forging can remove some impurities. Modern pig iron is not a pure metal either.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Modern pig iron is not a pure metal either.

I smiled when I first read this but it's not totally daft to conceive a very crude structure, 3D printed of course, made of pig iron or any other half-refined metal ore. We wouldn't need to worry about it going rusty. It would just need to stick together.

The rolls will need coolant and radiators for the coolant. If you are content with long thin strips then rolling is easy. Sheets can be stacked and rolled again.

The structure would be 'open' and, as I mentioned above, the best construction may not be with sheets (an intermediate process needed) but fused pellets.
But this whole project strikes me as a tube piece of vandalism, much worse than painting selected areas of the surface. Space communications, astronomy and even transport could be affected.

 

[rootone]

Are you expecting to find pure metals out there? From what I have read, metals will be in the form of ores, which need to be extracted. The reducing chemicals would need to be imported in comparable mass to the metal you get out.
I think you need to rethink your proposal to take that into account. Processing pure metals is the least of your problems.

At a stretch I guess you could have supporting spacecraft delivering hydrogen obtained from the outer atmosphere of Jupiter
Doubtful economics for that though it might work in principal

 

[JMz]

Is H held by Jupiter any easier to fetch than anywhere else? It's held there because of the deep gravity well, right? So it seems like it would be energetically expensive to deliver from Jupiter.

 

[stefan r]

At a stretch I guess you could have supporting spacecraft delivering hydrogen obtained from the outer atmosphere of Jupiter
Doubtful economics for that though it might work in principal

Extracting things from Jupiter is harder than lifting them from earth.

...3D printed of course...

When you need millions of copies of a large simple 2D structure using a 3D printer is not the easiest way to do it.

The structure would be 'open' and, as I mentioned above, the best construction may not be with sheets (an intermediate process needed) but fused pellets...

I am fairly confident that sheets have more shadow than pellets.

Space communications, astronomy and even transport could be affected.

How are space communications effected by anything at the sun-earth L1? A solar screen would certainly effect solar astronomy if observed from Earth. I think you could get around that problem. What sort of transportation passes through L1?

 

[sophiecentaur]

When you need millions of copies of a large simple 2D structure using a 3D printer is not the easiest way to do it.

Yes. I get that but 3D printing / casting of substructures could be the best of both worlds. But the "pixel" size wouldn't be small, would it? My point is that rolling out strip may not have the advantages that it has on Earth. Ye gods, I can just imagine the plethora of Artists' Impressions for designs. All beautifully air brushed and coloured.

How are space communications effected by anything at the sun-earth L1? A solar screen would certainly effect solar astronomy if observed from Earth. I think you could get around that problem. What sort of transportation passes through L1?

That's a point, I guess. Few Astronomers actually look in the direction of the Sun and likewise for space journeys.

I am fairly confident that sheets have more shadow than pellets.

But we don't want to block out the Sun entirely, do we? A 10% reduction in flux would be more than enough for a 'safe' modification. The project would obviously take a while to complete and its effects would be monitored all the time.

 

[stefan r]

I found an article describing how to move the Earth to keep temperatures down.

But we don't want to block out the Sun entirely, do we? A 10% reduction in flux would be more than enough for a 'safe' modification.

I believe a 10% reduction would be overkill. Likely set off a snowball earth. The number mfb gave in post #6 is 1%. I remember hearing 1% as an estimate of the warming but I do not recall the source.
We also do not necessarily need to restore temperatures to the historical normal. The original post was asking for a megastructure that will prevent a run away positive feedback cycle. Something smaller might be enough.

Ye gods, I can just imagine the plethora of Artists' Impressions for designs. All beautifully air brushed and coloured.

The effect would be black since we only remove light. It is also limited to the angular diameter of the sun. You could do a corporate http://facthole.com/post/133974507954/trump-campaign-unveils-new-logo or maybe the air force roundel of some country.

 

[JMz]

I found an article describing how to move the Earth to keep temperatures down.

Yes, as I recall, this isn't energetically unreasonable -- something like 1 km per year -- IF you have a sufficiently advanced technology. As we presumably will by the time we REALLY need it, when the Sun turns into a red giant. (Moving would take ~100 M years. :-) But it doesn't strike me as a realistic idea for the current problem, anthropogenic global warming. [FWIW, that link seems to be dead.]

 

[stefan r]

Yes, as I recall, this isn't energetically unreasonable -- something like 1 km per year -- IF you have a sufficiently advanced technology. As we presumably will by the time we REALLY need it, when the Sun turns into a red giant. (Moving would take ~100 M years. :-) But it doesn't strike me as a realistic idea for the current problem, anthropogenic global warming. [FWIW, that link seems to be dead.]

All of arXive.org is down. Here is a pay version.

They intend a ~6000 year orbit and it only works when the planets line up. The last paragraph points out this problem too:

An obvious drawback to this proposed scheme is that it is extremely risky and hence sufficient safeguards must be implemented. The collision of a 100-km diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilize the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria. This danger cannot be overemphasized.

Not sure why they did not use a large number of small objects.

Asteroid mining would take at least a decade before sun shades were in place. Sun shades launched from Earth using falcon heavy rockets would have to cancel the greenhouse effect from the exhaust. Mylar is 7 gm/m² so a 21 ton payload would be 3 km². For 2 x 10⁶ launches add around 2x10⁹ tons of CO² (a few weeks at current emission rates). Should cost less than $10¹⁴.

