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Earth w/moon Going Rogue (w/o sun)
A rogue Earth/Moon system were roaming the galaxy at 4% light speed
would maintain life on Earth by putting up a fusion powered light bulb of adequate size. A Deuterium fusion reaction releases 576 million megajoules per kg of material. So, a fusion powered light bulb that operated on the moon is made to replace the sun. To power the bulb requires 302.8 kg/sec of deuterium be fused. The filament for the bulb is the same temperature as the Sun it is 59.2 km in diameter - and focused upon the Earth with a fresnel type lens operating at Lagrange Point 1 - to make the system more efficient. The moon orbits the Earth once a month (moonth) and the Earth rotates on its axis every 23.93447 hours. But the moon moves nearly 14 degrees to the East in that period, so the Earth's day would lengthen to almost exactly 25 hours. The Earth's oceans mass 1.4e+21 kg and contain 2.4e+16 kg of deuterium. Enough deuterium to power the light bulb for 2,543,000 years! At 4% light speed (12,000 km/sec) the Earth would cross 100,000 light years in that period. If we made use of protium, instead of deuterium, we could sustain life unchanged on Earth for 1.6 billion years and reduce the amount of hydrogen in the oceans by 10%. The Earth would traverse 64 million light years in that time at 4% light speed. The Earth Moon system could be accelerated to 4% light speed by interacting with a pair of neutron stars or black holes that flew through the solar system at 1% the speed of light, and orbiting one another at 5% the speed of light, separated by 1 million km and massing I forget how many solar masses - not large. The Earth Moon system falling through the bary center of the two evenly matched black holes would be accelerated by tidal action in a few minutes - without causing a disruption of the Earth Moon system. If we assume human technology has achieved low cost fusion power by this date, we can imagine that such a light bulb would be built over the year or two of global winter that encroached the Earth as we left the solar system. At 4% light speed the Earth would attain 100 AU in two weeks after the encounter - which would reduce solar radiation to 1/10,000th today's level. It would also make escape to the solar system difficult, since attaining 4% light speed would be difficult even with fusion rocket ships. The day the sun lamp was switched on, would be a day to remember. If we were headed in the right direction we would pass Alpha Centauri in about 110 years. By that time, we might have worked out techniques to hop off the world and establish new colonies there. If the direction were chosen rightly, we would interact with the Centauri system and fly to another neighbor and repeat the performance. After two or three of these combination shots we might have reason to wonder if the compact binary star pair that caused all the trouble to begin with wasn't engineered for our benefit. Especially if a starter colony on Mars were underway, and in the mayhem following Earth's departure, it was brought closer to the sun, while Venus was brought further - both becoming more Earth-like. In 1,000 years after departure the Earth would be 40 light years from Sol and may have populated several star systems along the way. Each of which would be developing on its own free from Earth influence. In 10,000 years after traveling 400 light years from Sol, hundreds of star systems might be seeded, and we'd have the means to engineer the Earth entering orbit around a remote G-type star. |
#2
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Earth w/moon Going Rogue (w/o sun)
On Sep 26, 4:41*pm, William Mook wrote:
A rogue Earth/Moon system were roaming the galaxy at 4% light speed would maintain life on Earth by putting up a fusion powered light bulb of adequate size. A Deuterium *fusion reaction releases 576 million megajoules per kg of material. So, a fusion powered light bulb that operated on the moon is made to replace the sun. *To power the bulb requires 302.8 kg/sec of deuterium be fused. *The filament for the bulb is the same temperature *as the Sun it is 59.2 km in diameter - and focused upon the Earth with a fresnel type lens operating at Lagrange Point 1 - to make the system more efficient. *The moon orbits the Earth once a month (moonth) and the Earth rotates on its axis every 23.93447 hours. *But the moon moves nearly 14 degrees to the East in that period, so the Earth's day would lengthen to almost exactly 25 hours. The Earth's oceans mass 1.4e+21 kg and contain 2.4e+16 kg of deuterium. Enough deuterium to power the light bulb for 2,543,000 years! At 4% light speed (12,000 km/sec) the Earth would cross 