Re: Terraforming Saturn?


Why couldn't the shell be supported by Saturn's hydrogen atmosphere?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_nine_(Tensegrity_sphere)

Build a web of these things that cover the planet. It could be
hundreds of layers deep. Build your shell on top of this.




On Jan 3, 9:27 am, "Perry E. Metzger" <pe...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Progress City <progressc...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Would it be possible to build a nanotube shell around Saturn and
terraform it?

Saturn has approximately 95 times the surface area of Earth,

According to Wikipedia, its mass is 95 times that of earth. Its
surface area is smaller, about 83 times.

but only 91% of its gravity.

"91% of its gravity" is a very bad way of putting it. What you
probably should say instead is that the acceleration due to gravity
(or perhaps more colloquially but not as accurately, the force due to
gravity) at the top of the atmosphere is .91 of g on earth.

Would a shell several feet thick be strong enough to support an Earth-
like environment and a large population?

Why don't you calculate it?

To start with, figure out roughly what the tangental compressive
forces will be on your shell. You can do a quick calculation by
pretending you have hoop 60,000km in radius being pulled in at all
points by a uniform force. Pick a figure for the radius and density of
the hoop -- try something like 1m and the density of water for
simplicity -- and then figure out the force of compression along the
tangent at on any point.

This is a fairly simple problem -- the only tricky part is that you're
going to have to do one very simple integral over a quarter of the
circle to get the component of the force at each point along one
direction. I won't spoil your fun by setting up the problem for you --
I'm sure you'll enjoy doing it on your own.

From there, a slightly better calculation over a sphere should be

obvious, but I think you'll quickly decide that you don't need to
bother with that calculation.

[In short, there would seem to be better ways to live in space. --
Moderator JSN]

Without question.

Perry


.

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