It strikes me as odd that a celestial body can be drenched in hydrocarbons like that yet no fire. Here on earth all it takes is dry conditions for a few weeks and fires pop up all over. How can Titan be a ball of flammable substances which remains unlit?
To burn you need fuel and oxidiser. The atmosphere on Titan is like the inside of a Nitrogen fire extinguisher. Any oxygen on Titan long ago combined with hydrogen to make water. There is a lot of water on Titan. The planet is actually made of the stuff. Having said that I wonder if oxygen or another oxidiser could have survived under ground where the Methane can't get at it. Such fossil fuels could lead to the return of the internal combustion engine, but this time in the outer solar system.
You could scoop gases from the atmosphere. In effect, aerobraking and mining at the same time. Judge it right and you could return to the inner solar system without using much fuel. If your spacecraft uses nuclear engines the gas you collect could be used immediately as a reaction mass.
Methane on Titan would flash-freeze you, since Titan's temperature is around 93.7 K (179.5 C).
I think you mean -179.5 C but think of it this way. Titan is about twice as cold as the coldest place on Earth. I once had a job collecting data from remote weather stations in Antarctica. One day a station reported -75C.
Years on Titan are the same as years on Saturn. A day on Titan is the same period as an orbit around Saturn. Years are important on Earth, Saturn and Titan because the axial tilt makes the sun move from North to South and back. Additionally the eccentricity in the orbit makes the planet move towards and away from the sun. The rainy season on Titan may actually last for Earth years. But particular period of rain may go for hours, days or weeks.
Makes me wonder if there could be "Fossil Oxidisers" on Titan, analogous to the fossil fuels on Earth. Maybe oxidisers could be found under ground and dug up so colonists could run their SUVs on Methane.
And a cosmic ray zipping through the universe could knock a strand of dna off your body, and cause incurable cancer too. But you don't worry about that. The chance of the reactor doing the same is close to 0 as well.
The normal background radiation in tokyo/hr is around 25usv. It's about 28 right now, sometimes peaking to 31. It is insignificant.
Well okay but the risk is that a damaged reactor could release a lot of material into the air all at once. The current level of radioactivity says little about that risk.
True but its rock, and on a large scale. Faults in the middle of the Pacific can soak up forces. The quakes themselves demonstrate that a slip in one place can cause a slip a hundred kilometres or so away. If the pacific basin is a solid slab like the foundations of a building then a big quake to the east is a near certainty in the next couple of years, given the time scale of previous quakes.
it makes little sense to discuss an event that is predicted to happen circa 10,000 or 20,000 A.D. By that point human beings might have self-exterminated or developed forcefields to contain the blast.
Designers of the nuclear plants currently melting down in Japan would probably have been surprised in 1970 that people in 2011 don't have better ways of dealing with the disaster than trying to drop water from helicopters. What about the robots and flying cars?
Okay but what can Californians learn now from Chile, New Zealand and Japan? Is it even possible for everybody under the 100 metre contour to get above that contour in (say) five minutes? Has anybody tried?
Additionally the list of recent quakes covers the south east, south and north of the pacific ring of fire. Thats a fairly rapid sequence of very big quakes. I know that if one part of a structure shifts, then other parts will shift in sequence. Is the pacific basin a structure in that sense? Seismologists would probably claim not to know.
Photons are easy to deflect. You just need a think sheet of metal, plastic or glass. Its light and simple. Pressure suits used on the moon were white but I think suits for use on Mercury would need a reflective shield separated from the pressure garment by a small vacuum gap. That will keep most of the photons off the suit. Boots could possibly be designed with studs to minimise contact area. Exposed equipment would get hot so tools should be kept in the shade as much as possible before use. Initially I think landings would be at one of the poles and close to water. If there isn't water on Mercury I doubt humans will go there for a long time.
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I use performant since I speak/write english, that is perhaps 25 years
What 25 years? You don't come over as an authority on English. That said, performant works as an english word for me.
Where there's already no free oxygen to burn them with, so they'd be pretty much useless as fuel.
Handy as an atmosphere though. Methane is a great greenhouse gas.
It strikes me as odd that a celestial body can be drenched in hydrocarbons like that yet no fire. Here on earth all it takes is dry conditions for a few weeks and fires pop up all over. How can Titan be a ball of flammable substances which remains unlit?
