Various Ways To Terraform Titan

[doberman211]

In this topic, I wish to discuss the many ways to potentially terraform Titan. I am pretty sure that this has been done, but two topics are better than one, are they not? And it will help me with a science fiction series I am writing. I wish to use the most scientifically accurate way to terraform Titan. Mars has already been done in this series but the human population has reached 15 billion at this point and we have already begun living under Europa's ice sheet.

Please note I am only 15 at the moment but I do have an exceptional knowledge of astronomy and astrophysics compared to most people. I understand the basic concept of gravity and atmospheric pressure and so on.

 

My first thought was the method in which to use to heat up the planet/moon. (Note that i will be using the term planet for Titan often as the definition has changed in my series to any object with a radius over 1500km.) One idea I had was to launch a small moon such as Hyperion into Titan to cause an explosion with enough heat to ignite one liquid methane "ocean" preferably Ligeia Mare and cause a greenhouse effect enough to have a chain reaction with the other lakes and so on eventually heating the planet above or near 0 Celsius, enough to melt the rock-solid water and create a water world.

 

I am aware of the fact that it would be far more effective and practical to use the methane as fuel, though we have since moved on from such methods of fuel.

Edited February 25, 2011 by doberman211

[Mr Skeptic]

Orbital mirrors to increase sunlight and warmth, and photosynthetic bacteria to make oxygen?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_%28moon%29#Atmosphere

It supports opaque haze layers that block most visible light from the Sun and other sources and renders Titan's surface features obscure. The atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping "wings" attached to their arms.[/url]

...

Titan's atmosphere is the only dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere in the Solar System aside from the Earth's. The atmospheric composition in the stratosphere is 98.4% nitrogen with the remaining 1.6% composed mostly of methane (1.4%) and hydrogen (0.1–0.2%).

Because methane condenses out of Titan's atmosphere at high altitudes, its abundance increases as one descends below the tropopause at an altitude of 32 km, leveling off at a value of 4.9% between 8 km and the surface.^[6][7] There are trace amounts of other hydrocarbons, such as ethane, diacetylene, methylacetylene, acetylene and propane, and of other gases, such as cyanoacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, cyanogen, argon and helium.^[6] The orange color as seen from space must be produced by other more complex chemicals in small quantities, possibly tholins, tar-like organic precipitates.^[36] The hydrocarbons are thought to form in Titan's upper atmosphere in reactions resulting from the breakup of methane by the Sun's ultraviolet light, producing a thick orange smog.^[37] Titan has no magnetic field, although studies in 2008 showed that Titan retains remnants of Saturn's magnetic field on the brief occasions when it passes outside Saturn's magnetosphere and is directly exposed to the solar wind

[doberman211]

Yes that could work but the plan is to do it fast within the span of 15 years. This is a time when we have a little cosmic help if you know what i mean. we can easily fling an asteroid at Titan but giant mirrors would be a little too costly but a simple tug from a battleship was much easier. But theoretically heating it that way may work if it was Mars but being 9AU away i would suspect the sunlight from that distance to be of minimal effect. Perhaps if Jupiter were turned into a star as in 2010 odyssey 2 but that has not happened in my series.

 

Either way mirrors i do not see as a good idea for Titan.

 

Another idea i had was to move it closer in the solar system such as place it in between the orbits of Earth and Mars but the energy and mass needed to tug that away... well it's just an idea.

[Mr Skeptic]

You'd need centuries to do it cheaply. The problem will probably be more the lack of oxygen than the temperature. However, maybe if you have fusion reactors you could build a lot of those to provide energy to electrolyze the water for oxygen, and provide the heating as well. It would still probably take centuries, but feel free to calculate how much energy would be needed.

[doberman211]

Um...well yeah we have sort of fusion reactors but it's more of a miniature star. it's what powers the ships. well actually what powers them is a "white mini dwarf" so to speak. it's more stable. but methane is volatile so smashing an asteroid into a sea of it sounds like a hell of a faster way to make heat than mirrors.

 

in terms of cheap we have a mine on Mercury after an asteroid of almost pure titanium smashed into it in the meantime spewing up molten iron onto the surface. one million dollars has become what ten thousand is now.

