Leader Bee

There is nothing next to the black space. The universe is not expanding into anything; the universe is everything. Because there is nothing to compare it to as humans have no experience of "nothing" surrounding "something" it's a difficult concept to grasp. There is no vacuum of space that contains "nothing" for the universe to expand into because technically a vacuum of nothing is infact something. A good way to perhaps understand is an analogy of a young baby and how limbs and fingers start off small and with time grow - compare an adult with a child and you will see that arms and legs are much longer than a childs and this is because they've expanded and grown over time, the tip of the fingers is much further away from the base of the arms because the space between them has expanded. The problem with this analogy is that people "expand" into the space around them where as space only expands......into nothing. As said before, the best way to understand it is to not imagine "nothing" for it to expand into because "nothing" doesn't exist. The universe is everything.

Unless you really know what you're doing with a telescope and where to point it you're not going to see much more than the moon (It's the biggest,brightest object in the night sky and pretty easy to point at) A microscope on the other hand is a lot easier to focus, you wont have haze from the atmosphere blurring your view and theres loads of interesting stuff to look at than just hair and skin cells - Bugs, plants, plastics, ice, loads of stuff. I'm not saying that a telescope isn't interesting but you will first of all need a little knowledge of the constellations to find anything. Then of course there's the earths rotation and everythings moving out there AND millions of miles away. I have a 6" reflector with an alt-azimuth stand and you'd think pointing it in the sky would yields loads of cool stuff like comets and planets and stars but i really find it difficult to point it at something even as big as jupiter. I've yet to see if I can check out the ISS with it, that shows up pretty often overhead but i reckon it will still be incredibly difficult to track considering the speed. I'd go for the microscope

Aren't we in danger of "accidentally" discovering some new material on the moon when we send ROVs? when this could just be a meteorite. Actually, no...we wouldnt be so stupid to fall for just one or two of these lumps of suspicious ore. We'd have to find them consistently.. actually i've pretty much answered my own question. the lumps would just be laying on the surface and would obviously be foreign bodies...Durrrrr Hurrr hurrrr.

Perhaps this is way off the mark but to get around the head bending idea that something can expand into nothing I have a hypothosis that space is curved and because space could be curved it is no longer expanding into "Whatever is on the other side of the edge of space". Now i'm imagining that it's curved it is "expanding" into itsself and strreeeeeeeeeetching rather than growing, very much like the baloon. Imagine an elastic band at rest. It has X amount of mass and covers X amount of area, now pull on all sides of it and you will expand its area but you have not added any more mass to it, the mass was there to begin with but it still "Expands" but not into nothing, away from itsself instead - it is not expanding into more elastic band. Perhaps the analogy isn't the best because eventually eleastic bands snap when you stretch them too much and tearing space would be beyond the scope of this discussion. It would raise questions like: if there was a tear in space what is outside of that tear and could things leak through it?

It sounds to me as though he's asking for a way to refine the periodic table of elements from the natural resources available at home.

OK A dyson Sphere is out of the question as a space based solar power station because 1) We'd be blocking out the entirety of the suns rays to earth causing major devastation to a huge list of things on earth and 2) im sure we probably don't even have enough material on eath to entirely encase the sun completely. So I thought how about a dyson swarm instead. Questions begin: 1) What would be the most efficient way of launching the swarm? I am of the thinking that launching one or two of these would be the standard affair of using a rocket or space shuttle to carefully place them but there would be a much larger number of these to qualify as a swarm and I don't see anyone funding regular space flights to do that 1a) would it be more effective to wait until we can build an orbital elevator to get the things into space? Carbon Nanotubes are becoming a reality and I heard these could be a big step into us finally producing one of these. 2) Once the satellites are in orbit - Geostationary or not as long as they don't collide with one another or get sucked into the sun by it's gravity. How would the satellites transmit the energy they collected to earth for a useful purpose? Theres something ticking in the back of my mind that this may have something to do with Nikola Tesla's free transmission of energy, then again we might also use relays like stepping stones - I dunno thats why i'm asking. I mentioned an orbital elevator earlier and have a couple of questions about that too. Instead of starting a new thread I might as well ask here. What is the main problem of building one and how could we solve it? I know we'd need a counterweight of some kind on the other end so i'm guessing that it's supplying enough mass at the other end to stabilise it. Do we capture an asteroid and use that to teather it? Do we get spacemen to go up with some sort of hose that sprays out expanding foam? not sure. Wouldn't the large mass floating out in space have detrimental effects to the orbit of earth over time and sent us hurtling out into space uncontrollably? ( little over the top but you get the point about it destabilising earth somehow, and wouldnt the moons gravity pull on the mass too making the elevator sway like a skyskraper while the moon drags it?) How would we initially deploy the large cable into space? That much cable surely just cant be carried into space??

I didnt mention the kuiper belt did i? if I did nevermind, thought it was the Van allen radiation belt I mentioned. Anyway - Kuiper belt is between Mars and Jupiter? I wouldnt consider that near Earth. Target practice on neos would be like a huge game of missile command! I hope the targetting system is better than a trackball.

I was under the impression that EMP was generated through ionizing radiation in the upper atmosphere rather than intense heat. I don't see how heat interferes with electronics on such a large scale. The radiation had to come from somewhere and I assumed that it must have to do with the radioactives in a nuclear device considering we dont get random EMP every 1-2 years from asteroids colliding with the atmosphere I'm well aware that radioactive materials need to be refined properly for weapons grade use.

There shouldnt be any EMP to worry about with any kind of meteorite explosion should there? Isn't emp generated by particles specific to materials in nuclear weapons interacting with the van allen belts? I don't really know how much radioactive material a given asteroid would contain but i wouldnt guess it to be much.

