Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dark Jedi · 11-18-2002, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
<strong>I wonder if in some far off future time, Saturn's rings will be declared to be a protected piece of estate and off-limits to mining. We could probably easily find the essentials in the earth-moon system asteriods and the asteriod belt too. If our civilization expands far enough, then we would probably start harvesting the icy comets located in far reaches of the kuniper belt and oort cloud. It all depends on how much raw materials we'll actually need and how efficently we are at using them and recycling( ie future technology can conceivably make 100% matter recycling possible). A future civilization may end up never really needing the full resources of a solar system, just a few tidbits located here and there.

If our energy needs grow fast enough, we could start tapping the sun to provide the energy, either by low orbiting satellites collecting the solar energy and beaming the energy via lasers or microwaves back to the civilization centers. I've seen schemes where one would enclose the sun in a bubble which intercepts something like 90% of the radiant energy while leaving the equatorial plane open so the planets are still illuminated. For a such Dyson bubble, we won't need to dissamble everything in the solar system, the planet mercury has enough material to do the job.</strong>

Mercury has enough material? I wonder about that. How thin would it need to be streched to cover the sun at an orbit that will sustain itself?

Granted, a molocule thick is enough if you can actually use it, but what will gravity allow?

Demosthenes · 11-18-2002, 04:26 PM

Well not a molecule thick, i don't remember the exact thickness that the sphere can be. But the basic point is that the bubble is thin enough to be supported by the radiation pressure balancing against the tug of the gravity. Mind you, the radius of that particular sphere will be quite smaller than the radius of mercury's orbit.

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11-18-2002, 04:26 PM	#32
Demosthenes Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: a speck of dirt Posts: 2,510	Well not a molecule thick, i don't remember the exact thickness that the sphere can be. But the basic point is that the bubble is thin enough to be supported by the radiation pressure balancing against the tug of the gravity. Mind you, the radius of that particular sphere will be quite smaller than the radius of mercury's orbit.

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