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I hope so! And I hope we find several more critical uses of it! Then we have finally an economic incentive to do gas giants "mining" stations.

by Iv 7y ago

DagAgren 7y ago
Lifting anything out of the gravity well of a gas giant is pretty much impossible. We struggle to lift anything off Earth because our gravity well is so deep, and those of gas giants are more than an order of magnitude worse.
- adrianN 7y ago
  A significant problem is that you also have to lift out all your fuel. If you want to mine gases from the atmosphere you could imagine a device plunging into the atmosphere, collecting gases and getting out of the atmosphere while only needing to replace energy lost to friction with the atmosphere and lifting the collected gases out. That seems like a much easier task, because you can get a lot of your kinetic energy from going down the gravity well first.
- joosters 7y ago
  Isn't the main problem causing the shortage of helium that it doesn't struggle to be lifted off the Earth, in fact it floats away quite effectively on its own?
  - wyattpeak 7y ago
    Yes, but this won't help with gas giants - the reason they have a large amount of helium is that their gravity is sufficient to keep it in.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Has the math been done on that? Gravity falls off quickly, wouldn't there be a relatively small amount of Helium at the edge, where gravity is just about strong enough to keep it from escaping? If so, would it be impossible to withstand that pull?
- travisoneill1 7y ago
  Uranus has a surface gravity less than Earth's. So lifting the gas should be no problem, at least once we have the tech to get there. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uranus+surface+gravity https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uranus+...
- Iv 7y ago
  Thing is, you don't have. All you need is to harvest its atmosphere. You only go on the edge of the well. And IIRC we already have built probes that used atmospheric braking in Jupiter?

I hope so! And I hope we find several more critical uses of it! Then we have finally an economic incentive to do gas giants "mining" stations.

by Iv 7y ago

I hope so! And I hope we find several more critical uses of it! Then we have finally an economic incentive to do gas giants "mining" stations.

DagAgren 7y ago

Lifting anything out of the gravity well of a gas giant is pretty much impossible. We struggle to lift anything off Earth because our gravity well is so deep, and those of gas giants are more than an order of magnitude worse.

adrianN 7y ago
A significant problem is that you also have to lift out all your fuel. If you want to mine gases from the atmosphere you could imagine a device plunging into the atmosphere, collecting gases and getting out of the atmosphere while only needing to replace energy lost to friction with the atmosphere and lifting the collected gases out. That seems like a much easier task, because you can get a lot of your kinetic energy from going down the gravity well first.
joosters 7y ago
Isn't the main problem causing the shortage of helium that it doesn't struggle to be lifted off the Earth, in fact it floats away quite effectively on its own?
- wyattpeak 7y ago
  Yes, but this won't help with gas giants - the reason they have a large amount of helium is that their gravity is sufficient to keep it in.
gridlockd 7y ago
Has the math been done on that? Gravity falls off quickly, wouldn't there be a relatively small amount of Helium at the edge, where gravity is just about strong enough to keep it from escaping? If so, would it be impossible to withstand that pull?
travisoneill1 7y ago
Uranus has a surface gravity less than Earth's. So lifting the gas should be no problem, at least once we have the tech to get there. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uranus+surface+gravity https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uranus+...
Iv 7y ago
Thing is, you don't have. All you need is to harvest its atmosphere. You only go on the edge of the well. And IIRC we already have built probes that used atmospheric braking in Jupiter?