To burn you need fuel and oxidiser. The atmosphere on Titan is like the inside of a Nitrogen fire extinguisher. Any oxygen on Titan long ago combined with hydrogen to make water. There is a lot of water on Titan. The planet is actually made of the stuff. Having said that I wonder if oxygen or another oxidiser could have survived under ground where the Methane can't get at it. Such fossil fuels could lead to the return of the internal combustion engine, but this time in the outer solar system.
You could scoop gases from the atmosphere. In effect, aerobraking and mining at the same time. Judge it right and you could return to the inner solar system without using much fuel. If your spacecraft uses nuclear engines the gas you collect could be used immediately as a reaction mass.
Methane on Titan would flash-freeze you, since Titan's temperature is around 93.7 K (179.5 C).
I think you mean -179.5 C but think of it this way. Titan is about twice as cold as the coldest place on Earth. I once had a job collecting data from remote weather stations in Antarctica. One day a station reported -75C.
GP didn't say they had to go to Earth. Those gasses would go a long way on Mars or Luna.
(See Imperial Earth by Arthur C Clarke for a good book on the subject)
Years on Titan are the same as years on Saturn. A day on Titan is the same period as an orbit around Saturn. Years are important on Earth, Saturn and Titan because the axial tilt makes the sun move from North to South and back. Additionally the eccentricity in the orbit makes the planet move towards and away from the sun. The rainy season on Titan may actually last for Earth years. But particular period of rain may go for hours, days or weeks.
....AAAAAaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I like your version better.
Its worse than that. You forgot to mention the software engineers who are also idiots.
Makes me wonder if there could be "Fossil Oxidisers" on Titan, analogous to the fossil fuels on Earth. Maybe oxidisers could be found under ground and dug up so colonists could run their SUVs on Methane.
Hmm SSW in Tokyo. Lets hope the operators have the freedom to wait for a westerly.
I suppose so. If I need to withdraw some money can you help me with that? Should I send you my account details?
My LG Optimus (running Android) has a camera button but I prefer to use a shortcut icon to take pictures.
And a cosmic ray zipping through the universe could knock a strand of dna off your body, and cause incurable cancer too. But you don't worry about that. The chance of the reactor doing the same is close to 0 as well.
I hope you are right.
The normal background radiation in tokyo/hr is around 25usv. It's about 28 right now, sometimes peaking to 31. It is insignificant.
Well okay but the risk is that a damaged reactor could release a lot of material into the air all at once. The current level of radioactivity says little about that risk.
True but its rock, and on a large scale. Faults in the middle of the Pacific can soak up forces. The quakes themselves demonstrate that a slip in one place can cause a slip a hundred kilometres or so away. If the pacific basin is a solid slab like the foundations of a building then a big quake to the east is a near certainty in the next couple of years, given the time scale of previous quakes.
By remotely hitting air defence systems (radars, missile launchers) they make it safer to later fly over Libya to attack government ground forces.
Is there a structural link across the pacific basin which could cause that?
it makes little sense to discuss an event that is predicted to happen circa 10,000 or 20,000 A.D. By that point human beings might have self-exterminated or developed forcefields to contain the blast.
Designers of the nuclear plants currently melting down in Japan would probably have been surprised in 1970 that people in 2011 don't have better ways of dealing with the disaster than trying to drop water from helicopters. What about the robots and flying cars?
The Japanese tsunami hit Christchurch by reflecting off Antarctica.
Okay but what can Californians learn now from Chile, New Zealand and Japan? Is it even possible for everybody under the 100 metre contour to get above that contour in (say) five minutes? Has anybody tried?
Additionally the list of recent quakes covers the south east, south and north of the pacific ring of fire. Thats a fairly rapid sequence of very big quakes. I know that if one part of a structure shifts, then other parts will shift in sequence. Is the pacific basin a structure in that sense? Seismologists would probably claim not to know.
This little script says that the user agent on my LG Optimus phone is Safari.
Larry should....
Larry: Release the hounds!
Caldera might be interested. They shat all over SCO, why not do the same to Sun?
Photons are easy to deflect. You just need a think sheet of metal, plastic or glass. Its light and simple. Pressure suits used on the moon were white but I think suits for use on Mercury would need a reflective shield separated from the pressure garment by a small vacuum gap. That will keep most of the photons off the suit. Boots could possibly be designed with studs to minimise contact area. Exposed equipment would get hot so tools should be kept in the shade as much as possible before use. Initially I think landings would be at one of the poles and close to water. If there isn't water on Mercury I doubt humans will go there for a long time.