Small interstellar payloads

Brad Guth wrote:
Ross A. Finlayson (aka "Ain't no sound in space"),
Don't be so sure about that "Ain't no sound in space" notion,
especially since sound is typically a human physiological limited
interpretation, and not a scientific matter of fact.

Terrific, now we get more of Mook's naysayism, as his naysay flak form
of his pro Third Reich intellectual flatulence.
In this vein you are repeating the same function as Brad Guth, which
has become less and less effective in that role as the crazy venusian
guy, and his **** picked out of the rest... .

Micro pods or probes of containing life as we know it can be sent via
Interstellar Express, that is up until dealing with that warm and fuzzy
plus all-knowing likes of William Mook (aka 'nukes in space or bust').

Actually, I'm all for using good old Radium in space, as a breeder
reactor of LRn that'll become Rn--ions delivering a thousand fold more
thrust/joule than wossy Xe, plus on behalf of sort of keeping the ion
peddle to the metal for 1600+ years before reaching the half-life value
of the Ra--Rn breeder reactor seems like good Isp.

I'm not a lunatic, idiot, nor troll. Also I have presented a
post-Cantorian and post-Goedelian theory of mathematical logic.
That's convenient, in trying to gain competency.

Speaking about trying to "gain competency"; you do realize that this
anti-think-tank of a Usenet from hell is far from being worth
competency?

There are few and far between souls in the Usenet cesspool of mutated
brains that are summarily stuck within naysayvill, of few that are not
brown-nosed and thus free to think outside the box. You sound a bit
like one of those outside the box sort of type. If interested, I have
some local math related questions that involve issues that should
matter. Are you interested in pushing some of those "do not push"
buttons, or perhaps access to my battery of lose cannons?
-
Brad Guth

If you launch a DNA molecule, say, well you might consider sending an
even more compact form of storage and then some various replicators
that could convert that to, say, DNA as is ubiquitous in Earth life or
various other forms of polymers. If you're launching with coherent
light, loop the data in the laser.

Guth, Brad, I think my understanding of your notion is the javelins to
Venus and other microlanders, ie, sensor nets and so forth. I don't
know much more of your other ideas. I promote more of the whole manned
space initiative where the robots should be large enough to shuttle
live natural humans about, on (beneath) the Moon. For that I think
there needs to be heavy, heavy, heavy lift, in convenient 100 tonne
pods off of Earth to begin as it is the simplest idea, where there are
huge supplies of materials and logistic accessibility, on the Earth.
Then the moon can be a large logistic staging area for asteroid mining
and thus Earth castles in the sky for pretty much everyone.

What are you talking about math problems? I perhaps would be ignorant
and have some idea. I'd be happy to discuss it with you in a more
leisurely manner.

Usenet, ab-usenet, the decentralized community messsaging platform, is
what it is. Consider sci.space.*. They're full of rocket scientists,
and various other egg and propellor heads. There are problems on
usenet. Consider for example spam, not spam to usenet groups, but spam
to usenet posters. For quite some time there was a campaign where any
valid e-mail address posting to usenet received not just spam, but
unrelated spam that would effectively deny service to most users. The
person(s) behind that should be punished for their infringements. That
has lately diminished to quite some extent.

Sure, I'd be happy to talk with you. Telephone?

Ross

Ross A. Finlayson,
I very much appreciated your "launching with coherent light, loop the
data in the laser" as offering an efficient alternative of physically
sending anything other than DNA code. It seems that very last thing we
need to accomplish is to contaminate another known or potentially
unknown world with the likes of our inferior or potentially lethal DNA.

Guth, Brad, I think my understanding of your notion is the javelins to
Venus and other microlanders, ie, sensor nets and so forth. I don't
know much more of your other ideas.
Ask and you shall receive. Actually the javelin probes were those
intended for our moon, but there's no good reasons as per why not
sticking Venus with a form of javelin acupuncture that's capably loaded
with sufficiently nifty micro science instruments as packaged within
each of those javelin surface-implanted probes.

I promote more of the whole manned space initiative where the
robots should be large enough to shuttle live natural humans
about, on (beneath) the Moon. For that I think there needs to
be heavy, heavy, heavy lift, in convenient 100 tonne pods off
of Earth to begin as it is the simplest idea, where there are
huge supplies of materials and logistic accessibility, on the
Earth. Then the moon can be a large logistic staging area for
asteroid mining and thus Earth castles in the sky for pretty
much everyone.

It just so happens that I have a few solutions for that "on (beneath)
the Moon" consideration which could use your expertise in order to
polish the wordings, the math and hopefully introduce whatever's
technically doable without our having to reinvent the wheel.

I agree that somewhat heavy lift capacity needs to be accomplished,
even if it's for the first time, and for that too we seem to have
advanced in rocket-science to the point where viable options should
accomplish those 100t payloads to LL-1, although accomplishing 10t at a
time should be sufficient. Then via a tether deployment of getting
whatever modules safely lowered onto the earthshine illuminated lunar
deck seems perfectly doable. If purely robotics are involved, as then
fully solar illuminated deployments onto that extremely hot and TBI
nasty surface is going to be perfectly tether doable. After all, we're
only speaking of a 60,000 km basalt composite or similar tether, and
per say robotically speaking, how hard could that be?