[steevey]

Are there any natural sources of oxygen on Titan? Like maybe in its crust? It seems like just a big ball of methane, which if thats the case, we need very large quantities of materials from Earth such as oxygen and nitrogen to live there. Although I suppose there could be some kind of green house thing like there would be on mars which would be powered by the methane.

Edited February 27, 2011 by steevey

[Mr Skeptic]

Um...well yeah we have sort of fusion reactors but it's more of a miniature star. it's what powers the ships. well actually what powers them is a "white mini dwarf" so to speak. it's more stable.

 

Soo, your ships of the future are slower than our current ships?

 

but methane is volatile so smashing an asteroid into a sea of it sounds like a hell of a faster way to make heat than mirrors.

 

The methane won't burn, you know. Not without oxygen. It is a good greenhouse gas, so maybe when you warm the planet more of it enters the atmosphere to help. As for orbital bombardment, it does generate a lot of energy but also a lot of dust. You might end up making it colder overall, especially if the dust takes forever to settle due to the thicker atmosphere.

 

in terms of cheap we have a mine on Mercury after an asteroid of almost pure titanium smashed into it in the meantime spewing up molten iron onto the surface. one million dollars has become what ten thousand is now.

 

I'm not sure that's realistic. As I understand it, most of the material in these collisions gets vaporized. And I've never heard of "nearly pure titanium asteroids".

[ydoaPs]

And I've never heard of "nearly pure titanium asteroids".

It sounds more feasible as a raw material source for the ship than a part of some terraforming plan.

[lemur]

The methane won't burn, you know. Not without oxygen. It is a good greenhouse gas, so maybe when you warm the planet more of it enters the atmosphere to help. As for orbital bombardment, it does generate a lot of energy but also a lot of dust. You might end up making it colder overall, especially if the dust takes forever to settle due to the thicker atmosphere.

But if they are making surface-suns of hydrogen fusion, maybe the dust-cloud would absorb a lot of the radiation that would otherwise escape and act like a warm black-body blanket for the planet.

[Mr Skeptic]

But if they are making surface-suns of hydrogen fusion, maybe the dust-cloud would absorb a lot of the radiation that would otherwise escape and act like a warm black-body blanket for the planet.

 

The sun emits light through a wide spectrum, but the planet emits infrared light or lower because it is cooler. The dust would block both visible and infrared light, so it would block sunlight from reaching the planet. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases block infrared light but allow visible light through. Considering the methane concentrations, the dust won't block any more infrared light than is already being blocked by the methane, so its only noticeable effect would be to block sunlight. Even on earth, dust cools the planet.

 

As for any power plants on the surface, they'd be enclosed and so not emit in the visible spectrum either.

[lemur]

As for any power plants on the surface, they'd be enclosed and so not emit in the visible spectrum either.

I pictured some kind of open fusion reaction that resulted in a "local sun" situated within the atmosphere. I don't know why I pictured it like that, though, since it is more logical to do fusion inside a reactor. Maybe I just like the idea of creating miniature artificial suns. I wonder if this could be possible by somehow removing the electrons from the molecules using electromagnetic current, laser energy, or something like that.

Edited February 27, 2011 by lemur

[doberman211]

Oxygen in the subsurface slush? There are theories about liquid water under the surface but its more of a slush in my series.

 

The Mercury Mine is just a source of trade income with the other races in the galaxy as well as materials for ships. The ships in this series run about as fast as any scifi ship out there and the more massive the slower. And the shuttle is meant to ferry people and equipment at supersonic speeds. The ships i have are meant to be battleships so yes they are slower. About 80 meters a second for the largest ship. I won't get into all the tech stuff in the series but we can do these things by year 2200 or up. i havent actually made a timeline yet.

 

Another thing important i should have mentionned as part of my series, but i wanted to keep it theoretical, but the antagonist race in the series had "jumped" a red dwarf into the sun and caused it to go red giant. Although i can't be sure how realistic that would be, the habitable zone's inner limit is just beyond that of the asteroid belt by the time i wanted to have them terraform Titan. I know i sort of confused everyone with the timeline but i haven't actually planned a timeline for when titan gets terraformed. Though we have gotten past the gravity with a genetic alteration causing 2 types of humans, Terrans and Titanians.

