On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 21:47 +0100, Roger Burton West wrote: > On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 03:48:37PM -0400, Michael Sarno wrote: > > Assuming a setting depicted in GURPS Terradyne and advancing it forward, > > say > >transportation TL 10, what would be the best source of hydrogen for > >terraforming Venus? It would take about 4?10^19 kg of hydrogen to convert > >the > >whole Venusian atmosphere. Moons and planetary rings cannot be exploited due > >to > >the ExPERt Act of 2051. Would comets be the best source of hydrogen? What > >about > >removing hydrogen from the atmosphere of Jupiter? Thanks, in advance, for > >your > >helpful comments. > > The arguments in Transhuman Space for skimming He3 from Saturn, rather > than Jupiter, would seem to apply here as well. (Mostly, the > substantially weaker radiation belt, still of some concern even at > TL10.)
If you can get nanotech or biology (nearly the same thing!) to do it for you, I think that is better than carting it around the Solar System. Can your setting handle doing a design for something that would live on Venus, convert atmosphere or ground into hydrogen, and die when it needs to? It could also be done with brute power. Toss anything into a fusion reaction and break it to plasma. After cooling, it should be hydrogen. If it just has to be moved around, another neat idea might be to get rid of the ships. Just create a big jet from the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn and shoot it into a gravity arc that lands on Venus. You could use a series of magnetic or gravity directing rings to capture, focus and redirect the jet. I'm not totally sure that last one could work, but it sounds neat to me. -- Zan Lynx <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