How about instead of our "moon can be a large logistic staging area for
asteroid mining" which I believe is technically doable, what if we
simply reconsider the notion that our moon itself is already an
asteroid that's absolutely chuck full of nifty elements, plus having
been a truly fantastic cosmic morgue of having accommodated whatever's
been collected upon/within it's dark and extremely dusty surface. Then
instead of folks having to chance suffering the consequences of being
physically situated upon/within the surface of what's getting easily
pulverised and especially surface TBI to death, as well as for having
to work the surface while being summarily roasted by day and/or
sub-frozen by night, how about just having eventually developed their
nearby CM/ISS abode of 1e9 m3 that's safely situated slightly above the
LL-1 zone (meaning as for getting pulled towards mother Earth, say
tethered 62,000~64,000 km off the deck), and as for that accommodation
having been made fully robotic tether accessible to/from the lunar
surface to boot.

What are you talking about math problems? I perhaps would be ignorant
and have some idea. I'd be happy to discuss it with you in a more
leisurely manner.
Being a wee bit math "ignorant" is most often my middle name. It seems
that I can't manage to pull the necessary complex math or any given
chart of such numbers out of thin air, as could be applied to my
independently establishing the 3-body or 4-body aspects of my own
calculations, as to establishing the LL-1 zone that's obviously
interactive but entirely predictable for each and every second by
second, and of what happens when having placed the likes of a
multi-megatonne Counter Mass and ISS within (CM/ISS) is situated
slightly above the LL-1 zone (meaning slightly gravity leveraged
towards Earth). Actually the CM/ISS that's tethered to the moon could
start off extremely small (say 1e3t) and easily grow into becoming as
great as 100e6t, or that of whatever you'd care to make of it.

If I gave you a set of raw numbers, as to the sorts of mass per item
(most of which are sufficiently known), could you run off these complex
numbers as it relates day by day or if possible hour by hour throughout
each lunar cycle?

Usenet, ab-usenet, the decentralized community messsaging platform,
is what it is. Consider sci.space.*.
I believe "sci.space.moderated" is has been fully moderated to death,
as such I'm currently one of those banished from the likes of that one
and of anything else marked as "moderated", where as those same
individuals or collectives having typically topic/author stalked and
bashed myself, meanwhile others seem to have full unmoderated (aka
insider) access, that is unless you can convince the all-knowing
wizards and lords of Usenet sci.space of whatever's moderated to
opening their status-quo doors just wide enough to allowing the likes
of myself back in. I'll even promise as not to cross post outside of
what's moderated, or even to share any more of those bad words.

For quite some time there was a campaign where any valid e-mail
address posting to usenet received not just spam, but unrelated
spam that would effectively deny service to most users.
The person(s) behind that should be punished for their infringements.
That has lately diminished to quite some extent.
You really have no freaking idea whatsoever as to the truth of what's
been going down for the years since I've been contributing, have you?

Would you like to know of even a small portion of the truth, or would
you rather stick with believing that all is perfectly well and becoming
as good as it should be?

Sure, I'd be happy to talk with you. Telephone?
253-857-6061 which usually gets diverted to my cell phone whenever I'm
connected to the internet. Perhaps if you'd call first, I'll then
return the favor with a more affordable LD alternative than my having
to use this office line, that which currently has no local or national
LD service plan, other than my having to pay through my nose.
-
Brad Guth

Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
William Mook wrote:
Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
William Mook wrote:
Ross,

That's a weird response, almost a non-sequitor. Don't know what
propels you to say what you did! lol I guess that's none of my
business! haha.

But you are definitely confusing the scale of getting off Earth into
interplanetary space with the scale of interstellar payloads!

Consider that interstellar flights require payloads travel at 10% the
speed of light or more. That's 30,000 km/sec or more.

Wherease interplanetary flights require payloads travel about escape
speed- 11 km/sec or more.

Since energy scales as the square of velocity, the energy requirements
scale about 9 million times greater for interstellar flight than for
interplanetary flight.

It is interesting to note that this is the scale of chemical energy
versus nuclear or rest mass energy. Nuclear energy can release between
1% to 10% of the rest mass energy.

Here is a good summary of the problem of interplantary flight;

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall...Propulsion.pdf

Which is totally inadequate for interstellar flight.

Here is one that talks about electromagnetic launcher exclusively as an
interplanetary launcher;

http://www.magneticsmagazine.com/e-prints/UT.pdf

Then, there is laser sustained detonation - which is quite different
than laser light sails, but builds on the same core technology;

http://pakhomov.uah.edu/Minigrant.pdf

And for more data related to engineering a laser sustained detonation
propulsor read here;

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0022-3...v10i7p1011.pdf
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0022-3...v5i10p1824.pdf

I hope you're not another loon Ross, but your response is borderline
loon! LOL


Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
Where are all the alcoholists?

Aw, yeah.

Hey, uh, move the space launcher over there.

Aw, damn. No space launcher.

Hey if you'd like a space launcher I can tell you how to build one.
I'd be happy to. The idea is to use electromagnets to draw the pod on
the sled, down the track, at around 30 Gs, and then after flying down
the track a couple seconds, and freeflight about a minute, with the 60G
deceleration in the flight path, then the pod is in space.

How about that. I think that would great. Only problem: too loud.
Too cheap, and too loud.

I can give you the drawings to build one tomorrow. I'll give you a
parts list.

I already did, it's right here!

Here's to the Russians. Submarines, in space.

"Where'd the submarine go?"

"It went to space. It's with God now."

Ain't no sound in space.



There should be a ten year mathematics program.

Oh, they have one, it's called K-12.

How about a twenty year mathematics program?

There are a lot less math Ph.D.s than college graduates.

Maybe college should just have two years put on it? I guess that's a
master's program.

Am I saying that it takes twenty years of training to produce a
competent mathematician? Try thirty. If you become competent before
you're forty they give you a Fields medal. That's a pretty narrow
definition of competent.

Hey anyways now that's a non-sequitur, it's a reply to a completely
different thread.

I'll tell you, I consider myself serious, but there are only so many
tools. Consider usenet, in this case the community of all the space
enthusiasts here, yourself and myself among them. I'm serious about my
space enthusiasm. It's serious about me.

You're definitely not serious in your response, hence, not serious at
all about making a contribution to this thread - except saying perhaps
that math doesn't matter? haha.. math matters sir, and you can't do
much without it. lol.

I understand that this thread is about inter-stellar travel, not just,
uh, intra-stellar.

Yes. But, clearly you understand that your comments have little to no
bearing on the thread. So, why are you saying what you're saying?
There's very few reasons for it - save one.


Basically they teleport engrams, also known as
memories, similarly to Anthony's "Cluster" series.

They?

Hmm...

CLUSTER Series
Cluster Avon pb 77 (out of print)
Chaining the Lady Avon pb 78
Kirlian Quest Avon pb 78
Thousandstar Avon pb 80
Viscous Circle Avon pb 82

I like Piers Anthony, but I've never read any of these - but a quick
review of the literature doesn't reveal anything immediate about
engrams. Although engrams are discussed among scientologists - but can
have a number of meanings...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engram

It seems to me that plainly the intent of your communications here is
to add to the noise of the topic at hand whilst reducing the content of
reliable information and cause any web passerby interested in this
topic to quickly move on judging this a conversation among wild eyed
lunatics - rather than a sober discussion of real merit..

Why is that?

In this vein you are repeating the same function as Brad Guth, which
has become less and less effective in that role as the crazy venusian
guy, and his **** picked out of the rest... .

lol

SO, now you appear and we have to put up with your bull while we figure
out where you're coming from - and in the meantime, all real and
competent discussion ends and public interest in the topic declines
while that is going on..

Very much like the King's men shouting down revolutionaries at Hyde
park and engaging them in vile conversation. haha..
.

You build a coilgun on Earth, launch the parts to make a coilgun on the
Moon,

Here you say something that might work wrt interplanetary development.
Is it the best way to go? Lots of details in that. As references
site;

http://www.coilgun.eclipse.co.uk/coilgun_basics_1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

And because they use magnetic coils, they are far less efficient than
railguns;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

Ha, Bob Forward proposed a sort of captive gauss gun that circulates
particles to create a space elevator - which was interesting. But we
don't know enough how costs scale with mass flow rate of payloads
between worlds to say if this is the best way to go right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain

This is very interesting.

He also proposed using such an elevator to place tether into space and
in this way bootstrap off the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

Any real economic analysis of the concept shows that lots and lots of
material and money has to be invested for a given mass flow rate
between worlds.

In the final analysis this is what we're talking about, $/mass flow
rate per year - and this relates directly to the cost of momentum.


The point is what's the best
and with its lack of atmosphere, things can be shot off it that
would affect the velocity of the moon in measurable quantities.

Only because our ability to measure the velocity of the moon very
precisely;

http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while/sage/v2i2f.htm

The
coilgun is simple, well-understood technology,

Yes, and it appears unsuitable for space launch from Earth, while rail
guns might be useful - but even though this might be possible, the most
economic system for space development is likely not to be any sort of
launcher like this.

not "Star Trek."

haha... weren't you the one's mentioning the interstellar beaming of
engrams? haha..

THat's rich! lol.

On
Earth you build one shooting the other way to balance.


The moon is actually falling up! By expelling more mass in the
direction opposite its acceleration, we can counter that force.

Since the moon rotates and orbits the Earth, useful payloads are easily
ejected equally from both sides of the moon to maintain its momentum
and conserve its orbit - without needing to send useless payloads away
from the moon


A hundred kilometer track, on the moon, at thirty G's scales, with no
sound in space.

You are saying things that seem right, but then throwing in
non-sequitors. Why? Sound has little to nothing to do - on first
order - with the gee-forces and track lengths. 300 m/s/s applied to a
payload over 100,000 m - gives a velocity of;

D = v^2 / 2a = 100,000 = v^2 / 2*300
-- v = SQRT(2 * 300 * 100,000) = 7,746 m/sec

This is escape velocity from the Earth moon system... Far less velocity
is required to hit Earth from the moon.