 

Either way, all i want is input on how to terraform it the most scientifically valid way within the span of 20-30 years at most. I did not know the methane wouldn't ignite but now that i think about it oxygen burns so it makes sense. so at first i would need to remove oxygen from the solid ice rocks first i bet. After that, asteroid seems like bad plan because of dust but really both objects are mostly ice and how much dust would there really be?

[doberman211]

Oxygen in the subsurface slush? There are theories about liquid water under the surface but its more of a slush in my series.

 

The Mercury Mine is just a source of trade income with the other races in the galaxy as well as materials for ships. The ships in this series run about as fast as any scifi ship out there and the more massive the slower. And the shuttle is meant to ferry people and equipment at supersonic speeds. The ships i have are meant to be battleships so yes they are slower. About 80 meters a second for the largest ship. I won't get into all the tech stuff in the series but we can do these things by year 2200 or up. i havent actually made a timeline yet.

 

Another thing important i should have mentioned as part of my series, but i wanted to keep it theoretical, but the antagonist race in the series had "jumped" a red dwarf into the sun and caused it to go red giant. Although i can't be sure how realistic that would be, the habitable zone's inner limit is just beyond that of the asteroid belt by the time i wanted to have them terraform Titan. I know i sort of confused everyone with the timeline but i haven't actually planned a timeline for when titan gets terraformed. Though we have gotten past the gravity with a genetic alteration causing 2 types of humans, Terrans and Titanians.

 

Either way, all i want is input on how to terraform it the most scientifically valid way within the span of 20-30 years at most. I did not know the methane wouldn't ignite but now that i think about it oxygen burns so it makes sense. so at first i would need to remove oxygen from the solid ice rocks first i bet. After that, asteroid seems like bad plan because of dust but really both objects are mostly ice and how much dust would there really be?

Edited February 27, 2011 by doberman211

[Mr Skeptic]

80 meters per second seems absurdly slow for a ship. Given that the earth-sun distance is 1 Astronomical Unit = 149 598 000 000 meters, traveling that distance would take 59 years at 80 m/s. Of course a given speed is rather meaningless in space because it has to be relative to something, and considering the speed the earth is moving that would be tiny. What you have for speed for space ships is acceleration, and fuel is measured in how long each pound of fuel can provide a pound of thrust. The reason I said your ship would be slow is that carrying a sun around with them would mean the ship would have to be absurdly massive. You can't make them much smaller because then gravity wouldn't hold it together. But if you have something else to hold it together it is more like a fusion reactor than a sun.

 

If you have a bigger sun, that would help with the warming of Titan. However, to make it habitable I believe the hardest part would be getting the oxygen into the atmosphere (and burning things would take you entirely opposite that goal -- you need to "unburn" things like plants would do). But if you're going to have oxygen in the atmosphere, all the methane has to go. You could burn the oxygen in the methane (oxygen would be more like the fuel since it would be the less common component needed for the fire, and the methane would be in the atmosphere), and while that would get rid of the methane eventually it would just mean you're wasting energy. Alternately, the methane could be collected into storage tanks before making the oxygen.

 

The reason I say getting the oxygen would probably be harder is because of the heat released when burning things. A little fuel can heat a large amount of stuff, but to get the oxygen back you have to "unburn" something, and to do that you need to add the same amount of energy you get from burning back to the molecule (ie, the same amount of energy that could warm a large amount of stuff is needed to regain a little bit of oxygen), which usually also requires something to make the reaction go that direction since things don't naturally "unburn".

 

What I really don't know is how to prevent the oxygen from recombining with whatever you split it off from. Maybe some hydrogen has to be removed from the planet or put into storage? Anyone know?

