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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Atmosphere Control | ||
| Recently terraformed planets require constant maintenance. |
I just thought that this was a clever idea, taking advantage of a planet's natural vulcanism to distribute material throughout the atmosphere.
| Potter was doing most of the talking and all the pointing. "Those twin volcanoes; d'ye see them, Mr. Renner? D'ye see yon boxlike structures near the peak of each one? They're atmosphere control. When yon volcanoes belch gas, the maintenance posts fire jets of tailored algae into the air stream. Without them our atmosphere would soon be foul again." |
| Technovelgy from The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Did I mention that this planet is called New Scotland. I hope that explains the accent.
Scientists believe that volcanoes have played (and continue to play) a vital role in the development of our own Earth's atmosphere. Most of the gas that surrounds the planet came from eruptions from below the surface. Volcanoes can inject remarkable volumes of SO2 and chlorine gas into the atmosphere, as well as dust that alters the albedo of the Earth. Volcanism has played an important role in recent history; the eruption (or explosion) of the Krakatoa volcano caused debris to fall upon locations as far away as Madagascar. Sunsets around the world were notably altered for years, as was the amount of sunlight reaching the surface.
See the entry for Pina2bo from Termination Shock (2021) by Neal Stephenson for another method of seeding the atmosphere, this time for geoengineering to prevent climate change.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Mote in God's Eye
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Tech news articles related to The Mote in God's Eye
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Atmosphere Control-related
news articles:
- Algae To Clean Atmosphere
- Reduce Hurricanes By Altering The Atmosphere
- Volcanoes Terraformed Mars?
- Dim The Sun With Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment
| Climate Engineering In California Could Make Europe's Heat Waves Worse |
| Textiles That Harvest Energy And Store It |
| Coin-Sized Nuclear Battery Good For 100 Years |
| The FLUTE Project - A Huge Liquid Mirror In Space |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
