If this war is in some way connected to oil reserves in iraq then with the amount of mony being spent on it we could send of a space craft to the moons of jupiter and retreve this gase and no one would even have to die it could be an unmaned space craft.

11eleven11,

Maybe you are referring to a moon of Saturn, called Titan?

It is shrouded in Methane, and may contain "oceans" of
liquified Gas as well.

It could be a source of energy. It would be costly to get it from there,
to Earth.

Someday, we may find a way to get it here, cheaply.

Remember, it used to be costly to own a computer,
now it's almost a standard household appliance.

Who knows what the future has in store?

I really doubt that we can make the technology to get to Titan before we run out/start fighting for the oil. How would we power such a thing without oil?

Getting fuel from elsewhere in the solar system would be incredibly expensive and time consuming, although it would provide a massive amount of fuel in the long term. With regards to the war, aparantly its cheaper and quicker to go to war with Iraq and take their oil than to extract from oil fields in Alaska and elsewhere in the US, so going to space for oil isn't gonna happen - at least while its cheaper to beat/shoot/blow it out of someone on earth.

If you have the technology to mass-import fuel from elsewhere in the solar system, you have the technology to not have to run your cars on methane or fossil fuel.

Unless we find evidence of life somewhere, we'll not find oil.

Methane is a different story (obviously).

But, as has been said here, I highly doubt that we'll be able to start importing methane as an energy source from Titan in time to temper the coming oil crisis.

I've often wondered if you could relay microwave energy via several satellites between two planets to send energy instead of sending the fuel.

I wonder what the efficiency is of a microwave power relay? I must look that up one day.

A spacecraft to the moons of Saturn, for gas. Unless a new form of space propulsion is develped it would take a long time for probe to go, pick up, and bring back any type of fuel. The spacecraft itself would probly burn most of it coming back. And still you have to deal with losing a craft, building it, researching the 'landing area', how to unload it etc. etc. In my opionion, way too many problems in doing this. Better off just sittin tight and blowing the hell outta our neighbors for it.









[edit on 23-6-2004 by jrod8900]

[edit on 25-6-2004 by jrod8900]

You would think it would be cheaper to just develop a different form of power like fuel cells, etc than trying to extract resources from another celestial body.

Point taken, but since we're sitting here on the brink of commercial space flight, and we don't have unlimited resources, (energy or raw materials) extraction from other celestial bodies is going to be a requirement for the future regardless. It may well become feasible and cost effective to extract methane from Titan's atmosphere, once asteroid and moon mining become cost effective. It's certainly not right now. But, like I said, commercial space flight is in it's infancy.

At least, we're headed the right direction on that front.

As far as fuel cells go, what they don't tell you is that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than you'll ever get back out of it. Hydrogen is really more of an energy carrier than an energy source, like oil.

what if you set-up a 'refinery' on Titan and 'burned' the fuel there. The energy could then be beamed back to earth in the form of microwaves.

Is this possible? Have I just given away an idea that could have made me billions?

Originally posted by onlyinmydreams
Have I just given away an idea that could have made me billions?

No, you've stolen my idea, look up a few posts!

bah,

well, great minds think alike.

I think someone missed out on the concept of '(re)entry' with titan. As a body with an atmosphere 5x as dense as earth's, with an incredible amount of methane gas, sending a probe flying in might just light the solar system a momentary second sun.

I don't think that methane can burn without an oxidant... but, then again, my chemistry isn't what it used to be...


BTW, the idea that the Huygens probe will light up titan reminds me of the claim, last year, that the Galileo probe would cause Jupiter to undergo nuclear chain reactions on its descent into the gas giant. As we all know, Jupiter is still there, as it pretty much was before.

im sure once we get the technology to transport gases from other planets moons we will also have the technology to fight impressive and unjust space wars.

koji K.

It's an interesting notion, one that occurred to me as well when I read about Titan being basically a big ball of hydrocarbon.

This goes to show what a good space program can do for humanity. If we can figure out how to go there and harvest the energy through one method or another, there's a virtually limitless supply out there for the taking. The same tech that is being discussed using solar panels on the moon, then beaming the energy back to earth for use, could be used in this situation?

ohhh great because we cant figure out how to get energy from things other than millions of barrels of nonreplinishable oil we will now go and use up more so we can get to jupiters moon titan light years away to pillage it of its feul sources.

Isn't there loads of Helium-3 on our own moon?
Surely it would be better to mine that instead of travelling half way across the solar system for gas?

Indeed, the Helium3 is a most attractive energy source. Like I said, there's limitless resources out there ripe for the plundering if we'll only get off our collective backsides as a species and go get it!