So i was thinking about Europas habitats, so far we know about Icicles and Anchored seafloor habitats.
But would it be possible and viable to create an air pocket in the water, surrounded by ice?
For example, on the underside of the ice, you look for a flat area and just heat up the ice and water there until you have a cavern as large as you want it, then fill it up with air while pumping the water out (the air might actually push the water out, i'm not good with physics), then you slap some coolers on the cavewalls and inside the coolercircle, you make buildings and stuff. The boon of it opening to water down below would be an easily accessible harbor.
I'm very likely to miss major physics here, but would that work?
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European Air Pocket Habitats
Tue, 2016-08-02 23:19
#1
GreyBrother
European Air Pocket Habitats
Wed, 2016-08-03 01:46
#2
Trappedinwikipedia
There are two problems I can
There are two problems I can think of:
Most significantly, the tidal forces from Jupiter acting on Europa are extremely strong. 1000 times the force the moon exerts on the earth. This means that the Europan ice flexes and moves a lot, being essentially elastic over a few months. Presumably this shifting surface can be accounted for when attaching a hab to the bottom of it, but making a bubble inside an actively shifting substrate like that probably won't be very long lasting. That said, a small bubble should probably be ok for a while, I don't know exactly what the biggest possible size would be (We just don't know enough about the bottom of the ice on Europa to answer that).
A smaller problem would be the pressure. The water on Europa is under a lot of pressure thanks to its depth, so any bubble you make would need to have very high air pressure. This is very doable, requiring a different atmospheric composition from earth at a minimum, and potentially requiring pressure tolerance adaptions for morphs there. Neither of those are hard to do though.
As a temporary forward base, research lab, or outpost I think this would work pretty well, but it would probably deform and become unusable in a fairly short amount of time for a hab (months to years would be my guess).
Mon, 2016-08-08 23:05
#3
jackgraham
The shifting tidal forces
The shifting tidal forces problem is one that we kind of handwave, but it'll be a huge issue when we actually start drilling into Europa. Without going into it, we're assuming that the ice elevator at Connemara undergoes constant maintenance to keep its path clear.
The pressure thing is interesting, and again, we kind of handwave it. I think we mention that losing hull integrity in a Europan bathyscape hab is _bad_ because of the outside pressure. Part of the handwaving comes from my not having researched in depth what having insanely high atmospheric pressures (greater than Venus) would require of a biological morph design. It's a hard topic to research, because where the heck else would air pressure that high even exist? But it would be great if you could engineer morphs for super high atmospheric pressure, because then your hull wouldn't need to be as strong, and the consequences of a breach would be less catastrophic. As it stands, we assume that bathyscape habs are just incredibly strong, allowing for an internal atmospheric pressure that's a tiny fraction of the exterior pressure.
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Tue, 2016-08-09 03:11
#4
DivineWrath
Please delete.
Please delete.
Tue, 2016-08-09 12:28
#5
UnitOmega
jackgraham wrote:As it stands
Advanced Carbon composites covereth a multitude of sins.
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Tue, 2016-08-09 19:13
#6
dragoner
The ice of the bubble's walls
The ice of the bubble's walls would be hard pressed to not be melted from the energy of the tidal forces, it might not be impossible, except there would be a cheaper solution of just situating a dome on the surface.
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¡No Pasarán!
Fri, 2016-08-12 00:17
#7
GreyBrother
Awesome input. Especially
Awesome input. Especially about on the writing, Jack. :D
So the best way to make a hab like that is to have it adapted to extreme pressures, otherwise the highly pressureized water from the outside would just push the low pressure air up (and probably fracture the ice on weakspots).