100,000 light years in that period. If we made use of protium, instead of deuterium, we could sustain life unchanged on Earth for 1.6 billion years and reduce the amount of hydrogen in the oceans by 10%. *The Earth would traverse 64 million light years in that time at 4% light speed. The Earth Moon system could be accelerated to 4% light speed by interacting with a pair of neutron stars or black holes that flew through the solar system at 1% the speed of light, and orbiting one another at 5% the speed of light, separated by 1 million km and massing I forget how many solar masses - not large. The Earth Moon system falling through the bary center of the two evenly matched black holes would be accelerated by tidal action in a few minutes - without causing a disruption of the Earth Moon system. If we assume human technology has achieved low cost fusion power by this date, we can imagine that such a light bulb would be built over the year or two of global winter that encroached the Earth as we left the solar system. *At 4% light speed the Earth would attain 100 AU in two weeks after the encounter - which would reduce solar radiation to 1/10,000th today's level. *It would also make escape to the solar system difficult, since attaining 4% light speed would be difficult even with fusion rocket ships. The day the sun lamp was switched on, would be a day to remember. If we were headed in the right direction we would pass Alpha Centauri in about 110 years. * By that time, we might have worked out techniques to hop off the world and establish new colonies there. *If the direction were chosen rightly, we would interact with the Centauri system and fly to another neighbor and repeat the performance. After two or three of these combination shots we might have reason to wonder if the compact binary star pair that caused all the trouble to begin with wasn't engineered for our benefit. *Especially if a starter colony on Mars were underway, and in the mayhem following Earth's departure, it was brought closer to the sun, while Venus was brought further - both becoming more Earth-like. In 1,000 years after departure the Earth would be 40 light years from Sol and may have populated several star systems along the way. *Each of which would be developing on its own free from Earth influence. In 10,000 years after traveling 400 light years from Sol, hundreds of star systems might be seeded, and we'd have the means to engineer the Earth entering orbit around a remote G-type star. That's all good physics and perfectly logical of advanced technology, of some future that you and I will never see, but in the mean time we might just as easily illuminate our planet with loads of terrestrial lighting as thorium and geothermal powered. Otherwise using the LSE- CM/ISS tethered dipole element would sustain a terrific platform of Mook laser cannons or fusion illumination cannons deployed to within 6r (1/36 gravity). All we need at most is 750 watts/m2 for 12.5 hours/day in order to have a seriously hot environment by artificial day. However, perhaps as little as 250 watts/m2 would be a sufficient 12.5 hour illumination average, or that's 25 hours averaged at 125 w m/2 (minus areas we wanted permanently iced up might suggest as little as 100 w/m2). This gets us all the way down to the average of 2.5e16 watts applied for illuminating the daytime half of our rogue planet, which should actually look pretty nifty. That's only 25,000 terawatts, or 25 tera kw if every daytime m2 had an average of 100 watts applied, and perhaps that's just barely enough. Generating 25 tera kw would in of itself delivers another 25 tera kw worth of heat, so now we're up to sharing 50 tera kw, and with 50 billion humans represents that each of us gets 1000 kw or 1 MW to play with. I think if push came to shove, I could manage with a MW, even if our rogue Earth became seriously iced over. Our exit velocity might be less than .1%c (as little as .01%c or 30 km/ sec), in which case the nearest star is a ways off, and as far as I know we can't steer this sucker. Even though technically it's possible to turn our moon into a very big sunlamp, perhaps we should focus on what's most likely to happen, and how the human species will continue to function on a world without its sun and having no other viable star in range. Obviously utilizing our moon will be the case, whereas it's L1 and the tethered dipole element that'll reach safely to within 6r can be a multitasking application of energy transfer, lighting and the L1 providing our zero delta-V gateway at the same rime. btw; do you think your idea of those passing neutron stars is how we got Venus or some other planets and moons? ~ BG |
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