A 99% Gaseous Galaxy What do we do in a universe that is 90% hydrogen, about 10% helium and less than 1% heavier elements? This is the composition of the Sun and Gas Giant Planets. Jupiter and Saturn are richer in heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen than is the Sun and Uranus and Neptune are about 50% hydrogen and helium and 50% heavier elements like C,N,O,S, etc. Rocky planets, asteroids, comets and moons offer construction materials, but what good are Gas Giants, especially those orbiting red dwarf flare stars??? I say they are good for fuel. We need protium fusion and perhaps micro-black holes that can be fed raw hydrogen to release raw energy. Could we seed Gas Giants with micro-black holes? We'd need interesting technology to make them. We can utilize gas giants by dumping replicating robots on their moons and then dumping harvesters in their clouds and letting them collect all the hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia they can and shipping this stuff into space to be used as liquid hydrogen galactic cosmic ray sheilds in deep space, fusion fuel and rocket fuel. The bright side is that there will never be a shortage of hydrogen for interplanetary rockets as long as we have nuclear energy. There is only a limited amount of uranium in the galaxy but no shortage of hydrogen. However, it is going to take some real unforseen technology to fuse protium that is low mass enough to make a good rocket motor; however, massive protium fusion reactors could power space colonies in the interstellar regions and energize propulsion beams. Feeding hydrogen to micro-black holes would be more efficient as these can convert 6% to 40% of mass to energy, depending on their rate of spin, but fusion can only convert 0.7%. If vast energies are available from miniature black holes perhaps we could run hydrogen and helium fusion reactors to build up heavier elements. If we could just make almost endless quantities of lithium, the 3rd element of the Periodic Table and beryllium, the 4th, we would have some real valuable materials. Lithium is lightweight but not especially strong and it is highly reactive, but there is no water vapor or oxygen in space to trouble us. Liquid lithium is used as reactor coolant and in heat pipes. Beryllium is as light as magnesium and as strong as aluminum. Alloys can be as strong as mild steel. It has many nuclear applications and is very hard, has a high melting point and is extremely stiff. Perhaps thin reflectors of polished beryllium can be used to tap stellar energy and beryllium boilers and tubing filled with liquid lithium can transmit heat to helium gas pressurized turbo-generators. Would the transmutation fusion reactors use magnetic confinement or just consist of huge particle accelerators in the vaccum and super cold of space that ram hydrogen and helium ions together to form lithium and beryllium and even boron, and could these metals could be vaporized and fused together to make heavier elements like carbon? With vitually limitless supplies of hydrogen and helium from gas giants and vast powers from micro-black holes combined with mega-scale particle accelerators or laser imposion devices, perhaps creating various light elements will be worthwhile. The simplest thing to do might be to take micro-black hole powered particle beams and cross the beams. As protons and alpha particles come streaming out of the polar jets of mini-Kerr-Newmann BHs at near light speed and collide at the point where the beams cross, heavier elements will form and could be trapped by magnetic scoops in space. We must consider the use of high energy particle beams from these to bore holes into comets, hollow out asteroids, sink shafts into planets rich in heavy metals, etc. Endless Energy If we achieve protium fusion and micro-BH power we will never run out of energy in even the darkest regions of space. Our robot swarms could construct large reactors to power space colonies and propulsion beams at distances from dim stars where solar (or stellar) energy is insignificant. At Jupiter's distance from a typical red dwarf we only have one third of a watt per square meter. The hydrogen and helium from those Gas Giants will be vaulable indeed. Artificial Micro-Black Hole Power When we build enough solar energy complexes in space and beam propelled mag-sailers we could launch some vessels on collision courses that form micro-BHs upon impact, then seed them into the gas giants of red dwarfs to make those systems a little brighter or seed gas giants and brown dwarfs drifting through interstellar space. It should not be too difficult once we have interstellar propulsion beams at Sol and AC3 to launch some small ships loaded with heavy metals on a collision course at 90% c and let them go splat. Or we could launch small vessels at 90%c and let them go splat right into the cores of gas giants and put our micro-BHs right where we want them to begin with instead of hauling them thru interstellar space to the gas giant. I can't see doing this to any of the outer planets of our own solar system or even the planets of F, G and K type stars. We might bomb the gas giants and brown dwarfs of lifeless solar systems orbiting some red dwarfs in the galaxy with high speed loads of heavy metals, mostly iron, and form micro-BHs that ignite those gas giants. We could bomb some white dwarfs also and really form some real heavy matter. Like when a