Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
I was reading today about the Cassini probe getting close to Saturn’s moon, titan. How they think it has seas and lakes of hydrocarbons.
At the same time there’s problems over here with rising petrol prices, and forecasts that oil really will run out in the next couple of decades (yes, I know this has been on the cards for as long as I’ve known what petrol is, but I guess that as long as they keep forcasting the end is nigh, someday they’ll be right).
So I was wondering about space oil tankers. Call them Galactic Tankers, ‘cause I think that sounds better. With no roads and the like to worry about, we could probably build them as large as countrys, and then send them off to Titan, suck up some of the oil there and bring it back over here.
I guess it’s inevitable that the solar system, and for sure the rest of the galaxy is going to be full of moons and planets with lots of useful resources, that we could use.
Despite the obvious technical challenges of such an idea, you have to wonder wehther it’d be financially viable at all. After all, at the moment we just pump the oil from the ground under us, and already we complain about the prices. Imagine what it’d do to cost if the oil came from over 10billion miles away. I guess that even with the option of having it, we’d not actually pay to use it. Far far too precious.
And the same argument runs for other minerals and the like out there. Unless space travel can be made super cheap, or the quantities being shipped eclipse the real cost, then it’s really never going to work, no one would pay for the massively increased costs.
So where do we go. Do we stop using oil, petrol and the like, and instead try and find some other form of fuel. Or do we start thinking about ditching money and work on a society that works another way, which would allow us to build and ship oil from titan, without worrying about the cost.
Makes you wonder.
Posted by Phil on May 10, 2004 07:37 AM | Categories: Thoughts
The other point to remember about the transport mechanism is that, with proper attention to orbital dynamics, all you need to do is start the tanker moving, then brake it at the end. You don't really care how long it takes to get there unless the tanker's manned, as long as you keep a steady supply "in the pipeline" (or can park the fuel in orbit until needed). The real critical issues are how you're going to get a highly volatile, flammable liquid through the earth's atmosphere without pressure from re-entry heating rupturing the transfer containers, and where you're going to get the materials for the deorbiting transfer vehicles (or are you going to expend some of the transferred fuel to put the deorbiting tankers back in orbit, and what are the consequences of that?).
Probably more efficient to go with solar powersats as advocated by, among others, Jerry Pournelle. Mind you, there are other uses we can profitably make of a steady, large supply of hydrocarbons which don't involve transferring volatiles from orbit ("Plastics, my boy!")
Posted by: Jon at May 11, 2004 1:09 PM
The higher prices for petrol are a good thing in my opinion. I mean if prices are kept low untill we run out of oil no one will have an alternative ready. If price is high research for alternatives will be high too.
Getting 'oil' from space is probably never going to be economic. Definitively not for fuel cause there are alternatives.
The main problem, imo, is that we need oil for plastics more than we need it for fuel.
So if we need Titan's carbohydratyes I bet refining it either on Titan or in space is the way to go so that only finished products have to be moved.
--If you remember Alien, the film, the spaceship Nostradamus was a space-tug towing several kubic kilomeres of crude oil, automatically refining it while under way. --
Posted by: sjon at May 11, 2004 8:20 AM