I'm not talking about a puptent on the moon. I'm
talking about field trips.

And the difference being?

In the mean time that would open up the entire solar system to human
colonization.

Depends on the details certainly.

That's an evolutionary imperative.

Yes, exploration and utilization of the frontier to support the center
is a recurring theme in any expanding civilization.

There's a lot of
hunger in Ethiopia. If I wanted to solve that problem, maybe I'd be
talking about the weather, of Earth.

Space faring benefits all humanity equally since all currently live on
Earth's surface because all points on Earth's surface bear nearly the
same relation to solar system resources.

As we fill the range in the center the frontier beckons - as always has
been the case throughout our history. This is the nature of a
technical species. To use technology to extend the existing range and
avoid competition and die off. Once adopted the new technology creates
an uninhabited yet fruitful range called the frontier where competition
is set aside until the frontier is developed and during this time -
cooperation is favored over competition, since development of the
frontier pays larger dividends while the frontier exists.

Nuclear pulse propulsion has the potential to give us very great
rewards early on. A fleet of large nuclear pulse ships can be built
today, and have sufficient capacity - at such a cost - so as to open up
the resources of the solar system to immediate benefit to humanity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimat...lse_propulsion

Here are some of the things we might do near term;

1) Direct wireless broadband from space - using a network of satellites
in direct contact with one another by point to point laser - giving all
people everywhere broadband access to the global community and global
markets. One benefit of wireless broadband will be the ability of
people anywhere to work anywhere else using telerobotics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telerobotics

which can also be used in space;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_manufacturing

This is not only useful for exploration, or safe soldiering, it can
also be used, once available cheaply enough, for any sort of work
related activity. So, you could work as a store clerk in Springfield
Ohio while living in Bangladesh - and if the store were robbed, you'd
merely signal the police, who would take over control of the robot -
and apprehend the miscreant - using perhaps weapons that were released
from the robots interior under police control - and then, if someone
were injured, a medic could be summoned to deliver medical care using
the same robot.

Clearly, people's access to markets and jobs would be expanded
tremendously.


2) Power satellite network creating a beamed power network available to
anyone on Earth.

3) Surveying the rich asteroids of the solar system and other small
bodies, and moving the richest of these, or pieces of the richest of
these back to Earth orbit - to be placed in a stable orbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_deflection

4) Sending up manufacturing systems - using remotely controlled robots
- to process asteroid into useful products that are then sold to
consumers on Earth. Here I think is where the gauss gun will come into
wide use. These solar powered manufacturing plants, who receive power
via laser beam or microwave beam from solar power sats in step 2 -
would deorbit finished goods directly to consumers on Earth - delivered
with the same accuracy as GPS guided munitions. That way people could
work anywhere, live anywhere, and receive products anywhere.

5) Expanding space manufacturing to include food and fiber by building
large biospheres with farms and forests on board -

6) Expand space power levels to permit widespread suborbital ballistic
transport systems in every garage. - Small rockets made with MEMS
technology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEMS
http://www1.sstl.co.uk/LectureSeries...pstein_abs.htm
http://www.nsti.org/Nanotech2006/sho...html?absno=225
http://www.conferences.jp/powermems05/pmems2004.html

can be fabricated into arrays with millions of tiny rockets the
diameter of a human hair. Controlled the same way a plasma HDTV screen
is controlled, thrust can be painted over the surface. The failure of
any one tiny rocket has minimal impact on the overall performance - and
failure of a significant number of engines is vanishingly small. The
explosion of a tiny engine - is of minor consequence!

So the skin of the vehicle is called a propulsive skin, which is
capable of applying forces with an amazing degree of precision and
efficiency - and provide a nearly perfect system of propulsion for the
masses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion

Laser propulsion - first using air breakdown for use in the atmosphere,
and later, ablative rockets for use outside the atmosphere - can be
applied through MEMS technology to create laser power propulsive skins.
If the laser energy arrives from space in a pre-existing power beaming
technology, the wide adoption of personal ballistic transport craft and
fliers could occur quickly. Vehicles would be automatically guided by
onboard computers using GPS signals from space. Vehicles would range
in size from package carriers to ocean liner size - including sizes
used by most people personally - motorcycle sized one person craft, to
coupes, to sedans, to winnebagos...

Increasing competence, range and energy from space - would eventually
expand the utility of these craft from point to point travel on Earth,
to include travel to Earth orbit - all at very low cost - without the
bother of constructing massive infrastructure.

In fact the vehicles would most likely be built in space and deorbited
directly to customers!

Recent improvements have indicated laser ablative systems can achieve
specific impulses in excess of 20,000 sec!!

http://pakhomov.uah.edu/Minigrant.pdf


Talk, is cheap.

And crazy non-sequitous talk is cheaper yet! lol.

I like to boast that I've read hundreds or thousands of science fiction
novels.

