Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Hydrocarbons in the Sky

Dear Government: NOW are you interested in space exploration?

Saturn's Titan -A Giant Organics Factory
Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
Tags: science, space exploration
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  • 16 comments
christinaathena

christinaathena

January 9 2009, 08:15:36 UTC 12 years ago

Heh. Unfortunately, the expense of space travel would make it impossible to be profitable. A moon of pure gold would still be cost-prohibitive at present technology
corivax

corivax

January 9 2009, 08:36:20 UTC 12 years ago

What you need is a moon made out of LSD. :)
christinaathena

christinaathena

January 9 2009, 08:51:15 UTC 12 years ago

Neat site. :-)
ysabetwordsmith

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

January 9 2009, 17:59:19 UTC 12 years ago

Early technology in any field is usually expensive and clunky. Look at early engines, cars, airplanes -- they barely worked! But when there's a demand for something, it tends to get refined so that it becomes much more efficient and affordable.

Off the top of my head, I know of one proposal for transporting durable goods that is not too far from our current technology and might be affordable: a railgun. It's basically a giant tube through which chunks of matter are accelerated. Not for fragile packages, but it would work fine for raw materials.
christinaathena

Re: Hmm...

christinaathena

January 10 2009, 01:27:42 UTC 12 years ago

Sure, but that would take a LOT more technology to make worthwhile, and is certainly not anything for the short-term. I wonder whether it will turn out to be possible to maintain enough interest in space travel long enough to get past those high early expenses. Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to see. :-)

Still, by the time we do, I can't believe that hydrocarbons would remain economically viable. By then we'd have to have found a more efficient form of power generation. :-)
browngirl

browngirl

January 9 2009, 13:48:52 UTC 12 years ago Edited:  January 9 2009, 13:49:16 UTC

Heh. I wish I remembered enough chemistry to remember if there are other feasable chemical ways of getting energy out of hydrocarbons besides burning them with oxygen, or, rather (since there likely are), which would be most suited to working in space out by Saturn. For various reasons, we wouldn't want to drag them back here even if the transport were feasable, but what an energy source for building Saturn Stations Two through Ten!

*makes note to find my old chem textbook this weekend and contemplate a SF story*
ysabetwordsmith

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

January 9 2009, 17:55:01 UTC 12 years ago

Hydrocarbons aren't just useful for burning; they are useful for building. Plastics and many other materials are made from hydrocarbons. That's handy if you're building ships and stations and such.

Re: Hmm...

Anonymous

January 9 2009, 18:25:26 UTC 12 years ago

Ummm... I do not think I'd like to fly on a ship made out of plastics. Outgassing, and also material ductility. There's a reason they do not use plastics for airplanes, despite plastics and ceramics being lighter and stronger. Metals are more ductile, they can take a lot more elastic and plastic deformation before they break, and breaks must be larger before becoming critical. Glass can shatter due to a microfracture, but metals can visibly dent and tear before fractures reach critical.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

12 years ago

  • New comment
browngirl

Re: Hmm...

browngirl

January 9 2009, 19:00:34 UTC 12 years ago Edited:  January 9 2009, 19:00:49 UTC

*smacks forehead* Thank you for reminding me of this.

Floating factories! The mental images get better and better!
mtrose2

Energy from hydrocarbons

mtrose2

January 9 2009, 18:29:39 UTC 12 years ago

I once read a cool mission proposal about how you could send a ramjet craft into jupiter's atmosphere. The ramjet would get its initial speed from the descent into the atmosphere itself, and then maintain it by intaking the hydrogen in the atmosphere and burning it for fuel. For that matter, there was a cool article in Aviation Week a couple weeks ago about a possible SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) plane that acted as a jet in the lower atmosphere, collecting extra oxygen as it went and storing it, then switching to rocket mode as the atmosphere got too thin, using the oxygen it had collected during the first stage of its ascent as oxidizer.
browngirl

Re: Energy from hydrocarbons

browngirl

January 9 2009, 19:01:15 UTC 12 years ago

That is cool indeed! *envisions*
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Energy from hydrocarbons

ysabetwordsmith

January 9 2009, 21:15:30 UTC 12 years ago

Oh yes, ramjets are wonderful things! We haven't built any yet, but I think we could -- they're really just an extrapolation of extant jet technology. In addition to scooping their own fuel, such craft are also ideal for harvesting useful materials from the atmosphere of gas giants. On a much larger scale, ramjets have also been proposed for interstellar travel.

Heh

Anonymous

January 9 2009, 18:33:16 UTC 12 years ago

"Dear Government: NOW are you interested in space exploration?"

I once saw this comic about the mars rovers. A journalist is interviewing a NASA rep:

Journalist: "The Mars rovers cost hundreds of millions of dollars. How did you convince the government to spend that kind of money?"

NASA rep: "Oh, you know, we just explained to the administration about how important exploration is to the country, advancing the future of science-"

Journalist: "You told Bush there was oil on Mars, didn't you?"

NASA rep: "Ummm....."
the_vulture

the_vulture

January 9 2009, 19:35:44 UTC 12 years ago

Crikey! All this discussion has got my filled with all sorts of images from the Cyberpunk RPG supplement 'Near Orbit'. Okay, granted, Saturn is FAR from near orbit, but I'm guessing, with corporations funding exploration and development to get first dibs at new resource bases, it'd have the same feel.
lord_caramac

lord_caramac

January 10 2009, 06:30:39 UTC 12 years ago

We should not try to bring any of that stuff back to Earth - there's too much carbon already. But, of course, it could be used for making polymers for space colonies, and rocket fuel.

  • Rose-breasted Grosbeak

    I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak on the hopper feeder. I don't think I've seen one in summer before. They usually appear in spring. We had some for…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is mostly sunny, muggy, and warm. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches. I took a few pictures in the yard. EDIT 7/4/21 -- I picked half…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is sunny and mild. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches and sparrows. I raked the firepit and laid a chimney of sticks in it. We broke up…