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Saturn Backstory
It has been about Saturn, not Earth, not Mars, for a very long time, and for decades almost no one knew it.
One young man had his biggest thought long before he built fully autonomous cars and robots. Humanoid robots that could travel beyond Earth by themselves to prepare the way for people to follow. At the same time he envisioned building the new financial system for our solar system that used hydrocarbons and water, not dollars, not metals, not diamonds or bitcoins as the new wealth standard for generations to come.
He also realized at the same time we can’t be alone or unique in our universe. Early on he figured out that every star is a Sun, and learned astronomers were estimating there are around 1 septillion (10²⁴ or a 1 followed by 24 zeros) stars in just the observable part of our universe. How many stars have planets like Earth? Nobody had the slightest idea back then. He learned much later after the discoveries on Mars that we have never been alone. Others have quietly been among us, invisible for thousands of years.
As his phenomenal success grew he slowly became aware that others, including some really bad people had come to the same conclusions.
His meteoric rise greatly accelerated his transition from a naive college kid to a mature world citizen with ever increasing wisdom matching his increase in wealth.
In his increasing role in battling good versus evil it’s Game On as we begin our journey to the stars.
The New Wealth Standard
Our Solar System’s hydrocarbons are replacing gold, water beyond Earth is replacing silver, and as we begin our space journey a totally new paradigm, a new future never imagined by many is emerging.
Achieving this goal meant it has always been about Saturn and its moons with their vast treasure trove. Saturn’s moon Titan holds hundreds of times more hydrocarbons than all of Earth’s combined oil, gas, and coal reserves. This might have been the best kept secret of the 20st century, maybe ever.
Confirmation came in July 2006 when the Cassini Orbiter confirmed extensive methane and ethane rivers, lakes, and seas on Titan, Saturn‘s biggest moon, bigger than the planet Mercury. And what is on and in the other 460 plus moons in just our little Solar System? We are about to find out.
All the noise and hype about humans finally returning to Earth’s Moon and then on to Mars created a phenomenally successful diversion that lasted thirty years, but now the greatest Gold Rush in human history has begun. Who will harvest the enormous wealth on Titan? We will soon find out.
Hydrocarbons are replacing gold as the new Interplanetary monetary standard, but all the gold in our solar system will not keep you from freezing to death in the dark, and hydrocarbons will. Thermal energy is life. No heat, and you, robot or human, are dead, dead, dead.
Water is the new silver, easy to harvest on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus once our robots get there.
The new platinum is Helium 3, mostly harvested on Earth’s Moon, but as usual affordable fusion is still twenty years away. Maybe some day that ship will finally come in.
And rare Earths are highly profitable but the amount of revenue they generate is tiny compared to hydrocarbons and water. They almost drop in your hands as a byproduct of water harvesting along with a cornucopia of other impurities embedded in our Solar System’s ice that is billions of years old.
As humanity began Version 4 evolution people’s thoughts had started to seamlessly fuse with those of their adopted robot children. The robot SI’s had vastly more knowledge but many humans, unfortunately not all, had vastly better inspiration and wisdom. Together these pairings were leading the way to the stars.
Brilliant Diversion Strategy
The electrification of Earth’s transportation is creating a highly successful diversion for the Hydrocarbon-based Space Economy strategy.
Fossil fuels are bad, renewable energy resources will save Earth. It’s not true but it told a good story for several decades. This approach really pulled hard at the emotional heartstrings of the gullible and naive. As EV tech improved the smart people realized EVs cost less, a lot less when you look at the total life cycle cost. Combined with your ability to recharge your EV with your privately owned own solar panels, wind generators and big butt batteries, EVs finally coasted past the Tipping Point in over half of the countries on Earth. It was the billions of EV motorcycles and TokTok taxis that did the trick, mostly recharged by their owner’s privately owned solar panels that recharged their smartphones at the same time.
The really smart people knew from the very start that Earth was never going to be able to afford Net Zero. It was a global con-job hidden in Big Governments and Big Corporations who saw nothing wrong with benefiting themselves at the expense of a great many. Just another cycle that have come and gone throughout human history.
As Earth decarbonized it never dawned on a great many that the future survival of the human species would depend on Hydrocarbons harvested elsewhere in our solar system. BigGuy and his Inner Circle got it right from the gitgo, and amazingly they were able to keep the secret for thirty years.
Can you imagine the surprise and the global uproar when it becomes clear another mini Ice Age is coming to Earth and Earthlings need to greatly add to the greenhouse effect to keep billions from freezing to death in the dark? Suddenly moving to Mars is looking better every day.
