5 ms·
Anyone know how much water is 1cm sea rise? Mars needs water and Musk is interested in footing the bill, even if a mass driver is probably more apt to the issue
by LoSboccacc 9y ago
Anyone know how much water is 1cm sea rise? Mars needs water and Musk is interested in footing the bill, even if a mass driver is probably more apt to the issue than rockets.
- curiousgal 9y agoThe surface of the earth is 510,082,000 sq. km. The oceans cover ~70.9% of that, so 510082000 * 0.709 * 0.00001 = 3616.48138 cubic km.?
- maxerickson 9y agoThat's what I got. And then 1 cubic km of water is ~1 trillion kg.
- mcv 9y agoSo rockets aren't going to work. Maybe instead of a space elevator, we need a space fountain. Pump water up until centrifugal force takes over. I bet it's going to be spectacular.
- robin_reala 9y agoThat already exists but with a different meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
- johnlorry 9y agoInteresting shape...
- jacquesm 9y agoThat won't work. You'll need to accelerate each individual molecule of water to orbital velocity or you'll just be making a lot of rain. Water molecules are not connected tension wise the same way a space elevators' tether is. Even ice has a tensile strength that is way too low so the fact that it is going to be below zero still won't help (might turn your rain into hail or snow though).
- mcv 9y agoMy comment was in jest, but if you want to take it seriously, it's not the tensile strength of water that matters, but that of the tube it's being pumped through. That would need to be the magically stronger than nanotubes material that we also need for a space elevator. If you make the tube narrow enough, you might even take advantage of capillary action in some way.
- jacquesm 9y agoAh, I imagined you were going to run a pipe up the side of a mountain and shoot it out at very high velocity. (Never mind that most of it would flash to steam instantly on escaping the nozzle, and that the whole thing would have to be ridiculously strong.) Fun project though!
- striking 9y agoInstead of using the Hyperloop for transportation, let's point it at the sky and fire water from it.
- nealabq 9y agoCall it the Hyperloo. Say "have one on me!" with each flush.
- hibbelig 9y agoWhat happens to water in vacuum?
- LoSboccacc 9y agoboils than when the heat energy is lost collapse into comets, assuming no gravity wells near
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- zdkl 9y agoI'd like to start a "Don't bring water out of our gravity well" association.
- jlebrech 9y agoyes we probably shouldn't remove our own water, we could take only up to the amount the earth has gained over the last 1m years (let's say) through meteor showers, but I think that would be low. we could also start living in pods and tunnels on earth separate from the other animals, then we wouldn't need as much water and could spare some for when we do the same thing on mars.
- b3lvedere 9y agoThat somewhat reminded me of XKCD's https://what-if.xkcd.com/53 https://what-if.xkcd.com/53 and https://what-if.xkcd.com/54/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/54/ :)
- ceejayoz 9y agoThe waste heat from throwing the oceans into space would have to be dealt with.
- Aardwolf 9y agoCould we store it in a giant container instead?
- _ph_ 9y agoIt would be cheaper to build giant fridges to freeze the excess water and store it in the north. It would be even more cheaper not to let the ice melt, which still is in the north. Wind and Solar and others are now mature technologies which are price-competetive. The Model 3 shows, electrical cars are a thing. We have all the technology to slow down and eventually reverse climate change. In the great scheme of things it is not even very expensive, we just have to put all these technologies to use.