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Old August 10th 18, 11:49 AM posted to sci.space.science
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default [PS] Liquid Water on Mars! Really for Real This Time (Probably)

Jeff Findley wrote on Wed, 8 Aug 2018
11:54:41 EDT:

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

You're right. I got the two mixed up. Kuiper belt is closer in and
according to Wikipedia it should contain an estimated "100,000 KBOs over
100 km (62 mi) in diameter". You start with some small ones (easier to
move in a "reasonable" timescale) then work your way up in size as the
reliability and size goes up on the tugs.


I would think you would look for objects that are about to have a close
encounter and nudge them so one drops in and one is flung out.


Well, yes, the actual implementation might be far more complex than
"nuclear tugs to move Kuiper belt objects".

One possible argument against flinging one object in while flinging
another out would be loss of potentially useful mass from the solar
system. The mass we have is the mass we have to work with. Making
everything as mass efficient as possible would be the goal. Of course,
you'd have to run the numbers on all this. It could very well be that
flinging one mass out saves so much mass on the one directed inward that
it's worth the cost. But with highly efficient nuclear engines, I kind
of doubt that.


Yes. I would expect that 'flinging out another' would always be more
efficient if you ran it through a nuclear thermal engine to speed it
up in the direction you want to fling it.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw