What if Earth had a 12,000+ meter mountain range?

[Travis]

Way back in college I took a class on physical geography. At one point we were talking about the geo-physical history or North America. I remember one of the things that captured my imagination was the idea that some think at one time North America had an enormous mountain range that ranged from 12,000 to 14,000 meters high (39,000-45,000 feet). At the time I was astounded at the mere thought of mountains on Earth with peaks higher than most commercial airliners will fly.

In fact it brings up all sorts of questions: would mountains that high even be climbable by humans? What kind of impact might such a range have on weather? I'm thinking that it would produce the most absolute rain shadow imaginable.

Now back when those ancient mountains were around there really wasn't much life on land yet. But try to picture this mountain range on Earth today. If it was near the equator would one side have an incredible rain forest while the opposite side dried up as a desert with even less precipitation than the Atacama?

And what about airliners? Would this mountain range pose a huge obstacle to air travel? Would it potentially produce air compression waves high in the atmosphere huge distances downwind of it?

 

[BenBurch]

If we had mountains like that, they would be covered with observatories even though you'd need to wear an environmental suit to go there. The atmosphere gets in the way of much of astronomy.

 

[TjW]

Mauna Kea is 10000+ meters. There's some water around the bottom of it, though,

 

[NoahFence]

I'd think we'd just work our way around 'em...

 

[Travis]

If we had mountains like that, they would be covered with observatories even though you'd need to wear an environmental suit to go there. The atmosphere gets in the way of much of astronomy.

How would you even begin to construct something like that at that altitude?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

If we had mountains like that, they would be covered with observatories even though you'd need to wear an environmental suit to go there. The atmosphere gets in the way of much of astronomy.

With that in mind, why are there no observatories high in the Himalayas ? ( or other high mountain ranges, for that matter )

 

[Pulvinar]

Mauna Kea is 10000+ meters. There's some water around the bottom of it, though,

So we just need to drain that. Everest would still be ahead though: 8,848 + 10,910 = 19,758 m above the new sea level. Ok, pond level.

 

[Correa Neto]

With that in mind, why are there no observatories high in the Himalayas ? ( or other high mountain ranges, for that matter )

Too much clouds and snow, I guess?
The observatories at the Andes are at very dry places. The Himalayas block a lot of moist air from the Indian ocean, so...

 

[TjW]

How would you even begin to construct something like that at that altitude?

Probably similar to the way they built the Mauna Kea Observatory:
A helicopter pad up as high as a helicopter can usefully hover with a reasonable load, and a road the rest of the way up. At extreme altitudes, you might want to build a cableway, or have an overhead electric cable . That would allow the powerplant to be down at an altitude where life would be a little easier for maintenance workers.

With that in mind, why are there no observatories high in the Himalayas ? ( or other high mountain ranges, for that matter )

Like this one?

 

[portlandatheist]

Sail plane pilots could break new high altitude records. The atmospheric waves and Foehn winds would be amazing. I think it would also interrupt the jet stream

 

[Travis]

Probably similar to the way they built the Mauna Kea Observatory:
A helicopter pad up as high as a helicopter can usefully hover with a reasonable load, and a road the rest of the way up. At extreme altitudes, you might want to build a cableway, or have an overhead electric cable . That would allow the powerplant to be down at an altitude where life would be a little easier for maintenance workers.


Like this one?

I'm skeptical that we could get internal combustion engines to run at that altitude. Does anyone know just how much O2 there is at 45,000 feet?

 

[TjW]

Sail plane pilots could break new high altitude records. The atmospheric waves and Foehn winds would be amazing. I think it would also interrupt the jet stream

Well, sailplane pilots haven't reached the limits of the Sierra Wave, yet. Given space suits and a purpose-designed glider, 75000-100000 feet is probably doable.

 

[catsmate]

Mauna Kea is 10000+ meters. There's some water around the bottom of it, though,

~4,200m
ETA ah sorry, you meant from the seabed. Right.

 

[BenBurch]

How would you even begin to construct something like that at that altitude?

How do you construct a space station? Almost the same except for the rockets.

You'd probably first lay a rack-type railroad to the spot where you plan to site the observatory.

Then you would pre-construct items, and deploy them in time-limited sorties to the site.

The offices and etc would be down around 3000 meters so people wouldn't need breathing gear, and maintenance sorties would be done to keep it all working.

Not cheap, but cheaper than a moon base. Good practice for doing space bases, too.

 

[catsmate]

I'm skeptical that we could get internal combustion engines to run at that altitude. Does anyone know just how much O2 there is at 45,000 feet?

Well the absolute helicopter altitude record is 12,442m but they wouldn't be capable of actually doing much that high. Airdrops from cargo planes might be possible at 12km
According to the engineeerstoolbox atmospheric pressure would be around 20kPa at 12km.

 

[BenBurch]

With that in mind, why are there no observatories high in the Himalayas ? ( or other high mountain ranges, for that matter )

Not far enough above the weather to make the difficulty of getting there worthwhile. This would be. And the politics of the Himalayas are difficult to navigate.

And there are some very high observatories;

Cerro Chajnantor is at 5,640 m
Mauna Loa is at 3,394 m
Cerro Tololo is at 2,200 m

Here is a complete list, and note that a couple of them are in the Himalayas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_astronomical_observatories

 

[Complexity]

Such a range surely would have pinned down the jet stream.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I'm skeptical that we could get internal combustion engines to run at that altitude. Does anyone know just how much O2 there is at 45,000 feet?

The post you quoted:

At extreme altitudes, you might want to build a cableway, or have an overhead electric cable . That would allow the powerplant to be down at an altitude where life would be a little easier for maintenance workers.

The power-plant would also be at an altitude where it would work ..

 

[Beerina]

You would need oxygen, but you would not need an environment suit (aside from keeping warm). You don't need an environment suit on Mars, just oxygen and a good winter coat.

Come to think of it, I don't think you actually need one in space, either. Keeping cool is much harder than keeping warm -- with no air you're essentially running around inside a Thermos bottle.

 

[Vic Vega]

In fact it brings up all sorts of questions: would mountains that high even be climbable by humans?

Not a chance.The death zone starts at about 8000 meters. The human body can't acclimatize at altitudes that high.

8000 meter peaks can be climbed without supplimental oxygen, but only by the most fit, generally proffessional mountaineers. Most climbers, however, need oxygen to make it and even with it, often suffer and sometimes die from high altitude pulmonary or cerebral edema. It is not physically possible to carry enough oxygen at that altitude to avoid the risk of severe or fatal altitude sickness.

Many climbers also die because the lack of oxygen causes poor decision making that can lead to fatal physical mistakes or errors in judgement.