The length of the cable is also dependent on other things, such as the rotational period of the anchoring body. Since the Moon rotates only once every 29 days or so, the cable would need to be so long that it would hit the Earth, in theory. Also, in any location other than directly toward Earth or directly opposed to Earth (on the far side of the Moon), Earth's gravity would distort the elevator.
There is a way to place a space elevator on the near side of the Moon, by using the Earth's gravity to counterweight the "top" of the cable, rather than using centrifugal force. This type of elevator has several advantages:
It is much shorter than it would otherwise need to be, meaning it uses much less material in its construction, and the material does not need to be as strong as for a longer, non-Earth's-gravity-counterweighted cable. (Note, however, that it's still longer than the Earth's Space Elevator.) In fact, such an elevator's cable could be made out of Kevlar!
The cable goes through L1, one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, which is a node on the Interplanetary Superhighway.
Material mined on the Moon can be lifted "up" the elevator, through the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, then lifted "down" the cable toward the Earth, and deposited directly into Earth orbit.
This last advantage is particularly, uh, advantageous, because such orbits are highly elliptical, and could even intersect the Earth or its atmosphere, which would allow material (e.g., the He3 that you mentioned) to be shipped from the Moon to the Earth without using any rockets at all!
parts of the moon are in constant sunlight
The only parts of the Moon that are in constant sunlight are perhaps a very few locations at the poles, which are useless vis a vis a Lunar Space Elevator (although this article proposes a non-vertical Lunar Space Elevator terminating at the Lunar South Pole that could be used to lift water (believed to be located there) into Earth orbit).
For example, if you want to really piss off a German, say "Ich bin einen Wasserbuffelkopf".
It means "You are a scumbag nazi jackass whose mother sleeps with horses"... loosely translated of course.
If I remember my High School German, "Ich bin ein" means "I am a". "Wasser" means "water", and "kopf" is head, so what you are really saying is "I am a water [something] head."
Or are you trying to pull on us what we pulled on our foreign exchange student?
I made a resolution right then and there to never, ever use any of those words again.
So you begin the song "America the Beautiful" with the words "My vagina-ry 'tis of thee..."?
On a related note, if you want to disguise the fact that you're a prissy^W^W^W^Wthat you don't swear, then the next time that something bad happens, repeatedly say the word "itch" very quickly (or very quickly say it repeatly). You'll know that you're not swearing, but everyone else will think that you are.
One of my best friends was from Belarus, and when we first met he didn't know Engligh very well. The first things I taught him were all the curses and how to use them appropriately without sounding like an idiot who's trying to be cool
Hah! We taught our foreign exchange student that "woodchuck" was a swear word. He would use it occasionally, when he was upset.
I also remember watching R&M's Laugh-in on the old black&white TV back in the 1960s. My favorite part was the party, which had Goldie Hawn and other cuties go-go dancing in bikinis. Very P.C.
It's not the "Patriot" act; it's the "USAPATRIOT" Act. Please use the full acronym, or its full name: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism". The "USAPATRIOT" Act has nothing to do with patriotism, so calling it the "Patriot Act" is misleading. (Considering how the Act is being misused these days, even using its full name is somewhat misleading (How is copyright infringement "terrorism"?).) Personally, I pronounce it "the you sap at riot act" to avoid confusion. Other pronunciations are "the US ap uh TRY ot act" and (as Jar-Jar) "the YOUsa pah TR-R-RE-E-E at act".
All particle radiation has that effect, and it's actually weakest in beta radiation. Alpha radiation is a lot more destructive
OK; I guess that I got them mixed up. I remembered that one was an electron (which I thought, incorrectly, was alpha, when it actually was beta), and could be stopped by a sheet of paper, and that the other was a helium nucleus (which I thought, incorrectly, was a beta, when it actually was alpha), which I thought took about a foot of water to stop, but I was wrong there, too. I guess that I should have read the articles that UnrefinedLayman pointed to in his reply, or checked out the WP articles about alpha and beta radiation. Sorry for the inaccuracies and just plain bad info.
As others have pointed out, alpha and beta radiation exist. The difference is that alpha and beta radiation are particle radiation, whereas radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, human-visible light, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. If, in your post, you meant to write that there is no such thing as alpha and beta electromagnetic radiation, then that is correct.
The confusion between these two forms of radiation is what leads some people to erroneously believe that a defective microwave oven will cause cancer, or produce genetic defects in offspring. Only some particle radiation (beta, I think), and high-energy E.M. radiation (UV and above), has a more than miniscule probability of doing that. (All radiation, including visible light, has a non-zero chance of producing cancer/birth defects, even human-visible light; it's just that the chance is vey, very tiny.)
