Hm... now they need to perfect superconductors, and exclude magnetic fields with Messnier effect. At least electrical fields can easily be contained by faraday cages:-p
Magnetic fields don't bleed that much... They fall of by an inverse square of distance, in other words, really quickly. Basically, in under 100 m, the earth's magnetic field will be much stronger, drowning out the ship's signal.
It's not powerful enough to hit something in orbit. Escape velocity is 11,000 m/s, this gun only gets 900m/s. You'd need at least escape velocity to actually damage a satellite, not just touch it and drop back down...
This was covered in Popular Science- large tungsten rods in space. When the satellite orbits over the target, it drops one. After a few minutes, a large 3000 degree rod of semi-fluid metal penetrates a few miles into the ground...
Definitly not U-235, but find an equivalent sized piece of antimatter...
Actually, a piece of antimatter that big could blast the shuttle into space. I guess simply converting about half of that U-235 to energy will be enough... After all, E does equal mc^2...
Ug=GMm/r
Gravitational potential energy- depends on the size of the asteroid and what/how far it's revolving around. To figure out the amount of energy required to move your asteroid, take the integral of that equation with the limits set between the current distance from sun and the target distance from sun. Either way, you're talking about energies far beyond the possibilities of reach...
They're building a huge pane of glass on the Australian desert. This pane of glass is supended a few feet off the ground, which is painted black. The air between the glass and the ground is heated, and since hot air rises, it travels toward a chimney at the center of this contraption. As it moves through the chimney, a large turbine generates the necessary power. This odd design works extremely well, but requires very bright, sunny locations that don't mind a glass pane a square mile wide!
Slashdot Mirror
Hm... now they need to perfect superconductors, and exclude magnetic fields with Messnier effect. At least electrical fields can easily be contained by faraday cages :-p
Oops... I should be ashamed of myself...
Sorry, I don't bowl that much :-p
Ok then, three bowling balls! Now we have buckshot :)
Magnetic fields don't bleed that much... They fall of by an inverse square of distance, in other words, really quickly. Basically, in under 100 m, the earth's magnetic field will be much stronger, drowning out the ship's signal.
That guy built a really cheap version. Slashdot covered powerlabs.org a few months ago, and that guy built a real railgun...
It's not powerful enough to hit something in orbit. Escape velocity is 11,000 m/s, this gun only gets 900m/s. You'd need at least escape velocity to actually damage a satellite, not just touch it and drop back down...
Wonderful... I sleep well at night now, thinking that a boat parked off the coast of New York could obliterate my house for just pennies...
This was covered in Popular Science- large tungsten rods in space. When the satellite orbits over the target, it drops one. After a few minutes, a large 3000 degree rod of semi-fluid metal penetrates a few miles into the ground...
They're firing 44lb masses which delivers 16.9 megajoules of energy...
K=mv^2
16.9e6=20*v^2
v=900
They've made a gun that will lob a 20kg mass, basically a really heavy bowling ball, at 900 m/s... That'll splatter someone really well...
Definitly not U-235, but find an equivalent sized piece of antimatter... Actually, a piece of antimatter that big could blast the shuttle into space. I guess simply converting about half of that U-235 to energy will be enough... After all, E does equal mc^2...
Ug=GMm/r Gravitational potential energy- depends on the size of the asteroid and what/how far it's revolving around. To figure out the amount of energy required to move your asteroid, take the integral of that equation with the limits set between the current distance from sun and the target distance from sun. Either way, you're talking about energies far beyond the possibilities of reach...
They're building a huge pane of glass on the Australian desert. This pane of glass is supended a few feet off the ground, which is painted black. The air between the glass and the ground is heated, and since hot air rises, it travels toward a chimney at the center of this contraption. As it moves through the chimney, a large turbine generates the necessary power. This odd design works extremely well, but requires very bright, sunny locations that don't mind a glass pane a square mile wide!
Sure, it's a good idea, until they needed to stop. The term, "gerbiling" was invented to describe the motion.
It's not just the government- take a look at Mike Rowe: given an xbox, and decided to drop his case...