[doberman211]

Well i surely don't know, but the stars in the ships are only 2 meters diameter they're not "stars" they just look like them. I was planning on having a greenhouse effect. The ships i am using jump to their destinations similar to the way star trek ships do, but the effect is much cooler with some green static discharging across the hull and such. they move slowly because they do not move in sublight to their destinations. they can get from the asteroid belt to saturn in one night's sleep. think scifi. they never just pull on the throttle and step on the gas. there is always a hyperspace-like thing involved in this case it involves warping space as well as using stabilized wormholes "stargates" to travel the ultra vast distances between the stars. the speed of the ship in this sense is meaningless as well as the ministar. i just felt like mentioning them. Okay i have 2 classes of hyperspaces humans use: the fast one at about getting from here to the galactic core in 2 weeks as well as the cheaper and slower model traveling at under lightspead for commercial travel. they get from asteroid belt to saturn in a night's sleep. you calculate the rest. im just the author.

 

Burning unburning, sheesh, so much work. im out of my league on this one. ill just sit back and watch what you guys come up with.

 

On a sidenote, does anyone know the actual feel of gravity you would be feeling? Titan has a high atmospheric pressure but relatively no gravity. so how many Gs so to speak would you really be feeling? and did wiki get it right that you could get a wing suit and fly around or is that nonsense? (yeah i get it its too cold but theoretically)

Edited February 28, 2011 by doberman211

[Airbrush]

Your best bet for any terriforming in our solar system is Mars. Leave Titan alone. Not worth the effort.

 

After terriforming Mars becomes feasible, that will be a long hard project. After that we would be better off building a star ship that can keep people comfortable and safe for thousands of years.

[doberman211]

um... mars has since become an overpopulated metropolis of 4 billion and counting an we're running out of room. sun turned into red giant as i mentioned and earth was destroyed and its 7 billion people evacuated to other star systems. this is the time where we've already reached star wars tech. Mars itself had to be teleported away with a planet sized stargate. We really needed to make a name for ourselves in the galactic community. we're the terraformers by trait if you will. it isnt a question of if to terraform it its how to terraform it.

[Moontanman]

The main problem with warming up Titan is that you would only have a gaint ball of water, no land surface, the water would be many miles deeper than on the earth.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Titan_cutaway.svg/517px-

Edited March 1, 2011 by Moontanman

[lemur]

The main problem with warming up Titan is that you would only have a gaint ball of water, no land surface, the water would be many miles deeper than on the earth.

How thick is the ice? Maybe you could build systems of caves and tunnels that could be heated and the water-runoff collected and used in various ways. It could be an interesting prospect to view the methane atmosphere as a fuel resource while viewing the ocean/ice as habitable terrain since on Earth we usually think of fuel as coming from underground and the atmosphere as being the primary habitable terrain. It could be interesting to design a method for burning the methane for heat within the ice caves/tunnels while expanding the network and at the same time re-capturing the CO2 that exhausts from burning methane with scarce, imported oxygen. Assuming the CO2 would rise, you could have a top level of ice-caves devoted to hydroponic gardening and subsequent levels for other purposes below that.

[Airbrush]

um... mars has since become an overpopulated metropolis of 4 billion and counting an we're running out of room. sun turned into red giant as i mentioned and earth was destroyed and its 7 billion people evacuated to other star systems. this is the time where we've already reached star wars tech. Mars itself had to be teleported away with a planet sized stargate. We really needed to make a name for ourselves in the galactic community. we're the terraformers by trait if you will. it isnt a question of if to terraform it its how to terraform it.

 

OK, I see what you mean. Better to hollow out asteroids and spin them so they create artificial gravity on the inside. When humans reach that stage of development, it will be easier to just build huge multigenerational star ships. What does Titan have that asteroids and starships don't?

[doberman211]

Solid land and a stable atmosphere, it makes people feel safe to be on solid ground even if its a floating city. Starships are purely for travel, commerce, exploration and war at this point. We're no utopia. Why? Because utopia is lame.

 

I also don't want to rip off ringworld or as most people nowadays know it as "Halo" -.- I'm already pushing it i think with Stargates and ZAP (warp) drives.

 

You're fooling yourself if you think humans are the smartest species in the galaxy. hell we couldn't even get ion cannons right. Not a problem since the enemies shields only stopped energy and projectile/missile tech was effective.

 

We've so far in the series as far as i've planned started venus but the sun went red giant so that was a loss, another dozen earth-like worlds with very little needing to change, as in it is too cold we heat it or if it is too small we inject it with "neutron matter". neutron star material we buy off the smart aliens who know how to mine it.

Edited March 2, 2011 by doberman211