 

[JMz]

A bargain at twice the price! ;-)

 

[mfb]

Anything large in space would probably start with tens of billions spent on systems that can bring more stuff to orbit. Something like the StarTram or an orbital ring. Or a StarTram building an orbital ring. Tens of billions of initial investment, but afterwards you can launch thousands to millions of tons to space every year for not much more than electricity costs.

 

[sophiecentaur]

A bargain at twice the price! ;-)

A bit more costly than spray paint, I think.
How much would costs need to shrink for the space approach before it was a serious competitor?

 

[stefan r]

A bit more costly than spray paint, I think.
How much would costs need to shrink for the space approach before it was a serious competitor?

Suppose paint costs $5 per liter and covers 10m²/L, $5x10⁵/km². The surface of Earth is 5 x 10⁸km². You need to paint more than 1% because the surface already reflects some light. Desert sand has albedo 0.4 and paint might be like fresh snow at 0.9 (assume 50% change). Reflected light also passes through the atmosphere so ~30% is absorbed.
5x10⁵/km²x 5 x 10⁶km² x 0.5 x 0.7 = $7.75 x 10¹¹ minimum for paint. More if the surfaces are not flat, maybe $150 billion.
The labor costs would greatly exceed that. Applying exterior paint to a house might be 10x to 30x the material cost. Some labor saving tricks could increase the materials used by painting inside crevasses and double coating some spots. Maybe $5 x 10¹².

Bulk polystrene cups sell for ~$2000 per ton. A ton of tiles 5mm thick and 16 kg/m³ would cover 0.0125 km². The albedo of ocean water is very low so we can use 80% albedo gain so 100 ton/km². 5 x 10⁸ tons cost $10¹². Labor cost would be negative because the commodity price includes a bulk delivery. A refinery could be located adjacent to the ocean and utilize natural wind and water currents.

We could also use aluminized plastic sheets. Air and water slowly pass through plastic so you would need to fill bubble wrap with freshwater to float it. Plastic sheets would be thinner than polystyrene but similar in area density and cost. Plastic sheets can reduce evaporation and waves. That adds more variables. With plastic sheets deployed vertically we could tamper with ocean currents.

Aluminum discs or shallow cone with small flotation pockets would cover slightly more ocean area than air/water filled aluminum cans. Wikipedia says 70 cans per kg so maybe 1000 ton/km². Aluminum costs around $2,000/ton. Covering 6.25x10⁶km² costs $1.25x 10¹³. Price might be lower if you use a thinner aluminum film to waterproof a plastic foam or wood fiber board.

$10¹⁴ for Lagrange
$5x 10¹² for graffiti
$10¹² for polystyrene foam
$10¹² for plastic bags
$10¹³ for aluminum cans

Using 500 million tons of polystyrene foam to counter global warming is probably the best suggestion if you are chatting with an environmentalist in the real world. :) Encouraging littering could cut the costs of garbage removal and the construction cost of land fills. You could give tax breaks to outdoor restaurants in Seattle and New York when they serve on Styrofoam and they remove trashcans.

Launch costs need to come down by about x20. There might be some other benefits/costs to consider. Reusable rockets are also weapon systems for example.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Desert sand has albedo 0.4

Deserts are not only sand, you know. Sand dunes are constantly moving so they would be a poor surface to paint. Rock and boulders are more stable.

 

[stefan r]

Deserts are not only sand, you know. Sand dunes are constantly moving so they would be a poor surface to paint. Rock and boulders are more stable.

The wikipedia entry only had "dry sand" on the chart. I assumed that a grain of sand has the same albedo as a similar shaped boulder made of the same materials. Is that wrong? Sometimes smooth surfaces reflect/refract better than pitted surfaces. Painting gypsum or diatomaceous limestone will not do much. The chart has desserts around 27 or 28% albedo but I think that includes cactus and clay.

Carefully selecting the darkest rocks only could boost albedo from 10% to 90% instead of 40% to 90% but most of the cost is labor. Teams hauling barrels of paint on donkeys/camels to areas with no roads would be expensive.

Based on experience with drywall I suspect gypsum dust would spread around in windy deserts. Strip mine it on windy days?

 

[JMz]

And how is all this related to the OP...?

 

[sophiecentaur]

Teams hauling barrels of paint on donkeys/camels to areas with no roads would be expensive.

Have you heard of aerial application? They have aeroplanes these days, you know. And they would be available even now. No need to wait until the cost of big rockets comes down. I guess some people like a space solution

And how is all this related to the OP...?

2. Restoring multi-year sea-ice in the Arctic.

 

[stefan r]

And how is all this related to the OP...?

I read the original post as "what engineering options could force global cooling to preserve or create arctic ice". And a second question about traveling on asteroids.

...
Question:

Is there a plausible way to deploy what amounts to an orbiting 'solar-shade', permanently positioned to cast a shadow over the Arctic, thereby enabling the restoration of some of the multi-year sea-ice which has been lost?

Assuming such a structure could even be assembled, I believe it would require daily re-positioning, hence a design which would benefit from either the use of solar-wind, or some other extraterrestrial fuel source.
...
Given the remarkable advances in recoverable booster-rocket technology we're witnessing...