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

[roger]

My description of climbing Everest as "commonplace" was perhaps an exaggeration, in the wider scheme of things. "Unremarkable" is probably better.

I got what you meant. Everest is a tourist route compared to K2, Annapurna, the Gasherbrums, etc. In the context of 8000m climbs it is commonplace. I meant rarity not just compared to Everest, but to climbs like K2.

 

[roger]

Roger; you build a railroad. You keep your camp at the bottom, and every day travel to the railhead and work on the next section. This would be a cog-wheel-and-rack type railroad so it will be able to climb very steep grades. These exist in several places on the planet now mostly as tourist roads, but in the past have been applied to difficult inclines on regular railroads.

Ben, I'm talking about climbing (on foot, as sport), not the observatory idea.

Yes, there are cog railways. I grew up a short distance from one, and my grandfather worked on the summit of that mountain. The railway stops running once winter hits, and incidentally, my gf came very close to dying on that mountain during one winter storm (his job, among other things was plowing the road to the summit). A 12KM peak is going to have permanent glaciers, massive avalanches, etc. A cog railway is a nonstarter.

 

[Vic Vega]

Roger; you build a railroad. You keep your camp at the bottom, and every day travel to the railhead and work on the next section. This would be a cog-wheel-and-rack type railroad so it will be able to climb very steep grades. These exist in several places on the planet now mostly as tourist roads, but in the past have been applied to difficult inclines on regular railroads.

Impossible. Human beings can barely exist around and above 8000 meters for the 24 hours they need to summit Everest from the highest camp. There is no chance they would be able to do any meaningful work. It takes every ounce of energy to simply climb at that elevation, even with bottled oxygen.

 

[davefoc]

Mars' mean surface atmospheric pressure is 0.6kPa which is well below the minimum 29.6kPa required to maintain human physiology (prevent the body expanding) and 17.3kPa needed to breath. However an alternative option to an air-compression suit (such as used by astronauts) is a mechanical compression suit, and indeed NASA did develop one. This is simply a very tight-fitting full-body garment which maintains even constriction on the body, preventing it from expanding under low pressure. A separate solid helmet provides breathing.

One big advantage over a mechanical compression suit is that minor damage to the suit won't cause any harm to the wearer as small areas of human skin can experienced sustained exposure to space without adverse effects. By contrast, even a small tear in an air-compression suit will lead to decompression and death.

However at the time that NASA was developing this suit the technology was not there to make it functional. MIT are currently developing a new version called a Bio-Suit which currently provides consistent counter-pressure of 25kPa.

Before I expressed my skepticism above I did a little investigation and came across the idea of a mechanical pressure suit, sort of Dune like (except with a helmet I guess). But I didn't find anything that went exactly to the viability of using it on Mars. It seems vaguely plausible to me that it could work on Mars or even in a vacuum, but I just don't think I understand it well enough to be able to determine the limitations on where it would work and where it wouldn't. Do you have any more thoughts about it?

 

[roger]

Impossible. Human beings can barely exist around and above 8000 meters for the 24 hours they need to summit Everest from the highest camp. There is no chance they would be able to do any meaningful work. It takes every ounce of energy to simply climb at that elevation, even with bottled oxygen.

Pretty much. Sherpas are able to do some work at that altitude, and I know of exactly one Westerner that has performed at that level. Where work=carrying several coils of rope and setting up anchors. How anyone would expect to be able dig to bedrock, blast a route, drill into the bedrock, position multi-ton rails, etc., is beyond me. Recall the uproar when climbers walked past a dying climber because they had no way to help him down.

There's a reason the Hubble went into space, and not to the top of an 8000m peak. Because it was easier, and cheaper. I can't think of any scenerio where we would put a telescope on an 8000m peak instead of space. I can't think of how to even get a human on top of a 12K peak without killing him/her.

 

[gumboot]

Before I expressed my skepticism above I did a little investigation and came across the idea of a mechanical pressure suit, sort of Dune like (except with a helmet I guess). But I didn't find anything that went exactly to the viability of using it on Mars. It seems vaguely plausible to me that it could work on Mars or even in a vacuum, but I just don't think I understand it well enough to be able to determine the limitations on where it would work and where it wouldn't. Do you have any more thoughts about it?

Well, use in low pressure environments (actually, zero pressure environments) is specifically what it's intended for, so yeah it would work fine on Mars.

Basically as I see it your options on Mars are either a full air-pressurized suit like they wore on the moon and currently wear in space, or one of these compressing body suits (like the Bio-Suit) plus insulation layers (because it's cold). In a vacuum, by contrast, because you won't lose any heat you just need the body suit and not the insulation.

