You get an Australian Solar Panel Farm (RAR!)

[TimothyC]

Question for the OP. How well do the mechanical plants grow in lunar regolith?

[Simon_Jester]

That... is a verrry interesting question, Timothy.

Infinitely more efficient. A bunch of miners digging a hole know how to get to the rocks. How does a plant on the surface know where to go? Why would the same technological 'plant' be optimally efficient for building solar cells and for leaching rare minerals out of the entire volume of a huge pile of rock hundreds of feet away that it doesn't even know are there?

That's just it. You have a large number of miners and their machinery diverted to dig a massive hole to suck up what could be tiny amounts of lithium. These plant roots were described to be able to sort through elements and find what they need and what they don't in very low-density areas (dirt), so it isn't much of a stretch for you to simply make the roots grow longer and never harvest the solar panels to make up for it. And as I said earlier, the lithium could simply be a byproduct.

Making roots three orders of magnitude longer is not a small stretch. Get back to me when you've been able to show an example of someone doing this with a real plant. Or for that matter anything remotely comparable to this scenario.

Moreover, you have repeatedly evaded the question, how will the roots know where to go to find veins of solid rock hundreds of feet below surface level (if not thousands), tunneling through solid rock and not sand or dirt to get there?

Emphasis added. What tree have you ever heard of that digs a thousand feet into the ground?!?!. Why do these ones suddenly do that? Why are they even *capable* of that?

When have you ever heard of a tree that grows photovoltaics? Granted, a thousand may be a bit of a stretch, but my point still stands. If you modified them to expand the root system instead of growing solar cells, then it could get quite large (though it would be a long-term project).

While we're at it, why don't we modify these solar cell bushes to cure cancer, cheer up depressed people, reform the American electoral system, make movies as good as the books they're inspired by, and square the circle using compass and unmarked straight edge?

Your problem here is that because the solar cell bushes can do ONE thing you don't know how to do, you assume they must be capable of doing ALL things you don't know how to do.

Even magic doesn't work that way.

And as for capability, we have drills that can dig quite far into the ground. If these plant roots are basically drills, why couldn't they do the same?

Do you actually believe plant roots are like drills?

[TimothyC]

That... is a verrry interesting question, Timothy.

Yes. If they do grow even half as well as on Earth, then I've found where the real money is - Space Based Solar. You just have farms of "Sunflowers" on the Moon, put them onto Al-LOX Hybrid rockets, and launch them to LLO along with processed Aluminum truss segments, and then Solar-Electric power to either a Lagrange point or GEO for assembly.

Where this saves a lot of time is that a 1980s 90% self-replicating factory on the moon would mass ~100 metric tons of delivered mass, and would need an extra 10 tonnes of processed material (microchips, chemicals, ball bearings - basically the stuff at the top of the industrial ladder) for every new factory, and they would only reproduce every year or so.

While I may not get higher production rates than I get from a large factory, I don't have to wait for post-SLS rockets to get me there - a single shot Falcon Heavy would get the first samples started.

[Me2005]

That... is a verrry interesting question, Timothy.

Yes. If they do grow even half as well as on Earth, then I've found where the real money is - Space Based Solar. You just have farms of "Sunflowers" on the Moon, put them onto Al-LOX Hybrid rockets, and launch them to LLO along with processed Aluminum truss segments, and then Solar-Electric power to either a Lagrange point or GEO for assembly.

Where this saves a lot of time is that a 1980s 90% self-replicating factory on the moon would mass ~100 metric tons of delivered mass, and would need an extra 10 tonnes of processed material (microchips, chemicals, ball bearings - basically the stuff at the top of the industrial ladder) for every new factory, and they would only reproduce every year or so.

While I may not get higher production rates than I get from a large factory, I don't have to wait for post-SLS rockets to get me there - a single shot Falcon Heavy would get the first samples started.

You, sir, may have won the thread. Do you know how efficient top of the line space-panels are nowadays? I'm thinking these plant-panels are about 25% higher than the best we field, maybe 20% than bleeding edge, but I'm not really certain my information isn't out of date.

[Zor]

Question for the OP. How well do the mechanical plants grow in lunar regolith?

Just fine. However the nanites are vulnerable to solar flares.

Zor

[KraytKing]

Moreover, you have repeatedly evaded the question, how will the roots know where to go to find veins of solid rock hundreds of feet below surface level (if not thousands), tunneling through solid rock and not sand or dirt to get there?

You have the nerve to accuse me of evading questions when you have yet to do anything other than criticize other posts? The idea of a question is to have an answer, which myself and the others on this thread have provided. You have not. Tell me exactly what you would do and exactly how you would fit this entirely fictional, or at least futuristic, subject into current science. And as for tunneling through rock, let me give you an analogy: when Copernicus decided that the Earth revolved around the sun, do you think he could have accurately predicted how much space exploration we would conduct? Would he have said "We can reach the Moon, but not Mars, by the 21st century"? No. He would have wondered about what possibilities could arise. There is no way to predict what something as strange as this could be capable of.

Emphasis added. What tree have you ever heard of that digs a thousand feet into the ground?!?!. Why do these ones suddenly do that? Why are they even *capable* of that?

