I would live till the end of the universe... Along the way I will amass infinite knowledge of the universe, and as the universe dies, I will clap my hands, and proclaim "Let there be light"
The facts of relativistic bombardment: A missile approaching at a speed close to that of light is hard to detect, leaves very little time to react, is next to impossible to intercept, and is utterly devastating on impact. In short, once a civilization has achieved the technological level necessary for relativistic bombardment it can erase a neighboring civilization in a single strike.
The Killing Star is a hard science fiction novel by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski - it covers quite easily how to rid the galaxy of us human scum...
Relativistic kinetic weapons - stand back and watch the fireworks...
When we booked our flight with Virgin Blue (in Australia) we had to list if there were any allergies that we might've had... we ticked that our daughter was allergic to peanuts...
When we went to board the plane, they told us that they were just finishing vacuuming all the seats because of the allergy, and that NO nuts would be served on the flight...
http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story.mpl/cont en t/interactive/space/iss/1998/980824.html
"Never mind that all this luxury would be in a balloon that would be in an Earth orbit littered with dangerous space junk.
The 1-foot-thick shell would be "bulletproof" in space, de la Fuente says. The 17 or so layers would be made of ceramic fabric, polyurethane foam, polymer film and Kevlar, a tough material used in police vests, and be better than metal.
"This is very different from a child's balloon," de la Fuente explains as he shows off samples of padding. "This is much more like a football. You can drive a nail into a football and it doesn't just pop."
Like a football, the 40-foot-long, 27-foot-diameter Transhab would have a bladder system that holds in the air. The shell encompassing Transhab would have three bladders, in fact, for redundancy.
Outside these thin-film bladders would be Kevlar webbing and then sheets of ceramic fabric, each separated by 3 inches of foam. It's this ceramic, called Nextel, that would protect against micrometeoroids and other orbital clutter zooming by at tens of thousands mph.
In ground tests, aluminum marble-sized balls fired into the Transhab padding at orbital speed were pulverized by the outer ceramic layers before reaching the air-containing bladders.
Even skeptics were impressed.
"Once they see our micrometeoroid and orbital debris shots... they begin to realize, 'Hey, this isn't a bad thing at all,'" de la Fuente says.
"You also have to remember that the aluminum (space station) module is a balloon, too. Any pressure vessel is truly a balloon. Just because it's made out of aluminum you still get the same pressure stresses."
Indeed, when identical balls were shot at 1-1/2-inch-thick aluminum plates, 3-inch-wide craters emerged and the shock waves ripped chunks of metal off the back of the plates. "
It'll need to be a pretty big dart... travelling fairly fast...
TransHab tested their inflatable space station by firing a 1cm ball bearing at it, at 7km/s - which is near enough to orbital velocity... It survived intact...
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I'm pretty sure if they replace the F18s with Cessnas, no one would know the difference! :) would they?
Wouldn't it be easier to build a maglev accellerator?
I would live till the end of the universe...
Along the way I will amass infinite knowledge of the universe, and as the universe dies, I will clap my hands, and proclaim "Let there be light"
standards...
Mining Laser? But I don't want to retrofit my Cobra Mk3 again... I've got it just the way I like it... the Thargoids are no threat to me...
Thank god it wasn't Chuck Norris...
That's likely to be the case here for some time to come...
The facts of relativistic bombardment: A missile approaching at a speed close to that of light is hard to detect, leaves very little time to react, is next to impossible to intercept, and is utterly devastating on impact. In short, once a civilization has achieved the technological level necessary for relativistic bombardment it can erase a neighboring civilization in a single strike.
The Killing Star is a hard science fiction novel by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski - it covers quite easily how to rid the galaxy of us human scum...
Relativistic kinetic weapons - stand back and watch the fireworks...
(Damn good, if hard reading SciFi)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star
Why does Zimbardo look like the Master?
And Footfall... although they're not technically mammoths or elephants...
Maybe it's time the Dr Who script writers borrowed RAH's "All you Zombies" novella, and adapted it for the screen :) I'd love to see that!
Why not curve it up the side of a mountain - extend it to 4 miles long... strap a shuttle to it...(accelerate at 3g the whole way) ... zoom!
Also - make a 4 mile long version - going up the side of a mountain... - strap a shuttle to it... at the end of the 4 miles it's doing Mach 6...
When are they going to install them at fighter bases? no need for 4 mile long runways for takeoff... just launch straight from the hanger!
When we booked our flight with Virgin Blue (in Australia) we had to list if there were any allergies that we might've had... we ticked that our daughter was allergic to peanuts...
When we went to board the plane, they told us that they were just finishing vacuuming all the seats because of the allergy, and that NO nuts would be served on the flight...
Very nice service...
"Even the SR-71 is said to have evaded hundreds of missiles fired at it during its long career, although some aircraft sustained minor damage."
Any articles on this? I've not heard of any SR71s taking damage...
but does it run Li... oh, wait...
> 8pm on weekdays and 5pm on weekends.
:(
Riiight...
So the annoying calls that I get right at dinner time, or right at my 18month olds bedtime (7.30pm) will stop... oh.. wait...
It's supposed to be a DO NOT CALL list - not a DO NOT CALL EXCEPT BETWEEN THESE HOURS list...
And how do we follow up when the indian accented caller won't give his name (or I can't understand it anyway), and the Caller ID is blank?
It'll be interesting to see what damage has ocurred...
If the damaged areas they noticed in orbit, are worse after re-entry...
Cheers,
Richard
You need to read "The Proteus Operation" by James P Hogan...
And excellent SciFi story on how time travellers change history (but actually are creating new time stream branches)
Buckyball model?
:)
I've just built the worlds largest model of the earth...
We're all standing on it...
Here's the guff:
t en t/interactive/space/iss/1998/980824.html
... they begin to realize, 'Hey, this isn't a bad thing at all,'" de la Fuente says.
http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story.mpl/con
"Never mind that all this luxury would be in a balloon that would be in an Earth orbit littered with dangerous space junk.
The 1-foot-thick shell would be "bulletproof" in space, de la Fuente says. The 17 or so layers would be made of ceramic fabric, polyurethane foam, polymer film and Kevlar, a tough material used in police vests, and be better than metal.
"This is very different from a child's balloon," de la Fuente explains as he shows off samples of padding. "This is much more like a football. You can drive a nail into a football and it doesn't just pop."
Like a football, the 40-foot-long, 27-foot-diameter Transhab would have a bladder system that holds in the air. The shell encompassing Transhab would have three bladders, in fact, for redundancy.
Outside these thin-film bladders would be Kevlar webbing and then sheets of ceramic fabric, each separated by 3 inches of foam. It's this ceramic, called Nextel, that would protect against micrometeoroids and other orbital clutter zooming by at tens of thousands mph.
In ground tests, aluminum marble-sized balls fired into the Transhab padding at orbital speed were pulverized by the outer ceramic layers before reaching the air-containing bladders.
Even skeptics were impressed.
"Once they see our micrometeoroid and orbital debris shots
"You also have to remember that the aluminum (space station) module is a balloon, too. Any pressure vessel is truly a balloon. Just because it's made out of aluminum you still get the same pressure stresses."
Indeed, when identical balls were shot at 1-1/2-inch-thick aluminum plates, 3-inch-wide craters emerged and the shock waves ripped chunks of metal off the back of the plates. "
It'll need to be a pretty big dart... travelling fairly fast...
TransHab tested their inflatable space station by firing a 1cm ball bearing at it, at 7km/s - which is near enough to orbital velocity... It survived intact...
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Hi Carl & Alex at DIT!