h a l f b a k e r yI think, therefore I am thinking.
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Unspired by a comment in the linked idea.
If we could get hold of enough air, what we ought to do is pressurise the
entire solar system.
This air would become a vast solar atmosphere, held by the Sun's gravity,
and decreasing in density exponentially from the sun.
There are, it's true, a
few problems to be worked out. For one thing, the
whole solar atmosphere would need to be spun up to speed, otherwise it
would drag on the planets and be embarrassing.
Moons would have to go, as far as I can tell, but they could be usefully
redeployed as independent planets. Since space travel would be much
easier (using Airbus A380s, for instance), these new planets would be
perfectly visitable. And of course they'd all be inhabitable once we'd
installed WiFi and coffee machines.
The only insurmountable problem, then, is where to get the air from in the
first place. Popping the entire world supply of bubblewrap would be a
sensible starting point.
The Linked Idea
Very_20loud_20noise
[MaxwellBuchanan, May 31 2015]
Replica Hindenburg to travel Earth -> Moon
The_20Hindenburg_2c_20but_20in_20space
...I forget which unsung genius came up with this notion.. [not_morrison_rm, May 31 2015]
Could we flood it with water?
Planequarium
[theircompetitor, May 31 2015]
[link]
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We envisage that the in-flight entertainment system
would need to be upgraded. |
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A trip to the moon would take only about 20 days -
much shorter than sail-powered transatlantic
crossings; yet these sailing trips were conducted
almost entirely without the benefit of tray tables or
small packets of cashews. |
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//Moons would have to go, as far as I can tell |
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Nahh, just attach them to their usual planet with a long brass rod, like one of them ornery thingies. |
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While Earth would get cooler, as the sunlight has to go through much more air (and the clouds in it), it would be warmed by the convection current, if there was an up and down perpendicular to the plain of the eccentric. |
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//without the benefit of...small packets of cashews. |
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Hurrah! They invariably end up all over your neighbour once you have managed to rip open the industrial-grade sealing of the packet. |
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[MB], if you had a level common Imperialist insulated
teafork of common sense, you'd realize that no world is
inhabitable unless it is supplied with donuts. |
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Therefore, instead of wasting all the air supply on all of
the heretofore empty space, just create a donut of
atmoshsphere orbiting the Sun along the orbital route of
each planet. |
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Fly up from the planet's surface, and out to the point
where you want to begin your transfer orbit, light off a
few RATO bottles (yeah, now they're known as Rocket
Assist To Orbit engines) and you're on your merry way - no
longer to be worried about the Vne in atmosphere of your
A380, your only limitation now is that everybody's gonna
die; and since that's true in any case, it's no big deal. |
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Arriving at the other donut - er, orbit - being able to
make final approach in atmosphere will ease up that
airbag thing like we see on Mars all the time. |
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Moons - you're right, they can't be allowed to run around
at speeds different from the air flow, but putting them at
the L4 & L5 Lagrange points (the Trojan points) would
allow them to share in the party. So there could still be
weather satellites, communications satellites, spy
satellites - but now you could add spam satellites and
maker-bot cosplay drone satellites. |
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The quantity of air needed would not be a problem,
necessarily; the amount of hot air produced by U.S.
politicians (*all* of them, mr. [bigsleep]) in the current
run-up to presidential elections will be
approximately five and a quarter times as much as
needed. For either task. |
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// There are, it's true, a few problems to be worked out.
For one thing, the whole solar atmosphere would need to
be spun up to speed, otherwise it would drag on the
planets and be embarrassing// |
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And all the planetss orbit in the same direction....It's like it
was meant to be! |
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Planets would end up tidal-locked with the Sun pretty quickly, unless interstitial air pressure was minimum... say just enough to run the jet engines ? |
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It would all come down to how much pressurization was wanted relative to the current vacuum. |
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[bigsleep] Sorry lost me in that very thin air. What would the air's ionisation rate be like? |
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True, not rate, mean probability of survival period in sol space. |
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Gives new meaning to global warming. |
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Also: you could start off with just pressurizing a single solar
cooker. Then you already have a pressurized solar system,
with much less effort. |
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It seems to me that THAT much air in that much volume
of space surrounding the Sun, would collapse under its
own gravitational self-attraction and double (or more!)
the mass of the Sun. |
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Have you read any of Karl Schroeder's "Candesce"
stories? They feature a large-ish enclosed volume of
air, with artificial fusion-reactor suns and populated
places that resemble O'Neil colonies. The enclosed
space is quite large, but not so large for gravitational
self-collapse. |
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There is also a Larry Niven novel, "The Integral Trees"
that features a volume of UNenclosed air, orbiting close
to a neutron star or black hole (I forget which, it has
been so long). Apparently the gravitational gradients
near the star are sufficient to keep the atmosphere at a
breathable pressure. |
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//collapse under its own gravitational self-
attraction// Well then, we just need to spin it up to
a decent speed. |
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It is quite widely believed that the Earth (to pick a
planet at random) does not fall into the Sun on
account of its speediness. |
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By a remarkable coincidence, the orbital velocity of
air needed to stop it falling into the sun, at the
position of Earth's orbit, happens to be exactly the
same as the Earth's current orbital velocity. So it
should all work out quite nicely. |
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I suppose one small snag would be that the daily
rotation of the Earth would lead to roughly 1000mph
winds at some point above the equator. However,
the equator is quite warm and a cooling breeze may
be a good thing. |
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