belovelife Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 say, as humanity progresses into the future, and we choose to make another planet by gathering the material in the asteroid belt, and put it into orbit at 1.1au what would be the process this is my thought, (considering we would have to make it completely out of materials off our planet) considerations: non-active core (thermal worries) gravity affecting earths orbit gathering materials in space energy needed to add deltaV to gathered materials: A-in one bundle B-individually to gather at a meeting point (these packages of material do not neccisarily have to move super fast as long as their orbits generally match to a rondevou point) material rights for nations involved in the project, and correlating property rights stabalizing atmoshere gasses to emulate planet earth robotic vs human workers power for thrust: lunar material with potential chemical energy for rocket propultion lunar material used to grow algae that creates fuel for rocket propultion availibility of oxygen NTR solar ion drive (efficient and just needs to recharge gas) etc please give thoughts on the subject (note: this is a completely relistic concept, please only ideas for, if you want to argue against, please use another thread, thank you) Quote
CraigD Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 Say, as humanity progresses into the future, and we choose to make another planet by gathering the material in the asteroid belt ...It’d be a very little planet, because all of the material in the asteroid belt totals only about 3 x 1021 kg, about 3 times that of the largest single asteroid, Ceres, and about 4% of the mass of our Moon, 0.05% of Earth. That mass would put your proposed manufactured planet in the dwarf planet class, massive enough to form itself into a spheroid, but not enough to clear most of the smaller bodies from its orbit. Of course, at 4% of the Moon’s mass, it would be hard to put a noticeable atmosphere on it, and surface gravity would be tiny, about 0.37 m/s/s (3% Earth’s, 18% the Moon’s, and 139% Ceres’s) It’s theorized that early in the formation of the solar system, the asteroid belt had about as much material as the belt that eventually fell together to form the Earth, but because it wasn’t in the right planet-forming “sweet spot” (having mostly to do with being in nice, small whole number orbital resonance with the Jupiter and smaller inner planet neighbors), rather than forming a planet, it’s been gradually losing material for the past 5-ish billion years, ‘til now all that’s left of it are Ceres, 3 large asteroids, and smaller stuff about equal in mass to its 4 big bodies. Quote
belovelife Posted January 27, 2012 Author Report Posted January 27, 2012 how about pulling objects from the keiper belt also, in the future we should be able to do this do you have a guestimation of the mass there? Quote
Eclogite Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 do you have a guestimation of the mass there?From wikipedia:Despite its vast extent, the collective mass of the Kuiper belt is relatively low. The total mass is estimated at range between a 25th and 10th the mass of the Earth with some estimates placing it at a thirtieth an Earth mass. Conversely, models of the Solar System's formation predict a collective mass for the Kuiper belt of 30 Earth masses. Quote
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