million tons of iron slams into the degenerate matter of a white dwarf at 90%c there should be some heavy duty compression and some strange objects formed!!! But could these artificial stars explode in mini-supernovas and irradiate nearby space with deadly radiation? We have much to learn. We will not be foolish enough to swamp the galaxy with uncontrolled breeding, but it is possible that we will transform some lifeless solar systems orbiting red dwarfs consisting only of gas giants, asteroids and ice planets into shining oases of space colonies, energy collectors, and with the ignition of a gas giant planet create warm planets out of its ice moons that would then develop oceans and atmospheres of water vapor and other gases. These worlds might live only a few million years before their atmospheres leak away into space and leave rock and metal behind, but they will never be anything but dead planets if we don't toy with them. Life could exist in the seas of these former ice moons and be transplanted to new worlds eventually. It's always possible that a group of people will want to increase their numbers and set out to colonize a solar system of no interest to the masses of humanity. If they have enough wealth and own enough robots or just multiply their robots and build their ships, there's no reason they should be denied the activity of reproducing themselves in large numbers as long as they realize the limits of the galaxy. A small number of very unusual people could create their own solar system wide nation through biological reproduction, while most people are content with two, just one or no children at all and population growth is slow, level or even shrinks in the future. If most people have two, some just one and others none, then there can be people who have large families and the population would remain stable or grow very slowly. Humanity could live through an era where reproduction is not popular and most people live to enjoy themselves and the population shrinks, followed by population growth and another era of population reduction. Lack of interest in reproduction and low fertility rates may have something to do with overcrowding and a space colony could become overcrowded rapidly. Space colonists could always build more habitat to house increasing numbers, but people of the future must be aware of the dangers of unchecked human reproduction which may have much to do with the social upheavals, wars and even downfalls of great civilizations on Earth in the past. To some people the ultimate joy is having children. To others, often people from large families, living privately is the ultimate joy. We must wonder what human population growth rates are really like when birth control is available and social/moral freedoms are permitted. In Europe today the population is shrinking. When we consider the possibility of life extension there may someday be humans who live 1000 years and reproduce if they desire to at age 250 to 500 years or later. Such populations would grow more slowly. Artificial wombs may make reproduction less of a chore for women. Some people may even choose to have themselves cloned. It also seems likely that androids will become our posterity rather than human or super-human children. It's hard to say what genetically enhanced humans with higher intelligence, superior emotional maturity, and far longer lifespans will value in a rich space civilization. There will be enough energy from stars of all types and even micro-black holes to make fantastic things possible, including star ship propulsion. |
| They will have robots waiting on them and they will never worry about or want for anything material. Then there's the energy that goes into farming and manufacturing. It's safe to give our future space citizen 200 kilowatts. They have nano-manufactories going and everything to sate their every whim. So a star like our Sun radiates 3.9x10E26 joules/second. Our space colonies might be located in the ecliptic plane so they don't collide. If we create "Dyson clouds" the orbits of the colonies in many different intersecting planes must be planned carefully to avoid collisions. This should be possible and it might even be possible to alter the orbits of space colonies to avoid collisions with other colonies should their orbits be perturbed by the gravity of the planets or collisions with comets racing into the system. If we can collect 90% of the Sun's energy that's 3.51x10E26 watts and if the efficiency of the panels and transmission system is only 10% (once again, I am being conservative) that's 3.51x10E25 watts. If we can gather this up with numerous Dyson shells of different sizes at different distances, we can obtain enough energy for 1.75x10E20 citizens!! Power for Enormous Populations That's 175 billion billion people!!! And I'm allowing them almost 20 times as much energy as each of us uses today. If we tap energy from helium 3, deuterium, tritium and protium (normal hydrogen) there's even more energy from the Gas Giant planets and other bodies of the solar system. BUT WHY BOTHER? WHO WANTS ALL THOSE PEOPLE AND WHO WANTS TO SURROUND THE SUN WITH DYSON SHELLS? ASSUMING THE ROBOT ARMIES OF 1000 YEARS FROM TODAY COULD DEVOUR MERCURY AND THE ASTEROIDS TO BUILD SUCH THINGS, WHY TURN THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM INTO A MINE AND COVER THE SUN WITH DYSON SHELLS? MUST NATURE ALWAYS BE DESTROYED AND MADE OVER AGAIN IN MAN'S IMAGE OF ARTIFICIALITY? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANYONE HAPPY ASIDE FROM THE ENGINEERS WHO PLAY GOD WITH THE ENORMOUS RESOURCES OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM? OR THE POWER COMPANIES THAT OWN THE DYSON SHELLS AND SELL POWER TO 175 BILLION BILLION PEOPLE LIVING IN TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL HABITAT IN SPACE? So what's it got to do with M type red dwarfs? At an average of 3 watts per square meter at 150 million kilometers out, we can acquire 8.4x10E23 watts from a red dwarf on the average. Some will yield more; some less. So an average red dwarf can supply enough energy to support 4.2x10E18 citizens. If 90% is available and the system efficiency is 10%, then there is energy for 378 quadrillion citizens or 63 million times as many people as there are on Earth today, each consuming perhaps 20 times as much energy as is used by U.S. citizens today for a hedonic lifestyle, available on the average in Red Dwarf systems. Of course, some M Type stars will be above the average and some less. It may not be practical to harness all that energy. If we can only get 1/1,000 of it, then 378 triillion citizens can be accomodated in luxury, and this is 63,000 times as many people as there are on Earth today, in the average Red Dwarf system. Capturing only 1/1,000 of a red dwarf's energy is almost absurdly pessimistic. Certainly, more can be tapped. However, the point should be clear-there's lots of energy even from red dwarfs. Since red dwarfs are on the average about 220,000 miles in diameter we could build Dyson shells of a much smaller size with lower masses of materials. There is evidence for gas giants and brown dwarfs in orbit around some red dwarfs, the possibility of small rock-metal planets and asteroids also exists. To avoid x-ray flare radiations, the shells or rings more likely could transmit energy via microwave beam to distant space colonies with shields of ice surrounding them. For comparison, since Sol radiates 3.9x10E26 watts, a population of 175 quintillion can be supported. If only 1/1,000th of Sol's remaining energy is used, 175 quadrillion or 29 million times as many people as are on Earth today will have 200 kWe each at thier disposal. HOWEVER, BEFORE A CASE IS MADE FOR LARGE FAMILY SIZE AND THE PROMISE OF AN EVER EXPANDING HUMAN POPULATION IN SPACE, WHERE DO WE GET ALL THE SOLID MATERIALS TO BUILD THE DYSON SHELLS AND SPACE COLONIES FOR ALL THESE PEOPLE? AND IT WOULD TAKE ONLY ABOUT TEN CENTURIES AT A GROWTH RATE OR 1.5% TO SWAMP SPACE WITH ALL THESE PEOPLE EVEN IF WE COULD BUILD ENOUGH HABITAT FAST ENOUGH FOR THEM. Although space colonies would be exotic places to visit, would everybody want to live in them? Some people love New York City... A space colony 20 miles long like Island Three would be as close to living on a planetary surface as is possible, but one of my compatriots likens these artificial worlds to the zoo; totally unreal habitat for caged animals. He prefers a world where the sky meets the horizon and beyond lie other lands, oceans, climates and biomes, not a giant metal cylinder where it is 72 degrees F. where ever you go and all you have to do is take an elevator ride to the other side of the colony. I don't concur with this rugged Northerner. Island 3 sized space colonies would be wonderful places to live and planets would be great places to visit. The best place for an expanding technological civilization is in space beyond the earthquakes, storms, ice ages, continental drift, volcanos, temperature extremes, miserable weather, limited land resources, insect and vermin infestations and other miseries of planetary life. There aren't enough planets for humans to keep breeding at present rates and there has to be more to life than supporting kids, making mere baby makers out of women, and living in a synthetic world. Kids can be a pain. Marriage can be a pain. Space colonies might be built in another century to house workers for a few years at a time in comfortable circumstances and for tourists who want to visit these unique man made islands in the sky, but they are no answer to the human overpopulation problem even if we build them in vast numbers around every star in the galaxy. Is it likely that there are other life forms out there; some intelligent, some just semi-intelligent, and others totally unintelligent like the great Sequoia trees that were chopped down by the white man, that would resent our colonization of their solar system or if unable to defend themselves like the mighty Sequoia tree were simply too beautiful to replace with fields of grain and swarms of kids who would never get to climb them? |