This is relevant because? Science fiction is not science. It is not
engineering. It is fiction. One wouldn't claim that medical fiction
is relevant to being a doctor. Why do people like you constantly claim
that science fiction is relevant to being a space scientist or space
engineer? I find it very sad.

Those aren't soft.

Well, if they're paper back - they're softer than the hardback
editions. lol.

They are, however, fiction. Is that, not so?

Yes.

Hey, want to get together sometime? Talk on the phone? We could
probably have a nice conversation. I'd be happy to accept your call,
or make the call.

I have enough dates, I don't need a play date with you. haha.


Those are some great links, you appear to be obviously educated and
regarded in this field.

Well, I am educated yes, as I've read more than fiction about space.

I'm not a lunatic, idiot, nor troll.

Somehow I doubt that. haha..

Also I have presented a
post-Cantorian and post-Goedelian theory of mathematical logic.

sigh

I am familiar with Cantor's theory of infinite sets.
I am familiar with Goedel's incompleteness theorem.

I am unfamiliar with the term 'post-Cantorian' or 'post-Goedelian'

A brief search of the internet shows that these terms are used mostly
in theological discussions - haha - which conforms with your earlier
statements about engrams - which also is a term used frequently in
certain theological discussions. lol.

http://www.huntington.edu/math/acms/...sumoto2005.ppt

Here is a call for Non-Euclidiena Post Cantorian Theology...

WHO CARES! haha...

are you sure you got your referents right? NO! DON'T ANSWER THAT!
lol.

That's
convenient, in trying to gain competency.

ouch Competency in what exactly? NO! DON'T ANSWER THAT! lol.

If you wish to discuss this I would suggest you take is somewhere else.
But I am sad to say that given what you've written thus far, you will
not - and will take great pains to cover whatever good and valid about
interstellar payloads and so froth - in a load of bull**** so deep -
that no one anywhere will have a chance to see it, think about it, and
so forth. Which I think is your goal yes?

Ain't no sound in space.

Ah, again the non-sequitous reference to sound and vacuum. sigh

Go away, just go away! If there is a God, send this person into the
nether regions of infernal internet hell! hahahahaha...

Good luck Ross... sheez.


In the story,

By what reasoning does this have any bearing on real engineering and
real science? Imagine a surgeon starts talking to you about a proposed
surgery on yourself, and they don't refer to their assessment of your
medical condition, they don't refer to their medical training, they
don't refer to the results of any medical tests that might have been
done, but they propose a surgical procedure they read about in a
medical novel? This is the level at which you are operating. You are
proposing something that starts out in a story... in a thread that
asks an important question about something having little to nothing to
do with any fictional story whatever.

matter transmission uses so much energy that
civilizations don't matter transfer actual beings across interstellar
distances,

This is the argument behind SETI, and CETI, which points out that we
can build substantial radio telescopes today that can transmit and
receive copious amounts of information throughout the galaxy at
frequencies around the water hole - the frequencies between the
hydroxyl and hydrogen emission lines - where the sky is particularly
clear.

The trouble is we've been doing SETI off and on for a large number of
years and we haven't found anything conclusive.

And, even though its more costly to communicate things other than
messages - that doesn't mean seinding things interstellar distances
cannot be done or shouldn't be attempted! And just because a sci-fi
writer makes it a point in a book to point out the difficulty of
communicating things rather than messages - isn't a reason we shouldn't
communicate things.

just their persona, as basically an assemblage of memories.

While transmitting a radio signal across the galaxy is something we can
do today, transmitting a persona as an assemblage of memories is a
meaningless assemblage of words! There's no implicit technical path to
achieving this. We know how to build radios. We don't even know what
memories and personalities are - so, it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't matter. That would generally be regarded as not "Star
Trek". In the series they save the universe.

This is even less meaningful than the last meaningless phrase...

Um, I will say though that Sagan and Shilkovski in their book
INTELLIGENT LIVE IN THE UNIVERSE as well as Tipler in his book THE
COSMOLOGICAL ANTRHOPIC PRINCIPLE - postulated interstellar Von Neumann
probes. A probe launched from an originating species would find itself
in a target star system, and then reproduce itself by some means - as
yet not achieved technically, but von Neumann showed could be achieved
at some point in time.

Anyway, these probes reproduce themselves and send daughter probes to
further star systems, and they repeat the process, creating a wave of
probes - until ultimately, all the stars have residing around them,
probes from the originating species - who only invested in the first
probe.

If the probes maintained contact with their daughters - a galactic
network would be created over time that would transmit information from
all star systems back to the originating species.

The originating species could also send information to all the probes.


If the probes could be equipped with a universal constructor -
something that's needed for self-reproduction - then it might possibly
be that a human genome could be sent as a radio message to any of the
probes, that would then get built into a human - and that that human
could through some process unknown today - trained and implanted with
memories and personalities and so forth - the simplest of these would
be to create a Skinner box type environment that created the memories
for the person in question. This would require a lot of resources - a
city full of automatons for example - to create memories of a city...
or a world full of automatons - but,with self-replicating machine
systems this is a doable possiblity- direct chemical synthesis of
memories is at present not doable by any means known or theoretically
known. Although chemicals can have powerful impact on our brains - its
not clear that they can be precisely tailored to render a human being
with precise memories history or personality... controlling the
genetics and the environment precisely however - does produce desired
memories and personalities.

