Jeanway 0 Posted April 17, 2004 If we had the capabilities, what events could we change? And how? For instance, a meteor heading for Earth. How would we change it's course? Cloud of radiation, an anomaly, affecting orbits of planets. Xindi type weapon threat. Wormholes sucking planets in? Disturbances in Time. Space junk getting sucked into intake manifolds. Too much plasma venting, pollution of space, just areas not all of space, encapsulize. Space pirates. Mid space collision Insurance :P who'd collect? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeanway 0 Posted April 17, 2004 Does anyone know about Nuclear Propulsion? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nik 0 Posted April 17, 2004 If we had the capabilities, what events could we change? And how? For instance, a meteor heading for Earth. How would we change it's course? Cloud of radiation, an anomaly, affecting orbits of planets. Xindi type weapon threat. Wormholes sucking planets in? Disturbances in Time. Space junk getting sucked into intake manifolds. Too much plasma venting, pollution of space, just areas not all of space, encapsulize. Space pirates. Mid space collision Insurance who'd collect? :P For over 99% of meteors heading towards the Earth, we really don't need to worry; our atmosphere does a good job of protecting us from those. However, I bet you're talking about the big ones such as the speculated meteor that causes the pre-Camrian extinction. This has been the subject of some (very poorly thought out) movies. Are we currently capable of changing the course of a meteor? Probably not. Are we capable of developing that technology? Probably. Space junk is actually very real problem for the astronauts - in fact, it may be what caused the latest space shuttle accident (a tiny piece of junk destroying heat shielding while in orbit).  Nuclear Propulsion? Do you mean the steam turbines currently used in nuclear naval vessels? I bet the good Ensign Jim Phaserman knows about that. He actually has a really nice thread going on right now you can ask him.  If you are referring to the hypothetical Orion project, that involves essentially using nothing more than nuclear weapons to propel a rocket. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeanway 0 Posted April 17, 2004 Yes, the Orion Project. I read something about this somewhere. I was wondering about it. If we had WARP capabilities would this be just an added momentary jump? Or is is comperable to Warp speed? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nik 0 Posted April 17, 2004 If humans used current technology to build the Orion rocket, I don't think it would ever get near to the speed of light. It might get to 1% of the speed of light if it ran for a long time. I've never done the calculation, but it would be interesting to find out how much energy it takes to propel a rocket (of average size) to the 1%, 10%, 50%+ of the speed of light, and see if the planet has that much energy stored in thermonuclear warheads. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WEAREBORG4102 0 Posted April 17, 2004 Orion theoretically can go up to 10% but that's theoretical.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeanway 0 Posted April 17, 2004 So how would this device be detonated? Dropped , shot, propelled away from the ship? Think nik, think! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nik 0 Posted April 19, 2004 Here's an interesting notation. Let's assume that we want to use nuclear "bombs" to propel a small craft, say the size of the space shuttle (100 metric tonnes empty). Getting it to the 10% of the speed of light would require about 11000 Megatons of energy from the reaction. That assumes that ALL of the momentum goes to forward propulsion, which it probably would not (in fact, in the case of currently speculated Orion designs, I would expect no more than 70% efficiency, more like 50% or less). Currently, the planet earth has about 18000 Megatons of nuclear warhead capacity. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeanway 0 Posted April 20, 2004 What if it was detonated in a giant megaphone? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites