WI: first missions launched after FTL propulsion perfected...

"Dave Michelson" wrote in message
news:6sPKh.27485$DN.20864@pd7urf2no...
Scott Hedrick wrote:
"OM" wrote in message
...
...Which begs the question as to whether Mercury has any real exotic
resources that would make repeated journeys worth any cost.

Well, they'd have to be manned, since the sodium pools would drive the
robots bonkers.

Sodium pools or selenium pools?

Probably selenium- wouldn't sodium boil?

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 04:46:15 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

Callisto is the only one of the Galilean satellites that can have manned
visits (brief ones) without major radiation shielding.

....Ganymede is slightly better, IIRC.

OM
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On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 23:21:23 GMT, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

I mean after a few tries you're pretty likely to get home.

....I'm reminded of an SF story where dimensional travel was easy, but
illegal under penalty of death. The problem was that travellers were
finding dimensions where they'd made discoveries or advancements that
allowed unscrupulous individuals to make fortunes off of stealing said
and patenting them on the baseline Earth. So, when this guy comes
across a "D-Belt" after he accidentally runs over a "D-Cop", and uses
it with the intention of jumping around until he can copy the design
for something simple and untraceable - in this case, a unique twist on
a paper clip - that's one of those "why didn't I ****ing think of
that??" instant fortune gadgets. However, he can't control the belt
and keeps jumping around until he finally stumbles back home. Then he
takes off the belt and sends it on an infinite loop of jumping, where
it'll continue until the D-Cops find it, or the batteries overheat and
it melts. Along the way to the patent office the next morning, he
starts noting that even the smallest little details are correct, and
decides to go pick up a book to read while he's waiting for the patent
office to open. It's then that he spots a book on a half-price table
that totally ruins his day:

"The Collected Love Poems of William Shakespear".

OM
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] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
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"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article rs.com,
Mike Flugennock wrote:
Actually my SWAG is that FTL propulsion systems will probably evolve
along the lines of super/hypersonic aircraft -- that is, we were stuck
at Mach 1 for a while before we were able to develop aircraft and
engines that could get us to Mach 2 or better...

Well, "a while" was just six years. 1947: XS-1 goes Mach 1, quickly
followed -- and just possibly slightly preceded -- by supersonic dives of
prototype F-86s. 1953: Skyrocket goes Mach 2, and X-1A goes Mach 2.4, as
prototypes of the Mach 1.4 F-100 enter test. (Mach 2 probably would have
been *four* years if the early high-speed X-1 variants hadn't both been
destroyed by internal explosions in 1951.) By 1956, Mach 1.4 fighters
were in operational service, Mach 2 fighters were in prototype test, and
the X-2 had reached Mach 3.

Actually, you can make an argument that "a while" was *two months*

If "aircraft" is civil transports rather than fighters, then "a while" is
zero, because the two that were built reached Mach 2 before any others
reached Mach 1.

In article ,
OM wrote:
Callisto is the only one of the Galilean satellites that can have manned
visits (brief ones) without major radiation shielding.

...Ganymede is slightly better, IIRC.

Callisto is the outermost of the four, so it would be surprising if
Ganymede was better, but there might be some subtlety of the structure
of Jupiter's Van Allen belts...
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