Erm, I don't get the reason behind the "Self-Repairing" part.
The system as a whole "fixes" itself. You could think of it as the software being self-repairing by routing around the damaged hardware. To use a human analogy, a person who has a stroke can recover to some extent, even though individual neurons may be permanently damaged or killed. The system as a whole (human/spacecraft) is self-repairing, even though individual components (neurons/cells) may noy be.
The main problem with anti-logic is that, when it comes into contact with logic, a huge explosion results. If you don't believe me, watch any debate between scientists and creationists.
Even when no logic is present, sparks can fly if anti-logic is present in sufficiently large quantities, say, during debates between candidates for the U.S. Presidency. Small amounts of anti-logic can be handled safely by ignoring it (e.g., most guests on the Okra Windbag show (esp. Tom Cruise)).
In its place a large defined set of protocols can allow broadcast style networking for the internet savvy consumer, and if Microsoft had the lead in engineering this
If Microsoft had the lead in engineering this, your "large defined set of protocols" would instead be a "gigantic bloated ambiguous ill-defined set of protocols with critical parts undocumented or incorrectly documented that changes each time a new version of MS-Windows is released".
In the US there is a Mothers Day but not a Womens Day. In the US women have to be mothers in order to have their own holiday.
That's because the rest of the world is sexist (or does the rest of the world also have a "Mans Day"?). Here in the U.S.A., we have a Mother's Day and Father's Day. Equaltiy, baby!
I had the impression that Indians are a minority, and that most of the population came from old-continent migration.
That's true. However, the phrase "most certainly" means something like "very, very certainly", or "100% certainly". Perhaps you meant "almost certainly", which is slightly less definite. Actually, I think that the phrase "most likely" would have been more appropriate to what I (now) think that you meant. And, given another poster's pointing out that many so-called "African-Americans" aren't descended from Europeans either (and, come to think of it, neither are many so-called "Asian-Americans"), using the word "likely" or "probably" would probably be more accurate.
you'll rarely see links off to dictionary.com or m-w.com. Hence, you rarely see words like "proprietary," "evil," "corporate," or "profit," etc., used in any sort of useful context.
that is no excuse for allowing people to misuse the term while trying to talk fancy.
Your antipodal argument is a reducto absurdium, et al, it prognosticates the jenny say qua of the ibid. It's a tin man that is beating a dead horse after the barn doors have closed. Remember what Confusion said: "It ain't over 'til it's water under the damn, so there's no use dying over split milk.". The impotence of that stateroom can be overestimated, and yet you still flounder inconsequetially".
Write an automated teaching system that will make college professors obsolete.
Rewrite MS-Windows XP in Perl.
Write a help assistant for Open Office that takes the form of a pop-up staple named "Stapley".
Write a library for NASA that can determine whether a measurement is in Standard or Metric and automatically convert between them when necessary.
Develop a methodology for maintaining software that doesn't involove adding feature after feature over time until, after a few years, the whole thing is a bloated mess (e.g., any Microsoft project, KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, etc.).
Rewrite Slashcode (the software that runs Slashdot) so that it produces valid HTML.
According to IMDB, none, as long as they don't make a profit.
Relevant section:
Trivia: Although this is a "non-official" Star Trek incarnation, Paramount Pictures which owns the name and the rights to Star Trek agreed to allow the producers of New Voyages to make these episodes on the condition that no profit was to be garnered from the show.
Really kind of daring considering the cold war and all. Simply being accused a sympathizer could mean lossing your job or even vigilante justice.
That scene just can't be appreciated today the way it could back in the 1980s, when the cold war was still on. I was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes, and I wasn't the only one.
Ruby Ridge. Dresden. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, and most other serial killers. The Black Panthers. The Weathermen. The Symbianese (sp?) Liberation Army. Southern Lynch mobs. The Crusades. Stalin. Mao. Idi Amin. Liberia, Rwanda, the Sudan, Ethiopia, etc., etc. Some neo-nazi groups. Some anti-abortion groups. Some environmental groups. The Unabomber. Various generic dictators or authoritarian governments in places like Central and South America, Africa, China, etc.
More recently: British police. U.S. Congress and GWB.