The secret plan began within weeks of NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity, the first autonomous robots landing on Mars in 2004. The biggest secret ever finally became public knowledge when Bot, Hopper, and Scout, the latest in fully autonomous robot technology, successfully drilled the first oil well on Mars in 2034 together with a small group of the first Martian settlers. The first gusher happened almost to the day thirty years after Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars.
From the absolute beginning, despite his youthful nativity, he decided a carefully controlled small amount of paranoia was a good thing. He somehow just knew too little paranoia was just as bad as too much.
This most hidden thought process was periodically revisited at regular intervals ever since and whenever unexpected events crashed onto the world stage.
There was gobs of Intel about every competitor but as expected it was impossible to verify with 100% certainty where they were along their parallel paths to space. The key as always was to maintain an open mind but not let fear, anxiety, and paranoia change the vector. Unlike science, security is always an imperfect process because all humans are imperfect. BigGuy’s security team is the best ever known in history, but …
Suddenly 8 Billion People Know
The Interplanetary Hydrocarbon Economy went public when the first Martian oil well turned out to be a gusher and the plume stretched into the upper reaches of Mars atmosphere, drifting downwind for fifty kilometers, plainly visible from Earth even by amateur astrometers. First almost pure white, then yellow for a bit, then a dark brown stain spreading across the Red Planet for over two hours.
Billions wondered what the heck was going on. His minions knew that almost everything was going to plan. Billions initially had no clue Mars was just the stepping stone to Saturn and its moons, the biggest pot of gold to date in the middle of the planetary rainbow.
The cat was out of the bag in a really big way. Stock markets had to temporarily suspend trading in every major city. Social media simply melded down. What does this mean? What are we going to do? Biggest questions since dropping the first atomic bomb.
Next Steps
Some immediately recognize Trillions are to be made from vast amounts of hydrocarbons available for the taking beyond Earth. Discovering their locations is just beginning. Creating the new Intergalactic Hydrocarbon Economy is not far behind. The big problem was how do you get there and who is going to do the work? Suddenly it became obvious that the guy with the best, biggest rockets who was also making the best robots are at the head of the supply chain.
His company stock rollercoaster ride was so intense trading was momentarily suspended over the weekend plus the following Monday through Thursday when BigGuy announced his latest update to his Master Plan. While doing his trademark happy dance he cheerfully identified Saturn as the main objective of his entire, multi-decade, multi-corporate strategy. Colonizing Mars was merely a critical stepping stone to Saturn.
Saturn, not Mars, had always been ultimate destination. For once the crowd of loyal supporters was stunned into total silence. Could this really be true? Had they intentionally been misled all these years? What was going on inside his head? Had he lost it or was this his most brilliant thoughts ever? There is so much more to this story and it’s going to take time for it to sink in.
At the third quarter earnings call meeting in November, 2030 he flashed up the 2031 1,044 rocket launch schedule, with 25 rockets doing a high energy burn leaving for Mars on 15 April and arriving late July after a brief orbit around our Moon.
What’s not immediately apparent is these 25 early birds will continue on to Saturn. Seven will continuously orbit Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, six will orbit and explore other super wealth hotspots, their locations closely guarded secret, and the rest will work their way through Saturn’s rings and the asteroid belt gathering data for the next twenty Earth years.
Their trip to Saturn will start by orbiting our Moon but not landing. They will refuel using rocket juice made on the Moon by our earliest Moonbeam robot swarm, add additional supplies also made on the Moon, and make a few robot personnel changes.
All Saturn Colony rockets orbit Mars until the next Mars to Saturn Transfer Window opens seven months later. The best time to travel between Mars and Saturn normally only occurs every 14 and a half years, but planning for this trip had been in the works since 2004. It takes Saturn 29 and a half Earth years to go around the Sun, and those very few whose very different brains easily wrap around astrogating are having a hard time sleeping just thinking about it.
The public has no clue they are destined for Saturn and an elaborate cover story, which is actually partly true, has been crafted for their remaining in orbit around Mars. After the first few news cycles most people have forgotten about them.
When all 25 suddenly break Mars’ orbit at the same time like a carefully choreographed ballet and go haring off into the great unknown is so unexpected and bizarre, social media almost melts down. As usual instant experts came out of the woodwork and the fake news was so bad Tiktok and YouTube melted down for hours.
Once the news began to sink in, Innovators and Early Adopters were suddenly so excited they couldn’t sit down. More than a few recognized this was the most important turning point in human history.
Saturn
At last count Saturn has 274 officially recognized moons and the number keeps climbing. Some are just nearly worthless leftover chunks of rock, and some are worth billions each, and BigGuy and his Inner Circle knew early on there are a bunch of these.
All you got to do is send your robots to go get the free stuff and Boom! You’re rich beyond imagining. What could go wrong?