 

[Travis]

When you read books about climbing Mt Everest one of the things that stuck out to me was that they plan things so that they spend as little time above 8k meters as possible. They try to summit and get back below that elevation as quickly as possible and rarely does anyone actually camp out there. Very few people have bivouacked near the summit and then only as an emergency measure (I don't know offhand what the absolute elevation record for a bivouac is).

 

[Soapy Sam]

How high could a mountain be before it began sinking under its own weight?

That's a function of many factors- Isostasy, density, lateral pressure and on and on.

Current evidence suggests about 10,000m is the equilibrium height between uplift and erosion.
There's an interesting question though- that if a range did get up to say 12,000m because it went up extremely fast (say in a head on ocean closure event), would the uppermost part be subject to decreased erosion rates due to the very thin air? Such an effect might help keep it hanging up there a while longer than expected, but isostatic equilibrium would eventually reestablish itself, unless there happened to be some additional energy source pushing it up, such as a massive plume in the mantle below- but it all gets wildly speculative.
Complex causes do happen though. The recent explanation of the Antarctic Gamburtsev Range is a case in point.
Maybe the Mountains of Madness really do exist?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15749757

 

[roger]

When you read books about climbing Mt Everest one of the things that stuck out to me was that they plan things so that they spend as little time above 8k meters as possible. They try to summit and get back below that elevation as quickly as possible and rarely does anyone actually camp out there. Very few people have bivouacked near the summit and then only as an emergency measure (I don't know offhand what the absolute elevation record for a bivouac is).

A Sherpa slept at the top of Everest. Well, I'm not sure how much sleeping actually occured.

A friend spent nearly a week above 8000m on Everest while performing multiple rescues. Some have suggested that is a record for duration. There is also a story of a couple that got stuck up there for awhile, and they may hold the record instead. Both are rather extraordinary events and not indicative of average human performance.

Edit: I spoke to the friend a few weeks after he returned to the States. He could not remember my name (he knew me, just not my name anymore), and generally had a lot of difficulty in completing sentences. Ya gotta love brain damage.

 

[JJM 777]

A point worth considering is also, what if the earth were flat, how would we go around the edge to the other side? Or would there be tunnels through it? Would we experience a weightless state while in middle of the tunnel?

 

[Giordano]

The Larry Niven classic, Ringworld envisions a huge artificial living environment on one side of a ring entirely circling a sun- its rotation and side walls keep the atmosphere in place. In the story, an impact has created a giant "dimple" on the inside (sunside) of the ring. For Ringworld dwellers, it is a huge mountain, but once you climb to the top, the hole created by the impact is a portal to the outside, and you can jump "down" into outerspace.

 

[SezMe]

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

Not necessarily. What effect would such a range have if it were oriented parallel to the prevailing jet stream?

 

[davefoc]

Well, use in low pressure environments (actually, zero pressure environments) is specifically what it's intended for, so yeah it would work fine on Mars.

Basically as I see it your options on Mars are either a full air-pressurized suit like they wore on the moon and currently wear in space, or one of these compressing body suits (like the Bio-Suit) plus insulation layers (because it's cold). In a vacuum, by contrast, because you won't lose any heat you just need the body suit and not the insulation.

That is cool, although I didn't see anything about a practical demonstration in the article. Temperature regulation on Mars seems a bit complicated. On one had it seems like convection losses would be substantially reduced because of the much thinner atmosphere and even the different gas mixture might affect things a bit. But it seems like radiative cooling might be an issue since the surface of Mars is so cold. And radiative heating from the sun would obviously be much less than on earth. So one factor making you warmer and two factors making you colder. So what's the net of that?

 

[catsmate]

.
Internal combustion (piston motors, gasoline fuel) can operate up to 58,000 feet. With supercharging. ISTR that altitude was reached in the '30s by the Italians.
Above that, there's no power available to drive the propellor, only enough to drive the supercharger and the motor.
Change the fuel to hydrazine, and a piston can go higher.
Note:... jet turbine motors are internal combustion..

Yep a Caproni Ca.161 go up to 56,850ft (17,330m) back in 1938; still the altitude record for a manned prop.

 

[Correa Neto]

If such a mountain range existed and if it had a suitable spot for an observatory (size, topography, not plagued by bad weather, etc.) a possible way of building and operating it would be by extensive use of RC robots. You could stay at some cozy room, coffee mug at hand's reach while the robots are working and freezing their butts, gears, wheels, whatever, over there.

 

[roger]

If such a mountain range existed and if it had a suitable spot for an observatory (size, topography, not plagued by bad weather, etc.) a possible way of building and operating it would be by extensive use of RC robots. You could stay at some cozy room, coffee mug at hand's reach while the robots are working and freezing their butts, gears, wheels, whatever, over there.