14. President John F. Kennedy was killed by (a) Santa Claus, (b) an American between 17 and 40 who had served or was serving in the U.S. military, (c) Pope John Paul II, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
15. The Alfred P. Murrah Building building in Oklahoma City was blown up by (a) an Anonymous Coward, (b) an American between 17 and 40 who had served or was serving in the U.S. military, (c) Jennifer Lopez, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
16. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed, either directly or indirectly, by (a) George Herbert Walker Bush, (b) Americans between 17 and 40 who had served or were serving in the U.S. military, (c) George Walker Bush, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
OK, 16 was a trick question; the answer is "All of the above". Still, you can see how choosing the events can lead to different conclusions.
Other horrors that were not inflicted by young Muslims:
The Olympic bombing in Atlanta: Caucasian American Christian. The immolation of over 50 people, including children, at Waco, Texas: the FBI, mostly Caucasian American Christians. Various attempted genocides (American Indians, Jews, Muslim Yugoslavians, etc.): Caucasian American Christians, Caucasian Europeans of various faiths, Caucasian and Negro Africans, Oriental Cambodians, etc., etc. Various earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc.: God or Mother Nature, depending on your point-of-view. The Spanish Inquisition, and, more recently, the molestation of countless children: Catholic Priests and other Christians. The Macarena: North American Caucasians (probably Catholic). The crucifixions of Jesus Christ and other Jews (and non-Jews as well): European Caucasian pagens.
And, on an even more destructive level, none of the aliens who have tried to destroy the planet Earth (e.g., the Borg, Praetor Shinzon, Ming the Merciless, Emperor Tod Spengo, etc.) were Muslim.
Slashdot Mirror
Since the Moon rotates only once every 29 days or so, the cable would need to be so long that it would hit the Earth, in theory.
Also, in any location other than directly toward Earth or directly opposed to Earth (on the far side of the Moon), Earth's gravity would distort the elevator.
There is a way to place a space elevator on the near side of the Moon, by using the Earth's gravity to counterweight the "top" of the cable, rather than using centrifugal force.
This type of elevator has several advantages:
- It is much shorter than it would otherwise need to be, meaning it uses much less material in its construction, and the material does not need to be as strong as for a longer, non-Earth's-gravity-counterweighted cable.
- The cable goes through L1, one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, which is a node on the Interplanetary Superhighway.
- Material mined on the Moon can be lifted "up" the elevator, through the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, then lifted "down" the cable toward the Earth, and deposited directly into Earth orbit.
This last advantage is particularly, uh, advantageous, because such orbits are highly elliptical, and could even intersect the Earth or its atmosphere, which would allow material (e.g., the He3 that you mentioned) to be shipped from the Moon to the Earth without using any rockets at all!The only parts of the Moon that are in constant sunlight are perhaps a very few locations at the poles, which are useless vis a vis a Lunar Space Elevator (although this article proposes a non-vertical Lunar Space Elevator terminating at the Lunar South Pole that could be used to lift water (believed to be located there) into Earth orbit).(Note, however, that it's still longer than the Earth's Space Elevator.)
In fact, such an elevator's cable could be made out of Kevlar!
Search Google for more info.
"Wasser" means "water", and "kopf" is head, so what you are really saying is "I am a water [something] head."
Or are you trying to pull on us what we pulled on our foreign exchange student?
On a related note, if you want to disguise the fact that you're a prissy^W^W^W^Wthat you don't swear, then the next time that something bad happens, repeatedly say the word "itch" very quickly (or very quickly say it repeatly).
You'll know that you're not swearing, but everyone else will think that you are.
We taught our foreign exchange student that "woodchuck" was a swear word.
He would use it occasionally, when he was upset.
Here is the corrected link: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/R/htmlR/rowanan
I also remember watching R&M's Laugh-in on the old black&white TV back in the 1960s.
My favorite part was the party, which had Goldie Hawn and other cuties go-go dancing in bikinis.
Very P.C.
It's not the "Patriot" act; it's the "USAPATRIOT" Act.
Please use the full acronym, or its full name: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism".
The "USAPATRIOT" Act has nothing to do with patriotism, so calling it the "Patriot Act" is misleading.
(Considering how the Act is being misused these days, even using its full name is somewhat misleading (How is copyright infringement "terrorism"?).)
Personally, I pronounce it "the you sap at riot act" to avoid confusion.
Other pronunciations are "the US ap uh TRY ot act" and (as Jar-Jar) "the YOUsa pah TR-R-RE-E-E at act".
I remembered that one was an electron (which I thought, incorrectly, was alpha, when it actually was beta), and could be stopped by a sheet of paper, and that the other was a helium nucleus (which I thought, incorrectly, was a beta, when it actually was alpha), which I thought took about a foot of water to stop, but I was wrong there, too.
I guess that I should have read the articles that UnrefinedLayman pointed to in his reply, or checked out the WP articles about alpha and beta radiation.