The replicated human, raised in the artificially scripted world, would
then arrive at the target star system with the personality and memories
desired.

Its not clear this system of transmitting people is any less costly
than just putting a person in a ship and blasting them to the target
star! lol.

Non-fiction books about space? I've read "Living in Space." Asimov
notes:

A popularization - not an engineering text. Asimov was a popular
writer as well as a sci-fi writer. He was also an academic - a
biologist by training.

Also, reading and understanding are two different and distinct things!
lol

Have you read anything published by the AIAA? or AAS?

"An Italian astronomer, Girolamo Fracastoro (1483-1553), and an
Austrian astronomer, Peter Apian (1495-1552), both noticed that the
comet's tail pointed away from the Sun.

And this has relevannce to small interstellar probes how?

When the comet passed the Sun,
moving from one side to the other, the tail changed direction and still
pointed away from the Sun. This was the first scientific observation
on record in connection with comets."

So?
..
Yet, he just previously
mentioned "467 B.C., when there was the first recorded, and surviving,
description of it." This is in _X Stands for Unknown_. Later he
relates how geosynchronous orbit was originally called Clarke orbit.
There's a reason it's called speculative fiction.

I would like my doctor to have graduated from medical school and done
well during his residency. I would not trust a 'doctor' whose only
claim to medical expertise is that he read every single book written by
Michael Palmer! Sheez.

Oh, I've been using some wrong numbers. When I say 10km track at
30G's I guess I mean more along the lines of ~300km, over around 35
seconds accelerating at 15Gs to 10 km/s, or 10Gs on a 500km track.

Engineering and science is about getting the numbers right. Details
count.

That's a people mover to space, except for the shock, the shock when
the escape velocity projectile meets the air on its way out of Earth's
gravity well, and probably about the most efficient way to propel mass
into space,

Why do yo usay this?

given current technology,

If you do not understand or are not aware of current technology - how
can you rationally say anyting about this that has any merit?

not gravitational lensing

Gravitational lensing is something that occurs to light passing massive
objects. You use of the term in this context is confused at best.

or
relativistic nanogyroscope arrays,

The conservation of momentum is at the core of relativity theory so any
rotating mass cannot impart momentum to an object. Sorry.

Now, you can theoretically generate gravity waves and impart momentum
that way. You can also use neutrino beams to impart momentum too. But
these are variations of photon rockets - since both gravitons and
neutrinos are massless - where thrust is direclty proportional the the
energy flux. The problem with neutrino and graviton rockets is that we
don't know how to generate either of these efficiently. Now, very tiny
black holes - with stretched event horizons (spinning) can radiate
gravitons and neutrinos efficiently from mass dropped in them. So,
these are a possiblity - if we knew how to make tiny black holes and
keep them charged up with mass but then we have the problem of creating
a directed beam of gravitons and neutrinos. lol.

While this technology - if it is ever developed - is theoretically
possible - it is so far beyond our current capacities as to be
essentially useful in a practical sense - and there are so many other
things we can do nearer term that pay huge dividends and get us to a
point where we can make copious use of off-world resources near term.
..
with the virtual levers.
Sending payloads to orbit instead of to completely beyond Earth's
gravity is basically about 6km/s instead of 11 km/s.

Earth's orbital velocity is about 7 km/sec and its escape velocity is
11 km/sec - when starting at the surface of the earth.

Matsugata
proffers an example design, and that's not fiction. That's to get
stuff _off_ of the Earth. Returning things is somewhat more simple.

There is a Matsugata referenced by google who is a physician -
There is a Matsukata referenced by google who is an artist -

There is no Matsugata I could find dealing with space travel.

So you'll have to provide more of a reference than that if you want to
have a useful discussion about this topic.

Yeah, "Cantorian" and "Goedelian" are about infinity and completeness
in logical theory.

As I mentioned earlier I am famliar with Cantor sets and Goedel's
incompleteness theorem. Are you? lol.

It's not about religion, unless you believe in
mathematics.

You used a phrase and I dropped it in a search engine and 23,000
references came back and they were all religious AFAICT. If you wanted
to say something specific about your knowledge or your thoughts on this
subject, I would suggest you do so - otherwise, quit carping at me for
trying to figure out what the hell it is you're talking about.

Basically A-theory, the null axiom theory, is an
axiomless system of natural deduction.

So? This has what to do with small interstellar probes?

There is no universe in ZF set
theory. The universe is infinite, infinite sets are equivalent.

So?

Modern cosmologists are in the consideration that the universe is less
finite than they previously thought.

This has to do with small interstellar probes how? You have not made
any comments relevant to the thread topic.

William, there are lots of space enthusiasts. Excuse me, I am not Roy.

Ross - Roy - the point is you seem to revel in tearing down any
reasonable discussion of space topics and substitute a tumultuous brew
of nonsense designed to derail and discredit reasonable and rational
discourse on space subjects..

Back to "interstellar" travel,

After ranting incoherently for how many thousands of words, sheez.

