Re: Space Elevator/Pipeline for Titan

Titans atmosphere combined with Earth's atmosphere as an energy source
for humanity? hmm..

Titan's atmosphere is surrounded on all sides by vacuum - it doesn't
suck the air off the moon. Gravity holds it on. The lapse rate
remains unchanged even with a tube around it or not. To get stuff off
titan you've got to lift it. You can lift it with a cable, if the
cable is attached to anything. You can also use a rocket or some sort
of launcher - a cannon like device - to shoot stuff off the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_moon

Titan is synchronized with Saturn, the same way the moon is
synchronized with the Earth. So, you could put a cable up from
Titan's surface to L1 or L2 - in the Saturnian system.

The problem is even with low gravity, we don't know of any materials
that might serve.

There is what Robert Foward called a space fountain - that is you
shoot iron masses through a tube of magnetic rings and control the
magnets to remove momentum from the masses - lifting the rings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain

Such arcs are built of known materials using known techniques. Such a
fountain operating on Titan could support a mass driver to eject
material continually toward Earth. Lifting the high speed portions
above the Titanian atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver.

Titan orbits 1.2 million km from Saturn, has an escape velocity of
2.64 km/sec. Saturn itself orbits the sun 9.5 AU or 1.43 billion km
from the sun.

Solar power it out of the question here. Laser beams originating near
the sun,beamed to receivers in synchronous orbit at L1 and L2 would be
needed to collect energy. Alternatively, nuclear reactors of some
sort would be needed to power everything.

Of course if one has these power sources to build a mass driver on top
of a space fountain, then use them instead of hydrocarbons! lol.

To toss stuff away from Titan so that it falls to Earth requires that
you eject it with 2.7 km/sec velocity, then another 0.8 km/sec to
escape the Saturnian system, and then sufficient excess velocity to
drop the speed of the projectile from 9.7 km/sec to 7.2 km/sec so it
falls to Earth. This is a total of 5 km/sec at the surface of Titan.

The ejected material strikes the Earths 6 years later, and aerobrakes
to a landing. A ton of liquid hydrocarbons occupies 7.33 barrels and
produces 3.1 tons of carbon-dioxide when burned in Earth's atmosphere.

Each ton of liquid hydrocarbon produces 44.7 gigajoules of energy when
burned.

To toss a ton of liquid hydrocarbons and 50 kg of structure and 100 kg
of ballast mass - for each ton - to 5 km/sec delta vee requires 28.8
gigajoules of energy. Assuming the energy system providing energy to
the launcher setup is 50% efficient - each tonne costs 57.6 gigajoules
to recover in this way - that's more than the energy you get when
burning the stuff.

Evaporating a portion - 100 kg - of the lightweight distallate through
a high expansion nozzle into the vacuum of space from high pressure,
provides thrust for guidance during the six year transit.

Humanity uses 28.3 billion barrels of liquid fuels on Earth. To
retrieve this same capacity on Titan requires that 122 tons per second
be ejected from Titan to Earth. This implies a 7.4 trilion watt space
power system be installed on Titan. This quite apart from the space
fountain and rail gun.

It would be simpler at the present juncture, to take the 7.4 trillion
watt space power system, and apply it directly to Earth and dispense
with the oil and natural gas altogether.

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