When have you ever heard of a tree that grows photovoltaics? Granted, a thousand may be a bit of a stretch, but my point still stands. If you modified them to expand the root system instead of growing solar cells, then it could get quite large (though it would be a long-term project).

While we're at it, why don't we modify these solar cell bushes to cure cancer, cheer up depressed people, reform the American electoral system, make movies as good as the books they're inspired by, and square the circle using compass and unmarked straight edge?

Your problem here is that because the solar cell bushes can do ONE thing you don't know how to do, you assume they must be capable of doing ALL things you don't know how to do.

This is the problem. You are unwilling to accept an idea other than what the topic is geared towards, and you're mad that I won the electric-car debate for Me2005 The solar trees are already described to seek out minerals and sort them, as well as use those minerals to build onto itself. Changing the minerals it goes after and what it does with them would simply be a matter of coding, no hardware involved.

And as for capability, we have drills that can dig quite far into the ground. If these plant roots are basically drills, why couldn't they do the same?

Do you actually believe plant roots are like drills?

A tree can destroy a cement sidewalk or even a road with it's roots. If the roots were made of metal, imagine the potential. And why couldn't they be drills? The tree already has the energy and the raw materials.

[KraytKing]

That... is a verrry interesting question, Timothy.

Yes. If they do grow even half as well as on Earth, then I've found where the real money is - Space Based Solar. You just have farms of "Sunflowers" on the Moon, put them onto Al-LOX Hybrid rockets, and launch them to LLO along with processed Aluminum truss segments, and then Solar-Electric power to either a Lagrange point or GEO for assembly.

Where this saves a lot of time is that a 1980s 90% self-replicating factory on the moon would mass ~100 metric tons of delivered mass, and would need an extra 10 tonnes of processed material (microchips, chemicals, ball bearings - basically the stuff at the top of the industrial ladder) for every new factory, and they would only reproduce every year or so.

While I may not get higher production rates than I get from a large factory, I don't have to wait for post-SLS rockets to get me there - a single shot Falcon Heavy would get the first samples started.

You, sir, may have won the thread. Do you know how efficient top of the line space-panels are nowadays? I'm thinking these plant-panels are about 25% higher than the best we field, maybe 20% than bleeding edge, but I'm not really certain my information isn't out of date.

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW EFFICIENT EACH PANEL IS WHEN YOU CAN COAT THE WORLD. Moving the panels to the moon would be a waste of money when the only problem is storage of energy. Granted, the idea is good, but the last several posts have hinged on having more energy than we can use.

[Simon_Jester]

Moreover, you have repeatedly evaded the question, how will the roots know where to go to find veins of solid rock hundreds of feet below surface level (if not thousands), tunneling through solid rock and not sand or dirt to get there?

You have the nerve to accuse me of evading questions when you have yet to do anything other than criticize other posts? The idea of a question is to have an answer, which myself and the others on this thread have provided. You have not. Tell me exactly what you would do and exactly how you would fit this entirely fictional, or at least futuristic, subject into current science. And as for tunneling through rock, let me give you an analogy: when Copernicus decided that the Earth revolved around the sun, do you think he could have accurately predicted how much space exploration we would conduct? Would he have said "We can reach the Moon, but not Mars, by the 21st century"? No. He would have wondered about what possibilities could arise. There is no way to predict what something as strange as this could be capable of.

So in other words, "if it can do one thing I don't understand, it can do all the other things I don't understand, because woooooo things we don't understand can do anything!"

Very well. You want me to make an answer? I predict that the photovoltaic panels will be easily reprogrammed to cure cancer, force through election reform, and provide cute fuzzy pets for all the little children. We all live happily ever after. The end.

Is that facetious? Yes. Did I put about as much coherent thought into it as you've put into your "adapt solar cell bushes for hard rock mining" idea? Yes. If what you've been doing counts as a contribution, so does what I just said.

This is the problem. You are unwilling to accept an idea other than what the topic is geared towards, and you're mad that I won the electric-car debate for Me2005 The solar trees are already described to seek out minerals and sort them, as well as use those minerals to build onto itself. Changing the minerals it goes after and what it does with them would simply be a matter of coding, no hardware involved.

You didn't win, you're just deluding yourself by arbitrarily deciding that if a thing you don't understand can do hard thing X, it can do hard thing Y that you also don't understand.

And I'm not going to bother repeating that after this post, because if you don't actually provide factual arguments for how roots designed to extract nutrients from shallow soil can be easily 'reprogrammed' for hard rock mining, I'm going to treat it as a concession on your part that you can't actually support your own claims.

[TimothyC]

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW EFFICIENT EACH PANEL IS WHEN YOU CAN COAT THE WORLD. Moving the panels to the moon would be a waste of money when the only problem is storage of energy. Granted, the idea is good, but the last several posts have hinged on having more energy than we can use.

A panel in Geosynchronous orbit goes from 1825 hours per year to 8746 hours per year of effective illuminated time (You loose about an hour a day for a 7 day stretch twice a year). I also don't have to loft many, I can loft just a few and power the entire production line on the moon once I get them there. I'll be using even less of the surface area of the world, I won't have to deal with weather. Storage becomes a lot less of an issue when I can use the output as a baseload power.

