An Industry for the Moon, Good Economics

[nexium]

Clearly, dust tossed off the surface of the moon would cool Earth at least minutely. I'll guess a million times a million tons = a trillion tons = 10E12 tons in orbit around the Earth, at an average altitude of 200,000 kilometers would cool Earth 0.001 degrees c = 0.0018 f = not much.<br />At present the UN is short of funds, so my guess is the money is not available for such a massive project whose results would be lost in the noise. Depending mostly on the average dust particle size, half the cooling would be lost in a decade to a century. The dust would significantly errode space craft that pasted though the rings of Earth which might be as spectacular as the rings of Saturn. Neil

 

[rogers_buck]

Good point. The history of modern man is contained within one cycle, but that won't be the case forever. The perfect argument for climate modification.<br /><br />As far as dust is concerned, I think the problem is that it would likely clear too readilly. See T-Tauri stars in google...<br />

 

[rogers_buck]

That might well be the right answer, however, I don't see what I would recognize as an optical depth calculation in your estimate. I would expect to see that with a volumetric estimate for the dust cloud to have confidence in your numbers. How many grains per cubic meter are required to dim the light by 1% given an optical depth of 10000km? - for example. If you think back to the year without a winter caused by the dust of a single volcano in the stratosphere... Come to think of it, the stratosphere might not be a bad place to dump the lunar dust...<br /><br />Just a comment, I like these hair brained ideas because thinking about them and talking about them puts the old brain far out into space. It's almost as much fun as reading a science fiction story don't you think?<br /><br /><br />

 

[nexium]

Sorry, I am guessing. I have no idea how to make a meaningful calculation, except a trillion tons is close to negligible at an AVERAGE altitude of 200,000 kilometers. My use of average was ment to infer considerable optical depth. Someone said, wrongly, I think, that distance makes no difference. My guess is a trillon tons in the stratospere would shade 100 times better than in a ring out about luner distance.<br />Putting it in Earth's stratosphere we need to consider the toxcitacy of the dust to humans and other living things. We could make the dust by converting Earth mountains to buttes = flat top = valuable real estate<br />If the partical size is a cube about one nanometer on an edge, a cubic meter = almost 3 tons makes 10E27 particales, but my guess is that small, they would be disapated by the solar wind in less than a year.<br />I also enjoy analyzing far out ideas. It is called brainstorming. Occasionally someone in the group is able to find a practical alternative which saves the day. Neil

 

[j05h]

Even simpler would be to modify commercial aviation fuel to include a more reflective, preferably nontoxic, particle. After 9/11 some climate scientists calculated the temperateure differences with no jets in the sky, and there is a measurable difference. It's not as dramatic a solution as flinging dust from the Moon, but could be implemented much faster.<br /><br />Brainstorming is fun!<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

I've heard and idea of building a giant "sunshade" in space to help with this problem. I think it would be a better option, especially if we could build it out of photovoltic panels. Provides energy to be beamed to earth, while shading the planet. kills 2 birds with one stone as it were. Also, it would be a lot more controlable, as we can add/remove pieces as needed, instead of being stuck with a huge dust cloud for an indeterminated amount of time. Not sure either idea is feasable, but I'd rather have one that we control.<br /><br />Rae

 

[Boris_Badenov]

A Solar Soletta has been discussed as a way to help warm up Mars, Maybe we should build one to help cool down the Earth as a practice run. <br /> In the Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson, they built one from an asteroid using an onsite robot factory. We may have to wait a few more years before the SDC team starts on that project though. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>