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Alternative exploration of space

quarky

Banned
Q
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Oct 15, 2007
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There are some bold experiments and explorations waiting to happen on Earth, that interest me more than sending people to Mars, at least for now.

Here's a very rough outline of one of them:

A huge ice-berg cuts loose; one of those you hear about; the size of Delaware.
A team of commandos and equipment is dropped on it by helicopters.

After some assessments, more equipment arrives, with the purpose of terra-forming the iceberg.
This could be done with heat; bulldozers; bombs; whatever.
A vast depression is created within the top of the berg.

A consortium of fishing fleets gather up a mega-load of flotsam; gyres; floatable trash from coastal cities; etc.

The flotsam is loaded into the hole, which has been lined with a mesh of fibers and old fishing lines, and covered on top as well.

As the iceberg travels toward the equator and melts, the island of trash is anchored in a nice place, with a deep bottom. Through a variety of potential means, the growth of mussels is encouraged, and an exterior shell grows, mostly limestone, and the island gains density and stability. A metal mesh would allow a more direct deposit of Calcium Carbonate, coupled with an electric current.

The new island pays its way, eventually, by charging for dumping rights. Denser than water trash is brought there and lowered to the bottom in a mesh bag, with a release mechanism. During the long decent, the cable runs through a generator pulley. Some of the power produced returns the cable. Some side industry would include cheap ways to compact materials, meant to be brought back up.

This new island would also provide habitat for novel reefs. A bouyant platform could be sunk, with weights and cables, to the desired depth; say 12 feet below water, wherein photosynthesis could allow shallow water advantages.

The island city would also have an underwater village, enabled through pumps and compressors, and hopefully enclosed in translucent membranes.
An array of PV panels would float on adjacent, non-productive sea water. In their shadows, and with the help of nutritious effluent, a small fishery would evolve.

Nesting birds would add to the inevitable accumulation of bio-mass on the surface of the floating heap of crap, as would the organic contributions of the inhabitants, and the waste products of coastal cities within logical striking distance.

The on-going relationship with waste disposal would allow the island to expand, or at least to self-repair.



Likewise, I'm more interested about the journey to the bottom of the icecap in Antarctica than I am about the Chinese landing a woman on Mars.
 
The world does not have a problem with the mass or volume of garbage it produces. Well-managed land fills are doing fine with that stuff, and shipping it long distances is a losing proposition on any grounds. What we have difficulty handling is the nasty toxic stuff. That's what costs big bucks to dispose of well. And I don't see this island as being any sort of improvement for that sort of waste. It seems worse, in fact.
 
I'll back up a bit. Forget the waste disposal scenario, as per income. Possibly include the gathering of floating ocean litter, which does seem to be a waste disposal problem.

Do you see any potential in using an iceberg as a form for a large floating research facility?
 
quarky said:
I'll back up a bit. Forget the waste disposal scenario, as per income. Possibly include the gathering of floating ocean litter, which does seem to be a waste disposal problem.

Do you see any potential in using an iceberg as a form for a large floating research facility?
Click to expand...

Not really. What can you do with an iceberg that you can't do with a boat? How large do you really need a research facility to be, and why would an iceberg (which won't stick around too long, especially if you leave arctic waters) be more economical than a boat?
 
During WW2, the British did seriously consider a somewhat related idea of using a frozen wood pulp/water blend (called Pykrete) to create a massive aircraft carrier capable of landing bombers. The plan never got off the drawing board, though.
 
I should give this up at this juncture, but how can anyone equate the possibility of using a vast expanse of ice as a form for a more permanent structure, as equivalent to using existing ships for the same goal?

Once the goal of a structure is to stay put, rather than be mobile, the equation changes considerably. Skeptics sometimes suffer from a sort of gratuitious non-creativity.
I'm tempted to argue more.
 
quarky said:
I should give this up at this juncture, but how can anyone equate the possibility of using a vast expanse of ice as a form for a more permanent structure, as equivalent to using existing ships for the same goal?
Click to expand...

But you haven't explained what goal would make that worthwhile. A trash dump doesn't do it, and I don't see how scientific research would either.
 
Bottled water in it's current incarnations doesn't make too much sense. But an iceberg is a currently untapped source of fresh water. It might be a place where bottled water would make sense.
 
Ships struggle with the tendency of mollusks trying to coat their surface.
Imagine exploiting that; creating something like concrete, for cheap?
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Bottled water in it's current incarnations doesn't make too much sense. But an iceberg is a currently untapped source of fresh water. It might be a place where bottled water would make sense.
Click to expand...

What on earth makes you say that? Bottling water from an iceberg and shipping it any distance would probably be far more expensive than filtering local water supplies, which is what most bottled water does.
 
quarky said:
Ships struggle with the tendency of mollusks trying to coat their surface.
Imagine exploiting that; creating something like concrete, for cheap?
Click to expand...

And use it for what, though? Cheaper than concrete doesn't mean anything on its own.
 
quarky said:
Ships struggle with the tendency of mollusks trying to coat their surface.
Imagine exploiting that; creating something like concrete, for cheap?
Click to expand...

Doubtful. Concrete is really really cheap.
 
Quarky, is the benefit here having a large, free, structure to float, i.e., an iceberg?
 
Ziggurat said:
What on earth makes you say that? Bottling water from an iceberg and shipping it any distance would probably be far more expensive than filtering local water supplies, which is what most bottled water does.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that some brands of bottled water are already shipped great distances on top of being from sources that are used by people close to them. Bottled water makes little sense to me, but plenty of people but it. Bottling from an iceberg sounds like it makes "one more bit of sense" than some others since it's bottling from a source of fresh water that otherwise goes to waste.

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_Water
 
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I feel compelled to mention Amager, an island district part of Copenhagen. Nicknamed **** Island, it is as large as it is today because sewage and landfill was dumped there.

So depositing waste can be a valid means of increasing land mass - a lot of development is happening out there, as it's one of the places the city can expand.

See here.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that some brands of bottled water are already shipped great distances on top of being from sources that are used by people close to them.
Click to expand...

Some are. They are sold at a premium. Most are not. But even the process of bottling is a hell of a lot easier if you're starting from a water source like a spring, a well, or a river. If you're starting from ice, it's a much bigger pain to handle. Especially if you've got to do so much of the processing not on land. So bottling costs would be massively higher for iceberg water, and would probably far outweigh shipping costs. Is there a big enough market for much more expensive water? I doubt it. And unlike other bottled water projects, an iceberg project cannot operate on small scales without absurdly expensive unit prices.
 
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