The star-through-planet Libration Points L1, L2, and L3 are all metastable such that I have little time for any terraforming-proposal which requires indefinite-period magnet-and-shield (Lissajous-1) or mirrors (Lagrange-2). Winchell Chung needs to sic his Rocket-Cat upon every blogger who floats such. I might however entertain a temporary installation, so far looking to the Martian mirror.
Today we are warned of hyperflares and Coronal Mass Ejections. Not just Carrington, not even the AD 775 carbon spike. EK Draconis is the real deal. For our Sun when it was younger, it was the real deal; although I doubt something like that might happen here, we must anticipate another AD 775 to happen here.
If such can be predicted, then might be worth the planet's while to get a big shield into S*L1. We'll want the tightest halo-orbit possible, so this "L" is for "Lissajous". It's temporary; but that's a feature, since normally we don't want to darken our planets. Before shipping out, the material would be best parked in a high orbit or maybe L4 or L5.
The question then moves to: first, how bad can we expect of the CME, and how much warning are we likely to get? We may be able to predict in terms of yellow/ orange/ red someday; maybe float it out to S*L1 every eleven years.
The flare will be less harsh at Mars and will take longer to get there. On the other hand, Mars' stable Lagrangians are that much further from L1. Probably best to store the materiel up on Deimos, and assemble the magnet on its way Sun-ward. I don't know about punching it with a torchship on account that will irradiate Mars from its own exhaust.
Earth and maybe Venus have less time to get the shield up on account they are closer the Sun. On the other hand: circular(ish) orbits each whose circumference is less. Might keep the magnet at L4 and/or L5 and go ahead with that torchship, toward L1.
MATERIEL 6/18/22: Bubbles.
No comments:
Post a Comment