| Those who do venture into interstellar space may choose to live in orbit around K, G and F type stars rather than M type red dwarfs; however, red dwarfs comprise about 80% of the stars in the galaxy and will often be much closer and easier to reach. Since we won't be breeding like rabbits, reasonably sized populations can survive in red dwarf systems, at safe distance from the x-ray flares with robots doing the construction close to the star, that make use of stellar energy beamed out to colonies. The electronic brains of the robots will be very compact and surrounded with thick radiation shields that aren't too massive because of the miniaturization of nano-circuitry and small size of incredibly powerful computers in the future. Purple Bacteria? Space colonies would probably be illuminated with artificial lights like sulfur lamps, but agriculture could be a problem. It will be necessary to harvest solar energy from red dwarfs to run blue lamps in the farm chambers, as chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light, for best growth. It may also be possible to cultivate large masses of purple bacteria which use red and infrared light for photosynthesis, under the dim red dwarf suns; however, these purple bacteria do not convert CO2 to oxygen. Fortunately, there are physio-chemical methods of converting CO2 to oxygen if a closed ecological life support system is not feasible. The purple bacterial biomasses could be composted and used to cultivate edible fungi that have been genetically engineered to provide a wide variety of flavors and protien. Fungi absorbs oxygen and releases CO2 like animal cells and needs a source of carbohydrate for energy. The purple bacteria could make all the glucose needed for the fungi. Whether people living off red dwarfs will want to live off mushrooms or not is another question. Livestock could be raised on fungi and perhaps purple bacterial feed also. Some animal slaughter will be required if things are done this way. How primitive. We will probably learn how to cultivate "meat cells" in vats in the future to satisfy our omnivorous tastes and keeping livestock, flushing manure, breeding livestock and slaughter will be unecessary. |
| RED DWARF STAR SYSTEMS Ten nearby class M red dwarf stars: Name Solar Luminosity Solar Diameter Proxima Centauri 138/1,000,000 14.50% Barnard's Star 4/10,000 15.00% Lallande 21185 6/1,000 46.00% Luyten 726-8AB 6/100,000 14.00% Ross 154 5/10,000 24.00% Wolf 359 2/100,000 16-19% CD-46 11540 31/10,000 42.00% DX Cancri 12/1,000,000 11.00% Luyten's Star 4/10,000 11.00% Lacaille 9352 1.10% 47-57% The average diameter is 24.7% Sol or about 219,000 miles. The average luminosity is 0.216% Sol. Only two-tenths of one percent! That's not much. At Earth's distance you would only get about 3 watts per square meter. To get more energy density from a red dwarf you must move in closer, but many red dwarfs are also flare stars, emitting blasts of X-rays from time to time. It would not be wise to build a space colony close to a red dwarf unless it was heavily shielded to block out the X-rays. Perhaps solar energy complexes could be built closer to the red dwarf at say a distance of 15 million kilometers where 300 watts per square meter could be harvested and beamed out to colonies at a safe distance. Most stars in the galaxy are red dwarfs, so we must develop strategies for inhabiting their systems or forget about them and go on to G-type stars like our Sun, K type and F type stars. It has been said that any planet close enough to a red dwarf to be warm enough for life as we know it would be tidally locked with the star side over heating and the atmosphere freezing out on the dark side; however, atmospheric circulation between the star side and dark side is possible and could even out planetary temperatures. Also, the life zone around a red dwarf may be narrow but because there are so many red dwarfs in the galaxy the chances of planets being in the life zone are as high as the chances of planets being in the wider life zones of less common stars like our Sun. Also, given the existence of life in extreme conditions on Earth, life may exist in more extreme conditions on other planets. We tend to think of life as we know it, but what about life not as we know it? Thus, the life zones may be wider than we expect. Finally, red dwarf flare stars settle down after about a billion years and life could evolve underground or underwater, shielded from the radiations, so we must not discount the possibility of life on planets of red dwarfs. Let's let the Sun represent G type stars. It radiates about 3.9x10E26 joules/second. We get about 1350 watts per square meter at Earth's distance. The red dwarfs' average is only 8.4x10E23 j/s. If we let the three stars of 36 Ophiuci 3 represent K type stars, their average diameter is 78% Sol's or 691,000 miles and their average luminosity is 21.2% or 287 watts per square meter at 150 million km. If we let Procyon represent an F type star, it is 1.4-2.3x Sol's diameter or 1.24 million to 2 million miles wide and it's luminosity is 7.5x the Sun. That's 10.125 kilowatts per square meter. Not bad. If we let Sirius represent an A type star, we find that it has 1.69x Sol's diameter or 1.49 million miles and 21x luminosity-that's 28.3 kilowatts per square meter at Earth's distance. Energy Use, Today and Tomorrow How much energy does an American use? That's hard to say. I'm using a 40 watt bulb, a 21 watt fluorescent, 300 watts for computer and monitor and maybe 1000 watts for a window air conditioning unit at this moment. That's 1361 watts. When the TV, washer and drier are running it's even more. However, there is driving and heating in the winter. If the cars were all electric and heating was electric instead of gas, how many watts would the average American use then? I found stats indicating US energy consumption per person per year in 1997 at 352 million BTU. Since 1000 BTU=0.293 killowatt-hours, that works out to a constant load of about 12 kilowatts. Let's be liberal and allow 100,000 watts for the space citizen of tomorrow; heck, make it 200,000 watts. |
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