Alpha Centauri is about four light-years
away.

4.3 light years - yes.

That's about the nearest star, or in this case a trinary system

Proxima Centuari is currently the closest star to Earth yes.
..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri

Yes, the facts about Alpha-Centauri as you stated them here are well
documented.

The current fashion for interstellar travel appears to the starwasp
design.

Starwisp? or Starwasp?

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionC.../StarWasp.html

Starwasp appears to be some sort of sci-fi character.

Starwisp - is a specific design for an interstellar probe from my
friend Bob Forward

http://www.solarsails.info/archive/G...tory990805.pdf

This was used for example in Charles Stross' _Accelerando_,
where the protagonists upload their personalities to a very small
computing device and that very miniscule craft is sent via launch site
lasers to a proximate system where they discover an alien
(interstellar) wormhole network node.

This is akin to a surgeon wanting to do a surgical procedure on a
patient because he read about the procedure in the latest medical
novel! lol.

WHY ARE YOU WASTING OUR TIME WITH THIS DRIVEL?????


Slightly perhaps more "traditional" designs are somewhat larger with,
for example, the notion of the Bussard ramjet, that scoops interstellar
hydrogen in its path using a large magnetic sieve of sorts into a
reaction chamber to be expelled as reaction mass.

This is a notional concept - the details have yet to be worked out.
For example continuous fusion reactions have yet to be achieved
technically. In contrast, Starwisp has been worked out in more detail
and appears more directly doable with technology we have in hand.
..
Both of these notions basically accept a constraint of conservation of
momentum, except for the wormhole network as plot device.

Wormholes are even more notional than interstellar ramjets.

Most other notions of interstellar travel do not.

THEY ARE ALL PLOT DEVICES IN A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL! WHY ARE YOU
WASTING MY TIME?????

In some way, shape,
or form they consider point-to-point instantaneous travel, reactionless
drives, and in general FTL phenomena.

THESE PHENOMENON EXIST ONLY IN THE PAGES OF SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS!
WHY ARE YOU WASTING MY TIME!!!!????


For most, those are not technically possible according to the known
laws of physics.

YA THINK!!!! LOL!

Ross

I'm gonna call you Roy until you staighten up and stop wasiting my
time... hahaha..

..

Brad,

What is naysayism? Is that someone who knows what the heck they're
talking about and tells you you don't? Well, you'll find a solid wall
of it wrt what you're saying - because you don't know a damned thing
about what you're talking about. Its just that simple. If you took
the trouble to understand what it is you are interested in, you'd find
a lot less naysaysim. lol.

We went over your radium rocket a few posts ago remember? Did you ever
get the fact that the thrust to weight ratio depends on the power
rating of the reactor? Did you ever get the fact that if you want to
use radium in the way you suggest, its far less efficient than just
using a nuclear explosion and be done with it? lol.

Brad, you're a trip... you and Ross are the mutated brains - and you
cover everything that is reasonable and wonderful with a thick coat of
bull**** - which I guess is your role. You lost your capacity to
confuse and confabulate, so you called in your buddy to help. Nice.

Hi,

Thanks for the conversation, that was pleasant. Brad has some notions
that I do not necessarily share, and others that I happily do.

Brad informed me of some of the aspects of the Venusian atmosphere and
terrain.

We talked about some of the interstellar options under discussion and
so on. I still think the Bussard ramjet concept holds the most water,
in terms of technology available to known physics, because it can
reverse the thrust and decelerate to the target for a meeting instead
of just a fly-by or impact.

He suggests a primary target of Sirius instead of Alpha Centauri, the
nearest system.

We agree that about the next moon shot should disperse some hundreds or
a thousand of microsatellites about the moon in slowly degrading
orbits. The idea there is to outfit the microsatellites with some
standardized gear and then send the boxes out to each undergraduate
engineering program for them to stuff it as they would. Then, a moon
launch just ejects those in orbit around the moon and over the course
of a year or couple of years they land on the moon.

Some other satellites from that should be more stationary in the lunar
orbit there for the establishment of the line of sight
radiocommunications network about the moon.

We talked a little bit about the Pioneer anomaly, and mathematical
tools and methods, and some various basically layman considerations of
multibody systems, casually. I suggested he investigate the Clifford
algebra. We talked some about photons, superstrings, and mathematical
infinitesimals, points on a line, and various conditions on the moon,
Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Anyways, that's not so much about interstellar physical, material
travel as is under discussion here on this thread by the various space
enthusiasts,

So, what's wrong with the Bussard ramjet? Is not that the premier
notion of current interplanetary propulsion methods, using the very
sparse, but existent, interstellar media of basically monatomic
hydrogen as reaction mass?

Ross

William Mook,
See, once again your pagan born again naysayism is getting the better
of yourself.

Obviously you're the one that's continually taking whatever out of
context, and purely as intended in order to bash instead of contribute.