But why would you do that vs sending a telescope into space? I mean, for "good" weather we are talking about permanent glaciers, -80F and worse, 200+mph winds, etc. We already have plenty of mountains taller than our current observatory altitudes. We don't go much higher for a reason. After a certain point, the cost-benefit swings towards space. If you've ever been in the Himalayas, you'd know how often those mountains are socked in with huge weather systems, which doesn't equal good viewing conditions, I would suspect. Trying to engineer systems that can be operated remotely, yet withstand 200mph winds, temps at -80F, etc, while theoretically possible, is, well, optimistic?

There is a weather station at the top of Mt. Washington, a lowly peak at 6288ft, but with a micro-climate that approximates the higher peaks. I've been on it at -70F wind chill, for example. I've been blown off my feet, pelted by very large chunks of ice launched by the wind, etc. It's a dangerous and difficult environment in the winter. The observatory is staffed year round, and staff members have to regularly go outside to maintain equipment. Google will quickly provide images of rime ice, such as here: http://www.ultimatechase.com/chase_accounts/mount_washington_summit.htm

So, we'd likely have a dome covered with tons of rime ice and solid ice, the dome and telescope being assaulted by huge chunks of ice at 150mph+, snow drifts covering the entire side of the buildings, frequent white outs, etc. We can hand wave that all away with "robots", but the engineering challenge rather exceeds our current capabilities. Why spend all that money for such limited viewing opportunities when we can just toss a scope into space?

I'm not a meteorologist, but I doubt that any 12km peak would have nicer conditions than that - certainly the existing 8km peaks have equivalent to worse conditions. Perhaps some super plateau like in Chile, only much higher, would have milder conditions, but the OP is about mountain ranges, not plateaus.

 

[BenBurch]

The costs, Roger. A whole lot less.

One pound in orbit costs around $2000 (more if it is a man-rated launch, and less if you use a surplus IRBM and can manage with a small payload.)

It would be difficult for a terrestrial operation to be that expensive.

 

[Correa Neto]

The presence or absence of glaciers would be dependent on humidity. Too dry, no water, no ice. A mountain range capable of having such a beast of a 12Km-high peak probably would be enormous, with a number of different environmental conditions- glaciers, dry cold deserts, etc. I think even a lonely monster like Mars' Mount Olympus maybe could have these microclimates.

The fictional observatory should be located at a place where conditions would be similar to those where Andes' observatories are, but with a smaller pressure. So, glaciers and blizzards would not be a constant source of concern at those sites.

Note I am proposing how it could be done, not if it should be. Assuming the folks of this alternate Earth are identical to us, they would look at cost/benefit ratios. Sending stuff to space is also expensive and dangerous; upgrading and repairing equipment over there is also not a breeze. One reason I can think of is that it could be easier to maintain and upgrade equipment at this fictional mountain range than in orbit. Smaller infrastructure, cheaper, larger error margin. But deep down its just my gut feeling.

 

[roger]

The costs, Roger. A whole lot less.

Evidence? ALMA is running fairly closely to the Hubble costs, and they can just truck in the telescopes and assemble them onsite. The proposals above (spacesuits, robots) are more complex than, say, the Curiosity mission or ISS.

Again, we have plenty of sites above 20K, yet no one is building there.

edit: a better reason, to my way of thinking, is resolution. I don't know if it is possible to do a VLA in space, whereas it is on the ground. Ground arrays such as at ALMA have better resolution than Hubble. I still maintain people are underestimating the difficulty of 12KM engineering by several orders of magnitude. My family has extensive mountain engineering experience - it is not trivial.

 

[roger]

The presence or absence of glaciers would be dependent on humidity. Too dry, no water, no ice. A mountain range capable of having such a beast of a 12Km-high peak probably would be enormous, with a number of different environmental conditions- glaciers, dry cold deserts, etc. I think even a lonely monster like Mars' Mount Olympus maybe could have these microclimates.

The fictional observatory should be located at a place where conditions would be similar to those where Andes' observatories are, but with a smaller pressure. So, glaciers and blizzards would not be a constant source of concern at those sites.

We do not have any mountains on earth that match those conditions at a lowly 7000-8000m height. If we want to hypothesize a gentle sloping mountain like olympus mons, perhaps that would have conditions similar to the South Pole, where we have a station and observatory. But we do not have the geology for that. The OP was talking about mountain ranges that actually existed at some point. Those would have weather conditions not unlike the Himalayas, where we have not yet even put a station at 5000m yet.

If you want to argue that with some magical geography and engineering far past our current capabilities we could have a much higher observatory, then, sure, yes, we could. We could also have a city of a million people in the deepest trench of the Pacific ocean, or build an underground city 12,000 below the surface. Given we don't yet have a city 100ft below the surface of the water or earth, I think it's safe to discount arguing about such a thing as rather silly. Hypothetically possible, realistically a nightmare.