[Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon

[Agemegos]

If the Moon had formed with a thick atmosphere it would have lost it to Jeans escape long before now, and if it were provided with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere that atmosphere would evaporate to space in a millennium or so. The example of Titan doesn’t indicate that the Moon would be able to retain a thick nitrogen atmosphere, because the Moon is much hotter than Titan.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by scc

Using a pulse drive not only means fuel costs, which raises the cost of this whole program, which given that Earth will go through a dark age making fuel production impossible for part of this, is a big problem. Tt also goes my decision to use another method propulsion as the primary for this setting, one with some cool, or at least interesting, options.

Okay, what was your original, gaming related question? You seem to have this all worked out to your satisfaction.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by scc

To terraform the Moon I need to [move] 2.4e15 tons of nitrogen from Venus to the Moon, moving about that much to Mars is probably also a good idea as well.

How are you planning to lift all that mass to Venus orbit? You'd have to speed up Venus' rotation a lot to let you use orbital elevators.

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by johndallman

How are you planning to lift all that mass to Venus orbit? You'd have to speed up Venus' rotation a lot to let you use orbital elevators.

Freighters that transform into giant maids with vacuums.

Just need a way to get past the planetary shields.

[Qoltar]

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

Can you terraform the Moon? I’d be surprised if it had enough gravity to retain nitrogen.

That is part of the background of the Star Trek universe - at some point in the future the Moon is terraformed and has lakes on it, one of which can be seen from Earth.

-Ed C.

[Varyon]

How are you seeing this marathon work? Are we talking a race to see who goes from Venus to the Moon fastest with everyone starting in Venus' orbit? A staggered race where you just track how long it takes each vessel for a single trip? A variant of one of the previous where how much mass of nitrogen the vessel is transporting is factored in? A "race" where victory goes to the vessel that transports the most nitrogen to the Moon during the "nitrogen transport" phase of the terraforming project? Something else? And do you see the Mars project involving a separate race, or would it be something like the above where transporting to Mars instead of the Moon is worth more points?

Originally Posted by Qoltar

That is part of the background of the Star Trek universe - at some point in the future the Moon is terraformed and has lakes on it, one of which can be seen from Earth.

-Ed C.

Schlock Mercenary also opted for a terraformed Luna. There's a bit of discussion here in the notes for the comic; apparently they spun up Luna so it wouldn't have a month-long day, and chucked enough atmosphere at it that said atmosphere is 6x as deep as Earth's, which somehow prevents it from losing much atmosphere (and also means you get atmospheric pressure around that of Earth, despite the low gravity). I'm no planetologist, however, so I can't say how realistic any of this is.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Schlock Mercenary also opted for a terraformed Luna. There's a bit of discussion here in the notes for the comic; apparently they spun up Luna so it wouldn't have a month-long day, and chucked enough atmosphere at it that said atmosphere is 6x as deep as Earth's, which somehow prevents it from losing much atmosphere (and also means you get atmospheric pressure around that of Earth, despite the low gravity). I'm no planetologist, however, so I can't say how realistic any of this is.

The pressure part makes sense. Atmospheric pressure is the weight of atmospheric gases, which is the mass of those gases times the acceleration of gravity. The moon has 1/6 g, so if you have six times as much atmosphere, you'll have the same pressure. (The scale height is inversely proportional to gravitational acceleration, so it will be six times as great.)

But with the lower gravity the atmosphere will escape far faster.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Schlock Mercenary also opted for a terraformed Luna. There's a bit of discussion here in the notes for the comic; apparently they spun up Luna so it wouldn't have a month-long day, and chucked enough atmosphere at it that said atmosphere is 6x as deep as Earth's, which somehow prevents it from losing much atmosphere (and also means you get atmospheric pressure around that of Earth, despite the low gravity). I'm no planetologist, however, so I can't say how realistic any of this is.

As long as you're willing to keep replenishing it you can make it work; it will leak away but not that fast.

[SydneyFreedberg]

I suppose by the time your civilization is seriously considering terraforming the gosh-darn Moon, the fact that you’ll have to keep replenishing the atmosphere is not going to bother you…

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

Freighters that transform into giant maids with vacuums.

Just need a way to get past the planetary shields.

We have a WINNER!!!!

Move it to Mars at Ludicrous Speed!