[Rod_Cloutier]

The space train's to Jupiter could be automated!

[rallyman]

I just saw a program on the (Discovery) Science Channel ....they mention that Titan, a moon of Jupiter, is covered in oceans....a quantity of ocean MUCH greater than all the oceans of Earth combined!

Now the interesting thing is the ocean(s) on Titan is entirely composed of LNG (liquid natural gas)! And when it rains on Titan...it rains LNG! They estimate there is enough LNG on Titan to power the Earth for 50,000 years! Now I suppose that is at current levels of consumption, so in a couple of years it would probably only last for 10 years or so!

I think I just hit on a great idea to circumvent the automated space trains clogging the space lanes between Earth and Jupiter and making them look like a Friday afternoon in LA. How about we develop a space ship to go to Titan, and lasso it, and tow it back to Earth! Now I suppose some people would cry foul - disrupting the eco systems not only here, but in Jovian space - so we could tow our moon there, leave it in exchange, and return with Titan!

Then all we'd have to do is construct a pipeline to go from Titan to Earth to bring all that LNG here! We did the Alaska pipeline across the tundra, so we could probably tackle this....

[Licho]

I'm against moving our Moon to Saturn (titan orbits Saturn not Jupiter). I don't want to watch some giant oil-spills each night instead of our nice, shiny piece of solid rock..

[rallyman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')itan orbits Saturn not Jupiter

[nero]

Great idea rallyman! As an added refinement, lets use solar sails to haul the moons back and forth.

[MonteQuest]

One other thing to consider:

The carbon cycle. One of the problems we have with bringing up fossil fuels (ancient sunlight) from the earth and burning them is that they are upsetting the carbon cycle and balance in the atmosphere. It not about whether we can find more carbon based fuels, but whether we can burn them here on earth without major ecological damage, not to mention global warming. Worse thing that could happen to the earth is to find more fossil fuels to burn. Non-renewable fuels are destroying the ability of the earth to support life. Catch-22!

[Licho]

It's not a problem, we will export extra CO2, atmospheric methane and CFC to Mars, to cause greenhouse effect there and terraform it!

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Licho', 'I')t's not a problem, we will export extra CO2, atmospheric methane and CFC to Mars, to cause greenhouse effect there and terraform it!

[rallyman]

JohnDenver wrote

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e need to figure out a way to eat oil.

[mmm]

If Titan is covered in LNG, doesn't that mean that Natural Gas is not a fossil fuel (produced from decaying plant/animal matter)? And if LNG isn't a fossil fuel, doesn't that mean coil and oil are also probably not fossil fuels as well, since they are often not found together?

[DavidM]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Repent', 'M')y initial article was serious. Although some of the objections listed as replies are real challenges, we don't need to talk science-fiction about space resource possibilities.

We don't need "warp drive" or other nonsense ideas to cloud real possibilities. There is no air resistance in space once an object is in motion it stays in motion no matter how far the journey. You get space tankers to Jupiter the same way we get satellites to Jupiter. You have a minimal amount of thrust & use planetary fly-by assists to accelerate / decelerate further.

A space tanker around Jupiter could extract the methane while in low orbit through a retractable pipe of sufficient length to reach down into the abundant deposits & pump them up.

No science-fiction required. All known existing technologies. The only factor is cost. If all hydrocarbons are completely exhausted the price to harvest these resources will come into the range of affordablility.

[jato]

Warp speed Mister Sulu!

[JoeW]

In a way, I agree with Repent. What is the point of the space program? Is it simply to increase our knowledge of the universe? No. It is to make our lives better by applying the knowledge we gain. When men went to the moon [if you believe they actually did, which is another subject entirely], certainly there were hopes that the moon might contain valuable resources that could be used on earth.

I think Repent is probably wrong about mining Jupiter, as many have pointed out the immense gravitational field involved. If we are talking about a long-term solution, then distances within our solar system are irrelevent, as long as you create the steady stream of resources. The more important thing is making it as efficient as possible, and that means that you want to mine the planet or moon that has these characteristics:
1) easily extracted resources
2) low gravity

Unfortunately, the lowest-gravity moons and planets appear to be short on resources. It is the highest-gravity planets that appear to be long on energy resources. Any man-made device that we might make to extract this resource from Jupiter or Saturn might easily be crushed as it approaches the surface of these planets, due to the gravitational forces involved. Then there is the fundamental question of whether a methane molecule even contains the energy required for it to escape Jupiter or Saturn's gravity. I doubt it.

It would be more feasible to explore Jupiter's moons, particularly Io, which is geologically active. It would be a good science project for some high schooler out there to determine which known moons and planets would be feasible to explore for methane, hydrogen, gas, or oil based on the energy contained in the fuel and the energy required to escape the moon or planet's gravitational field.

Joe

[MarkR]

Simple calculation time:

To retrieve 1kg from Jupiter's gravitational field requires approx 500 kWh of energy.

Doing the same for Earth's gravity is about 90 kWh.

1kg of methane contains 15 kWh of energy. That's why they don't use methane to launch the space shuttle (far too heavy) - they use hydrogen.

[Donbury]

Repent: The tankers can go out empty. Filled up they contain a lot of potential energy due to the gravity potential drop from Jupiter orbit to earth orbit. Note that in a eliptic orbit, the tanker is moving much faster when it touches earth orbit than when it touches Jupiter orbit. Think of ways to extract that energy to keep the "tanker train" going. It is like a waterwheel.

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5badair

[Rummy]

Forget Iran, Titan is the next stop in the war on terrah

[Concerned]

Titan : No Smoking

I think we have more chance of world peace than harvesting any methane from space based objects.

[Ted]

Other posters have already pointed out that adding more combustion on Earth is probably a bad idea. Repent's initial post implicitly suggested this by pointing out that all the oxygen in our atmosphere would not burn the fuel available on Jupiter (or Titan, for that matter).

A better way to exploit extraterrestrial fuels for exothermic reactions would be to include oxygen and halogens in the "fuel" category, and burn the fuels near their extraction points to power lasers pumping a network of space stations that relay the power likewise to where it's needed, namely the Moon, the Earth, and elsewhere throughout the solar system.

(Another worry: What if there's life in Titan's oceans?)

[bignev]

Launch a folded - up balloon from Earth, equipped with a vast solar sail. The solar wind would propel it, out to Jupiter or Saturn; the balloon would be filled with hydrogen or methane in the flypast. The gravity of the planet would be used to "slingshot" the filled balloon back to Earth.

I must admit, rather unlikely...

[Jenab]

Celestial mechanics happens to be something I know how to do. I might start a tutorial thread in here someplace, just to show people what's involved in calculating a transfer orbit and the energy costs (related to the change-in-velocity, or delta-vee) of moving a spaceship between one orbit and another.

Getting supplies of primordial methane from the outer planets, especially Titan (a moon of Saturn), would be a viable option for a space-based industry or civilization. It's not so viable for shipping down to Earth, when the transport vehicles must be built on and launched from Earth.

If we'd spent our fossil fuels on developing space-based civilization, instead of trying to "feed the hungry," ever since 1940 or so, then there would be the industrial infrastructure off-planet capable of creating transport vehicles out of moon rocks (which contain aluminum and oxygen) and, given the much lower gravity, launching them off to Titan to tank up on methane to ship back and split between lunar industry and Terrestrial industry.

Unfortunately it wasn't done, and now it is too late to attempt doing it. If you want to assign blame, there are the liberals, the champions of charity for the poor, the pushers of empathic sentiments (in the media and in the churches), the bankers who saddled us with debt-based money systems, and the politicians who danced to their tune.

Jerry Abbott