OHM Terraformed Moon

[OrbitHangar]

Author: ignorethisbarrel

Adds a terraformed Moon to Orbiter.

Read the Installation.txt file, it's very important.

You should back up your Moon textures.


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[Izack]

Having a blast flying a DGIV around Brighton Beach, using elevons. :thumbup:

I have a copy of Phobos (calling it Lilith) in an eccentric orbit around Earth such that it has a pseudo-orbit around the Moon, which is pretty cool.

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Thanks

Before I finally ordered myself to upload it, I was spending nearly an hour just flying a Shuttle-A around the moon using hover thrusters (and intermod-2, of course), and generally having a blast reentering the atmosphere at mach 40 without having to worry about hitting the ground because the atmosphere's so high relative to the ground.

 

[Axel]

Nice idea, but the moon has to less mass for an athmosphere like this. I use orbiter for a simulaton of existing and eventually (in future) existing things.

 

[Rtyh-12]

Ever thought of creating a new solar system, with all planets the same except for the moon? You can reuse planets, you know.

 

[Izack]

Ever thought of creating a new solar system, with all planets the same except for the moon? You can reuse planets, you know.

You could make that pretty easily actually. Just copy Sol.cfg, paste a new one, rename it, change Earth:Moon1 = Moon to Earth:Moon1 = TerraMoon, set up a scenario with

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
  System [whatever you renamed it]
  Date MJD 52006.7485132526
END_ENVIRONMENT

and bam! You're done! :thumbup:

 

[Rtyh-12]

In the .cfg file of the terraformed moon (or whatever your new planet is) there is a line saying NAME, which you can change to 'Moon' to make Orbiter display the planet as 'Moon' when you press F9. I used it here.

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Ever thought of creating a new solar system, with all planets the same except for the moon? You can reuse planets, you know.

I actually was going to do that, but then I thought, if they really want to use this in a bunch of their scenarios, they'd find it pretty annoying manually changing the system in all of them. Besides, installation/uninstallation is extremely simple.






And yes, I know the moon doesn't have enough mass, that's why it's called "terraformed", implying artificial "atmospherization" and the retaining of said atmosphere through artificial means.

 

[Izack]

And yes, I know the moon doesn't have enough mass, that's why it's called "terraformed", implying artificial "atmospherization" and the retaining of said atmosphere through artificial means.

I'm thinking of a giant piece of Saran wrap encircling the Moon. :lol:

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

I'm thinking of a giant piece of Saran wrap encircling the Moon. :lol:

Hmm... that might just work, but only if there was a giant door far up where ships could enter!

 

[T.Neo]

Don't be so pessimistic about atmosphere retention... it's not like it's going to float off in a few decades.

I've heard estimates of tens of thousands to millions of years. It all depends on how something is maintained.

Putting a sort of shell around the Moon (or any other body, for that matter) is known as paraterraforming, and it's quite interesting- though like everything, it does have hurdles.

EDIT:

According to my calculations, to achieve one bar of pressure on the Moon requires 64 tons of atmosphere per square meter.

This equates to 2.428e18 kilograms, in comparison to Earth's 5e18 kilogram atmosphere. Assuming the density, based on the mass of the atmosphere and the volume from the surface to 100 km is 0.096289 kg/m^3, the lunar equivalent of 100 km, with a 1-bar-at-surface atmosphere, would be 555 kilometers above the surface.

Which is pretty high. Both the higher mass/area and altitude figures are due to the weaker gravity of the Moon.

Now in true paraterraforming, you have a roof maybe a kilometer off the ground, and you pressurise it with air. Which is a totally different thing.

 

[cslevine]

well, we can imagine that there a huge force-field which keeps the atmo in place. So a must have would be a sort of "mesh" shape mesh, with some stuffs which make the field activated and available.

and if someone don't pay the mafia, hop the moon as before ...

 

[Pinguinboy]

and if someone don't pay the mafia, hop the moon as before ...

Agreed, because you won't any trouble with the Moon Maffia, or the Lunar Family.

But I really like this add-on, it fits good at my custom sol system (I just put some custom planets and moons in sol. :lol: ). :thumbup:

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Agreed, because you won't any trouble with the Moon Maffia, or the Lunar Family.

But I really like this add-on, it fits good at my custom sol system (I just put some custom planets and moons in sol. :lol: ). :thumbup:

Thanks!

 

[Izack]

well, we can imagine that there a huge force-field which keeps the atmo in place.

You don't have to imagine... Has anyone tried reentering in that atmopshere? It's like there's a wall at precisely 200km. The pressure jumps straight from 0 to 25kPa. Was that intentional? I noticed AtmAltLimit was commented out, though it was set to 200km anyway. :shrug:

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

You don't have to imagine... Has anyone tried reentering in that atmopshere? It's like there's a wall at precisely 200km. The pressure jumps straight from 0 to 25kPa. Was that intentional? I noticed AtmAltLimit was commented out, though it was set to 200km anyway. :shrug:

Terraforming atmospheres are a real pain because of how Orbiter doesn't really like certain properties of atmospheres, such as AtmAltLimit. In a couple cases that made the atmosphere go all crazy.

 

[caseygtr]

OMG, I love this add-on. the moon looks so beautiful with this mod.
Barrel, I wish I could hug you...

 

[Cairan]

http://astro.unl.edu/naap/atmosphere/animations/gasRetentionPlot.html

Cool website to play around to check if a given moon or planet could have an atmosphere...

Turns out the Moon could actually hold on to a Xenon atmosphere!!!

Even more interesting, Ganymede is shown to be able to hold to a carbon dioxide or nitrogen atmosphere, and Mars can hold to O2/N2, just not the water vapor... So that pretty much confirms in a graphical way the fact that what Mars really is lacking is a greenhouse gas other than water...

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Thanks Casey! Glad you like it.

And thanks for that link Cairan, very interesting that Pluto could hold an atmosphere of xenon!