Actually an Air burst explosion of that kind of yield would cause far more destruction then a ground impact. Most of the energy would be absorbed by the earth or reflected upwards and away from the area whereas an explosion above any objects that may diffuse the blast wave means the shockwave can travel further out. Because of the high pressure of the wave it would create a vacuum or at least an area of lower pressure travelling outwards from the detonation point. There is also the possibility of second shockwave travelling inwards due to the atmosphere rushing back in to fill this low pressure area, hence the typical double flash you see with nuclear explosions ( the front of the shockwave obscures the light - once with the outward wave and once on the inward. Directly underneath the explosion things might survive depending on their size and shape. Trees in the tunguska event being a prime example because the small profile they presented.... I assume they were still horribly charred. anything perpendicular to the shockwave would be gone as this type of explosion damages through blast effects rather than thermal and kinetic energy and even though i say that the effects of these are still severe.

Tunguska destroyed everything within a 100 mile radius did it not and swept a few nomadic people from their feet? Amazingly this event wasnt investigated until around 20 years after it had happened either due to it's remoteness. Arent there asteroids larger then pluto floating about? Pluto is only classed as a "Dwarf Planet" these days or not even that in some circles (the classification for what is a planet is pretty sketchy ) so even if there are no moon sized rocks floating around there are still some unimaginably huge asteroids out there. Infact a chicxulub sized object is something to worry about. Airbrush: I agree, why are we having talks with the Russian Federation about another START treaty and Non-Proliferation acts when we could be putting these nukes to good use? Instead of just dismantling the devices we have in our arsenels, which I assume is a largely expensive procedure in removing/transporting/storing radioactive materials, we could be having target practice to see if these techniques will work. Theory is all good and well but isn't Evolution just a theory? what I mean is what we think might work might not at all until proven fact. Dislcaimer: Leader Bee supports the evolutions theory over God and or creationism and does not discredit this notion we evolved rather than just sprang from nothing.

Isn't the reason an ion engine runs for so long is due to their relatively low output? Say we had an asteroid within 22,200 miles ( geostationary satellites are at this hight ) we wouldn't have time to use this method. What is an approximate minimum distance we could effectively use this plan? Considering the energy output of Ion engines is more effective over time rather than lots of energy in one go wouldn't the object we'd be aiming for need to be as far out as Mars or something to be a useful method of deflection? Which also brings the question that if it does have to be out that far we wont be able to man a mission to deploy the engines so would robotics be sophisticated/reliable enough to deploy these on their own?

I imagine using a nuclear device at determined depth under the surface and possibly near fissures and geographical fractures on a sufficiently small 'roid would be effective, however , considering the estimated mass of this particular asteroid is 21,000,000,000 kilograms and the composition is partly iron ore it wouldnt leave sufficently small chunks for us to be left "in the clear". You mention using the radiation produced instead of the thermal and kinetic energy to move the object off course. How does this process work? of course radioactive particles have some mass and therefore have a small possibility of thrust but the uncontrollable nature of an explosion means the majority of energy from the explosion ( including the radioactive materials are thrown away from the object, perhaps the use of a radiological weapon ( neutron bomb ) would be more appropriate, even still the majority of these particles would still be thrown anywhere other than the intended target. Perhaps if scientists could come up with a robust enough shaped charge to direct this energy? You see nukes used to destroy asteroids in most movies involving a collision with earth but now i've thought more about it it's highly innefficient cost wise, energy trasmitted to the roid wise and the danger of huge chunks of iron and lead you are risking it breaking apart into. If we were to detect the object in enough time landing an ion engine on the rock to slowly move it out of earths orbit would work? This technology as far as I am aware is in it's infancy though and not sure how reliable it truly is.

I was thinking about the asteroid "Apophis" recently thats scheduled to be a NEO in 2036 and was wondering if it was actually going to hit us how could we prevent it? I've heard a lot of mention that we might use nuclear devices to divert the course of a rock bound for earth, then it hit me. Space is a vacuum. How on earth would a nuclear explosion transmit it's energy into the asteroid efficiently enough to divert it? My only guess is we would have to land the device directly on the service. I know there are other methods of diversion but I guess the real question is are what are the effects of nuclear weapons in the vacuum of space? An EM Pulse is going to be the most obvious. What is the brissance of an explosion in space compared to at sea level on earth? is the explosion radius bigger or smaller? is there still a shockwave of some type? ( i find it difficult to comprehend without the prescence of a transmitting material )

3) how can the tip and centrepoint have a variable speed if they are powered by the same energy source? The energy source isn't putting out 2 varying amounts of energy. The only reason I could think that that there may be a difference in speed at each point is due to energy loss.

Greetings SFN users. New to the forums so a big hello, hopefully my first question will be a productive one. I was sitting at work recently watching the clock tick by when it occurred to me... The point of the hands closer to the centre must be moving slower than the extremeties of the hands? What brought me to this conclusion is that the circumfrance of a circle closer to the centre has a shorter distance than a circumfrance of a circle further out from the centrepoint. Consider if I was to walk around the same running track, once on the inside circumferance and the second time around the outside circumferance. The second time would take me longer (considering I walked at a constant speed on both laps ) so to compensate on the second lap I would run instead of walk to complete my lap in the same time I would have completed the first. My questions are therefore: 1) what processes are in effect so that the tip of the minutehand stays in alignment with the centre. 2) if one part is moving at a quicker rate than the part closer the centre shouldn't there be a noticable drag or trailing tip, what is preventing this bending or lag time? 3) how can the speeds of the tip and the centrepoint be variable if they are running from the same and sole (non variable) powersource? I.e: the clock motor. I imagine this same question could be applied to planetary bodies also but differeng compositions of internal structures would alter the answer ( solid core, liquid or gas, etc.) Regards