Personally I don't care for the notion of using nukes in space,
especially if each acceleration phase of 100+Gs is going to cause
myself to hemorrhage throughout every pore in my body. I'd much rather
take the slow and steady Ra--Rn--ion push of 0.1G if that'll do the
trick, and from time to time I'd also like to alter course in order to
avoid smashing into stuff without having to explode another nuclear
bomb. If need be I'll have a U238 energy reactor in addition to the
Ra228/226 breeder that's creating the supply LRn. Quite possibly the
U238 in along with the Radium should only improve the breeder reactions
of producing more LRn.

I'm afraid that your all or nothing mindset is per say exactly what
naysayism is all about.

You're clearly the one insisting that others have as limited of scope
as yourself.

Good grief almighty, why the sam hell is Ross of "mutated brains"?

Besides your looking forward to put Jesus Christ back on the stick, are
you simply anti-humanity?
-
Brad Guth

Ross A. Finlayson;
So, what's wrong with the Bussard ramjet? Is not that the premier
notion of current interplanetary propulsion methods, using the very
sparse, but existent, interstellar media of basically monatomic
hydrogen as reaction mass?
There's nothing wrong, especially once the somewhat conventional
methods of fly-by-rocket and Rn--ion thrusters manage to get that
sucker up to good velocity to start with. If purely robotic you could
even put William Mook's sequential nuclear blast thrusters to work,
whereas from that ongoing velocity ott to work just perfectly nifty on
behalf of the Bussard ramjet.

Once your Bussard ramjet takes over and thus kicking serious rocket
butt, that plus being on the pull side of stellar gravity forces that's
taking your spacecraft towards the intended star/solar system is
certainly going to imply a great deal of velocity. Hopefully there
will be a sufficient population of local SM worth of "monatomic
hydrogen as reaction mass" as arriving near the destination, as to
sufficiently retrothrust rather than zipping yourself past the target
at better than 0.1 'c'. If need be the cash of LRn--Rn--ion
thrusters can assist in the deceleration process that's going to take
considerable time as it did for getting up to the initial Bussard
ramjet cruising velocity in the first place, plus a wee bit extra if
headed toward the likes of Sirius because of that extra gravity
influence representing roughly 3.5 fold as much mass as our total solar
system and of what our wossy Kuiper/Oort zone amounts to.
-
Brad Guth

VNs as having the right stuff, simply do not require banked bone
marrow.
ianpark (aka VN or bust);
Thesis - The use of a robot to assemble randomly distributed parts
Thesis - A CAD/CAM simulation of a self repairing robust swarm.
Thesis - NASA's Lunar factory. - A CAD/CAM specification of robot
production.
If I were the guy encharge, I'd gladly support this 50/50 because, I
know that it's the "right stuff" of what's doable of such applied
technology, and I do realize that VNs should be improved upon and
implemented rather than involving humans in space. At least up until
VNs having constructed suitable habitats or having established viable
spacecraft that we DNAs can survive within, whereas otherwise we're
going to remain as limited to those relatively short term exposures, as
even then without much if any warning we could easily be hit with the
nasty sorts of cosmic, solar and subsequently secondary/recoil TBI
dosage of hard-X-rays that'll summarily terminate our DNA, past the
point of no return, whereas only a cash of "banked bone marrow" will
save the day.

1) Radiation.
2) Evolution is very dangerous. No mutation/survival of fittest
can be allowed.
If you want remorse go to comp.ai.philosophy

A VN machine/robot isn't the best answer to everything, but surviving
micro and not so micro impacts, plus having to survive within a nasty
bath of radiation and thus essentially becoming a survival of the
fittest VN robot is what's going to rule the day, as it should. I
still believe that VN machine remorse can be and should be programmed
in.

Wouldn't it be a good form of "error correcting code" if any one VN
machine realized it was getting in the way of or perhaps even causing
harm to another VN machine?

Personally I find philosophical arguments very circular.
The Chinese Room is a case in point.
Isn't it somewhat required of good computer code being "circular"?

It doesn't do a VN machine much good if the programming has allowed it
to hurt itself or even diminish the task of another VN machine that was
on the same assignment. Thus machine code of remorse seems rather
imperative if not essential, along with a remembrance of history that's
not clouded by religion or social/political ulterior motives and hidden
agendas, much less bigotry. As how could a VN collective manage to
accomplish their task if even one such VN machine was either running
amuck or going VN postal?

Therefore, it seems perfectly fair and reasonable that your VN machines
must learn from the past, as well as heal thy self, or else.
-
Brad Guth

Henry Spencer wrote:
Bear in mind that the probes will be taking cosmic-ray damage while in
transit, and won't have energy available for in-flight repairs. A century
is unlikely to be a problem, but transit times of millions of years will
leave few to none of the probes functional at the destination.

That's for slow travel. At relativistic speed, interstellar hydrogen
atoms become cosmic rays. An unshielded nanotech device (which in this
context includes living cells) under these conditions will be utterly
destroyed within hours.

--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

wrote:
Yes, but you don't need all round protection from interstellar hydogen
which is cold an therefore moving in one direction. A tungsten wire
with the nanotech device at the base will suffice.

Good point.

How do you slow down at the other end? Magnetic braking against the
interstellar medium might be a promising method, but doesn't that
require fairly heavy machinery?

--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.