This isn’t the blind rambling of a pack of greed addicts. If Mars is to become the new financial capital of our solar system a lot more wealth is needed, much more than what is on the Red Planet, its two moons and Earth combined. There are fortunes to be made in the Asteroid Belt from millions of carbonaceous lumps just floating out there, but harvesting hydrocarbons and water is going to be much easier with lower risk on Saturn’s moons.
Saturn and its rings and moons are about nine and a half times further from the Sun than Earth, and receive only about 1% of the radiant energy. Saturn’s orbit is much bigger, more eccentric, and slower needing 29 and a half Earth years to complete a single trip around our Sun.
Beginning mining and manufacturing on the surface of Saturn is probably decades away but harvesting hydrocarbons on Saturn’s largest moon is scheduled to begin in 2034.
Saturn’s Moon Titan
Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury and 150% bigger than Earth’s Moon with about the same weak gravity. Robots could mine Titan for hundreds of years without not making a dent in its natural Hydrocarbon resources.
Credit: Wikipedia
On a good day Titan’s surface temperature is about 94 Kelvin (−179.2 °C, -290°F) and the clouds contain Hydrocarbons like methane instead of water vapor, so our robots will need lots of thermal energy to survive and thrive. A night on Titan lasts about eight Earth days and we don’t even want to talk about how cold it gets at night.
The old Science Fiction thing about robot gas harvesters skimming Titan’s atmosphere sucking up millions of tons of hydrocarbons is about to become a reality. It’s not because it is really cool tech; it will happen because it will be wildly profitable.
It’s just in the last ten years we have secretly verified Saturn is a big ball of molten metal under those mercurial swirling clouds.The vastly undereducated still think it is worthless big ball of gas. NASA’s early probes to Saturn gathered a lot more information and data than was made public in direct violation of its Public Agency charter. But this should not come as a surprise because politics has always been the dirtiest human business.
Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
The truth is they have known about the Hydrocarbons on Enceladus since 2011.
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th largest in the Solar System. It is about 500 kilometres (310 miles) in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. It is covered with continuously deposited snow hundreds of meters thick, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System. Consequently, its surface temperature at noon reaches only −198 °C (75.1 K; −324.4 °F), far colder than a light-absorbing body would be. Despite its small size, Enceladus has a wide variety of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrain. (Footnote 1. Wikipedia)
Unlike Titan Enceladus’ sparse atmosphere is almost all water vapor (92%). While we are in the area why not scoop some of it up during a super close flyby? Easy peazy.
Researchers recently mentioned they dove deep into information gathered from the ice grains that were collected in 2009 during a close and super-fast flyby through a plume of Saturn’s icy moon.
A new analysis of data from NASA’s old Cassini mission claims they have just found evidence of previously undetected organic compounds in a plume of ice particles ejected from the ocean that lies under the frozen shell of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Researchers spotted not only molecules they’ve found before but also new ones that lay a potential path to chemical or biochemical activity.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Burning the hydrocarbons in space to recover the stored solar energy is possible, but it is the least profitable use of these natural resources. They will be used to manufacture thousands of products critical to building permanent colonies and economies at far greater profits. Colonies on Mars, on the hundreds of moons in our Solar System, and on huge space stations in between will create the greatest demand for manufactured goods in human history.
Other natural resources and raw materials are also vital to building the space economy but hydrocarbons will be king for generations to come.
The discoveries have just begun. Saturn’s Moon Titan has vast oceans of methane and ethane, and finding coal, oil, and natural gas on Mars is critical to building the space economy which will become far greater than Earth. Mars will become the new financial powerhouse of our Solar System being halfway between Earth and the vast wealth that lies beyond.
Saturn’s First Motherships
The tricky part is to use Titan as a shield to keep pieces of Saturn’s rings from hitting the motherships as they orbit the planet. Initially manned entirely by robots, the motherships add modules made first on Earth’s Moon and then on Mars. As the final shape takes form they will begin to spin, producing gravity equal to Mars. Maintaining that Lagrange Point thing is a lot harder than it looks because Saturn’s moons are tidally locked, and the tidal forces change, but AI is up to the task once an infinite supply of rocket fuels coming from Titan is available to do nearly continuous orbit tweaking.
After six years of autonomous robot mining and manufacturing the first three Titan motherships are ready for the arrival of six hundred human colonists. Most will return to Mars after a two year stay having made their pile, but a surprising number decide to make Titan their permanent home. They marry and start having kids who have never known Earth, our solar system’s first true native born spacers.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Mars is the Next Step to Saturn
Two robots named Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004. Their stated purpose was to look for evidence of ancient water. What was only disclosed to a tiny group, not including the President, was they were also there to look for hydrocarbons.
More to follow, your thoughts are greatly appreciated.