Latest revision as of 13:06, 10 December 2023

The mechanosphere. A concept for an isolated closed cycle that would (if adhered to) keep the environment as clean as possible. Strongly related to recycling.

Mechanosphere (or gem-gum mechanosphere). The entirety of gemstone metamaterial technology on Earth that is recycleable via recomposition of microcomponents and crystolecules and interconnectes via some sort of global microcomponent redistribution system.
The concept is also applicable to any other planetary body, if so specified. Even asteroids (stretching/deforming the "sphere" part a bit).

What makes the mechanosphere a "…sphere"

This concept is meant as an analogy with regards to the other spheres.
Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Biosphere, Lithosphere. These are …

• closed systems quite clearly separable from the others
• globally interconnected systems
• systems that usually feature internal interconversions

Also on Earth (and other planetary bodies) it's literally spherical.
But the concept can be stretched beyond to asteroids and open space.

The mechanosphere is internally interconnected like other spheres are

The mechanosphere will eventually emerge from the interconnection/intermeshing of a global microcomponent redistribution system in conjunction with
a lot of recompositional recycling via microcomponent recomposers.
This is making the mechanosphere readily globally accessible. Similar to as the other spheres are readily globally accessible.
Or similar to how cable based internet is globally accessible as a wildly different example.

The mechanosphere is clearly separable from other spheres

The mechanosphere is isolated towards the other spheres for two reasons:

• The mechanospheres contents have clearly distinct character too the other spheres. Machinery construction kit character.
• Transfer in-to and out-of mechanosphere is only possible via special means

See: Gem-gum to natural material gap

The mechanosphere has internal interconversions

Well designed gemstone based metamaterial systems will be recomposable at various scales leaving full disassembly down to the individual atoms (via mechanosynthesic or thermodynamic means) only as last resort option. Last resort option as it is the slowest and energetically most inefficient due to having the highest energy turnover.
See: Microcomponent recomposer (disambiguation)

Mechanosphere in relation to other spheres

Biosphere

Like the biosphere there is (more or less) intelligent activity happening within. Unlike the biosphere there is much more nonvolatile elements in usage. Making products much less combustible. Elemental resources can be transformed over to the mechanosphere. E.g. via using sugars as feedstock for diamondoid products. Unfortunately eventually more easily than back. Due to the difficulty of Atomically precise disassembly sometimes leaving only diamondoid waste incineration as last resort option. We want to avert a gem-gum waste crisis with mount Everests worth of gem-gum-waste.

Lithosphere

Like the lithosphere there are a lot of non-volatile elements in the mechanosphere. Making products much less combustible. (at least the mechanosphere of Earth with easily accessible non-volatiles, Titan might be non-volatile scarce)

Atmosphere

Like the atmosphere there will be a lot of carbon in the mechanosphere (at least the mechanosphere of Earth with easily accessible carbon)

Hydrosphere

There is little commonality with the hydrosphere. Just like the atmosphere there is carbon (dissolved CO2 or cabonic acid) There are dissolved salts present. Most gems creatable from these are rater soft and obviously water soluble. Water solubility can be dealt with via sealing. Water solubility can be a desired property for spill decaying back to the hydrosphere eventually. At least one salt-gem periclase MgO is surprisingly non-water soluble as bulk solid block.

Notes on absolute sizes, accessibility, and elemental composition of the different spheres

The spheres differ in mass volume by orders of magnitude (and density for the atmosphere).

Despite the differences in scale (lithosphere being by far the biggest) The spheres are all quite easily accessible.
Atmosphere being the easiest with its omnipresence and delivering "standardized" molecule formats by its nature.

• Hydrosphere: Soluble salts NaCl,MgS, ...
• Atmosphere: Volatiles C,N,O,(Ar)
• Biosphere: Volatiles and some trace non-volatiles P,Si
• Lithosphere: Nonvolatiles Si,Al,Ti,P and some trace volatiles C
• Mechanosphere: Both volatiles and non-volatiles (prime example SiC moissanite)

Spheres beyond Earth

The situation for the mechanosphere looks quite a bit different at places beyond Earth. Moon is quite carbon scarce so far we know ATM. Excluding some small ice patches in polar craters helpful for tech bootstrapping there. Titan is likely silicon,aluminum,titanium scarce with i's crust being mostly water ice and tholin frozen star-tar dunes. Ceres being just the right distance from the sun may provide a good mix.

Noted should be that as of today (2023) we still know pretty much nothing about the chemical composition of the deeper interior of planetary bodies in our solar system. Not even well studied Mars. Maybe mars has a lot of water deep down and moon a lot of carbon. Seems unlikely but who knows. Then the question becomes what is cheaper, deep mining or deep space transport?

Related

The mechanosphere lifeline vessels

• Global microcomponent redistribution system

Pathways out of the the mechanosphere

• Diamondoid waste incineration
• Atomically precise disassembly

Pathways into the mechanosphere

• Mechanosynthesis, Piezomechanosynthesis
• Gemstone metamaterial on chip factory

Conversions within the mechanosphere

• On chip microcomponent recomposer
• Microcomponent recomposer (disambiguation)

Extremely far future eventual scenario

• gem-gum rainforest world: Gem-gum goo