[Me2005]

You, sir, may have won the thread. Do you know how efficient top of the line space-panels are nowadays? I'm thinking these plant-panels are about 25% higher than the best we field, maybe 20% than bleeding edge, but I'm not really certain my information isn't out of date.

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW EFFICIENT EACH PANEL IS WHEN YOU CAN COAT THE WORLD.

Wasn't really my point. Timothyc seemed to know his stuff and I was wondering if he also knew how efficient bleeding-edge space panels are currently. I'm nearly certain 75% is higher than any panel we can make, but if someone has better data that'd be awesome.

My plan was obviously to coat the world. But:

A panel in Geosynchronous orbit goes from 1825 hours per year to 8746 hours per year of effective illuminated time (You loose about an hour a day for a 7 day stretch twice a year)

Also, the real reasons he won the thread are that he's putting the cells:
A) On the moon, where no one will really care that they're there because no one has a backyard to NIMBY about putting them up in. Even the barren deserts the things apparently thrive in sometimes have people living there (Glares at Nevada, Southern California, and Arizona).
B) In SPAAACCEEEE! where they can help us do awesome things we can't do now because of power requirements. Things like "Manned exploration of the solar system" and "chemical-rocket free flights to orbit/space".
C) Into a self-renewing system so he can put more of them in SPAACCEEE!, for the cost of a single rocket launch that we can definitely do today/in the near future.

Moving the panels to the moon would be a waste of money when the only problem is storage of energy. Granted, the idea is good, but the last several posts have hinged on having more energy than we can use.

Moving them to the moon is a great idea when you stop needing to store the energy because you have so much and you have it constantly, day and night, regardless of weather conditions. Now, weather conditions would probably mess up whatever method you used to beam it back to Earth, but that's a different problem to have and probably solvable when we have loads of energy. Put the microwave receivers on giant quad copters hovering at 90,000', who cares that doing so is only 1% efficient? We're getting too much power anyway!

...And as for tunneling through rock, let me give you an analogy: when Copernicus decided that the Earth revolved around the sun, do you think he could have accurately predicted how much space exploration we would conduct? Would he have said "We can reach the Moon, but not Mars, by the 21st century"? No. He would have wondered about what possibilities could arise. There is no way to predict what something as strange as this could be capable of.

You're both right and wrong here. Sure, there are probably rammifacations here that we can't comprehend. But we have been told, as a part of the setup of the thread, what these solar plants are like and what to expect them to do. We have not been told that we know anything about reprogramming them, or who made them, or if they can be repurposed in any way. Many of Zor's threads and RAR!'s in general have the stipulation that the situation is entirely contrived and they cannot be used by us except as presented.

So I'd phrase your answer as a question to Zor, then once you get the clarification, move forward with your ideas.

Can these plants be reprogrammed, repurposed, or otherwise reverse engineered? Do we know who made them and can we talk to them?

Emphasis added. What tree have you ever heard of that digs a thousand feet into the ground?!?!. Why do these ones suddenly do that? Why are they even *capable* of that?

When have you ever heard of a tree that grows photovoltaics? Granted, a thousand may be a bit of a stretch, but my point still stands. If you modified them to expand the root system instead of growing solar cells, then it could get quite large (though it would be a long-term project).... The solar trees are already described to seek out minerals and sort them, as well as use those minerals to build onto itself. Changing the minerals it goes after and what it does with them would simply be a matter of coding, no hardware involved.

I'm not sure we can change the plants in any way. We might use them sort of as you describe by reverse-harvest the panels for materials, though really, we don't know what these panels are made up of. Maybe it's an interesting arrangement of sand, trace metals, and carbon that makes these things and they don't actually need lithium at all.

Again; Zor, what kinds of things are the panels made up of? Stuff you'd usually find in a solar panel? Dirt and rock, and organic bits? Metals?

[TimothyC]

Maybe it's an interesting arrangement of sand, trace metals, and carbon that makes these things and they don't actually need lithium at all.

Again; Zor, what kinds of things are the panels made up of? Stuff you'd usually find in a solar panel? Dirt and rock, and organic bits? Metals?

That they grow in lunar regolith implies that they are mostly made of Aluminum, Silicon, Oxygen, Iron, Titanium, & Calcium. While there are other non-metals on the moon, the relative concentrations are very low.

[Me2005]

Maybe it's an interesting arrangement of sand, trace metals, and carbon that makes these things and they don't actually need lithium at all.

Again; Zor, what kinds of things are the panels made up of? Stuff you'd usually find in a solar panel? Dirt and rock, and organic bits? Metals?

That they grow in lunar regolith implies that they are mostly made of Aluminum, Silicon, Oxygen, Iron, Titanium, & Calcium. While there are other non-metals on the moon, the relative concentrations are very low.

But we also know they grow very well in Earth-desert and/or regular dirt, which has some of that stuff available but not most of it in great abundance. Maybe these things are oxygen/silicon constructs?