Sorry for the inaccuracies and just plain bad info.
As others have pointed out, alpha and beta radiation exist.
The difference is that alpha and beta radiation are particle radiation, whereas radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, human-visible light, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays are all forms of electromagnetic radiation.
If, in your post, you meant to write that there is no such thing as alpha and beta electromagnetic radiation, then that is correct.
The confusion between these two forms of radiation is what leads some people to erroneously believe that a defective microwave oven will cause cancer, or produce genetic defects in offspring.
Only some particle radiation (beta, I think), and high-energy E.M. radiation (UV and above), has a more than miniscule probability of doing that.
(All radiation, including visible light, has a non-zero chance of producing cancer/birth defects, even human-visible light; it's just that the chance is vey, very tiny.)
You could think of it as the software being self-repairing by routing around the damaged hardware.
To use a human analogy, a person who has a stroke can recover to some extent, even though individual neurons may be permanently damaged or killed.
The system as a whole (human/spacecraft) is self-repairing, even though individual components (neurons/cells) may noy be.
If you don't believe me, watch any debate between scientists and creationists.
Even when no logic is present, sparks can fly if anti-logic is present in sufficiently large quantities, say, during debates between candidates for the U.S. Presidency.
Small amounts of anti-logic can be handled safely by ignoring it (e.g., most guests on the Okra Windbag show (esp. Tom Cruise)).
Here in the U.S.A., we have a Mother's Day and Father's Day.
Equaltiy, baby!
However, the phrase "most certainly" means something like "very, very certainly", or "100% certainly".
Perhaps you meant "almost certainly", which is slightly less definite.
Actually, I think that the phrase "most likely" would have been more appropriate to what I (now) think that you meant.
And, given another poster's pointing out that many so-called "African-Americans" aren't descended from Europeans either (and, come to think of it, neither are many so-called "Asian-Americans"), using the word "likely" or "probably" would probably be more accurate.
(The exceptions, if any, would have some Viking blood.)
Whoosh!
(Hint: The words/phrases "jenny say qua" and "split", among others, should have given it away.
Ever heard of Norm Crosby?
Sigh.
Kids today.)
Relevant section:
I was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes, and I wasn't the only one.
You call that a number?
Pass that baby through the Ackermann function.
Now that's a number!
Ruby Ridge.
Dresden.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, and most other serial killers.
The Black Panthers.
The Weathermen.
The Symbianese (sp?) Liberation Army.
Southern Lynch mobs.
The Crusades.
Stalin.
Mao.
Idi Amin.
Liberia, Rwanda, the Sudan, Ethiopia, etc., etc.
Some neo-nazi groups.
Some anti-abortion groups.
Some environmental groups.
The Unabomber.
Various generic dictators or authoritarian governments in places like Central and South America, Africa, China, etc.
More recently:
British police.
U.S. Congress and GWB.
Don't forget:
14. President John F. Kennedy was killed by
(a) Santa Claus, (b) an American between 17 and 40 who had served or was serving in the U.S. military, (c) Pope John Paul II, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
15. The Alfred P. Murrah Building building in Oklahoma City was blown up by
(a) an Anonymous Coward, (b) an American between 17 and 40 who had served or was serving in the U.S. military, (c) Jennifer Lopez, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
16. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed, either directly or indirectly, by
(a) George Herbert Walker Bush, (b) Americans between 17 and 40 who had served or were serving in the U.S. military, (c) George Walker Bush, (d) Muslims between 17 and 40.
OK, 16 was a trick question; the answer is "All of the above".
Still, you can see how choosing the events can lead to different conclusions.
Other horrors that were not inflicted by young Muslims:
The Olympic bombing in Atlanta: Caucasian American Christian.
The immolation of over 50 people, including children, at Waco, Texas: the FBI, mostly Caucasian American Christians.
Various attempted genocides (American Indians, Jews, Muslim Yugoslavians, etc.): Caucasian American Christians, Caucasian Europeans of various faiths, Caucasian and Negro Africans, Oriental Cambodians, etc., etc.
Various earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc.: God or Mother Nature, depending on your point-of-view.
The Spanish Inquisition, and, more recently, the molestation of countless children: Catholic Priests and other Christians.
The Macarena: North American Caucasians (probably Catholic).
The crucifixions of Jesus Christ and other Jews (and non-Jews as well): European Caucasian pagens.
And, on an even more destructive level, none of the aliens who have tried to destroy the planet Earth (e.g., the Borg, Praetor Shinzon, Ming the Merciless, Emperor Tod Spengo, etc.) were Muslim.