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nuclear space engine - would it work ??



 
 
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Old November 11th 06, 07:54 PM posted to sci.physics.fusion,sci.space.history,soc.history.what-if,alt.history.what-if
Henry Spencer
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Default polar ice (was nuclear space engine - would it work ??)

In article , James Dolan wrote:
...hmm, lunar
mascons mentioned in the wikipedia article that i just looked up do
seem to all be on the near-side...


There are some on the farside, but they're much less conspicuous -- few
and small. And oddly enough, the South Pole - Aitken basin, the biggest
impact crater of them all (discounting the possible Nearside Basin) and
mostly on the farside, has no mascon, for unknown reasons.

any possibility that the asymmetry
between the sides developed and then as tidal locking gradually
occurred the near-side drifted to become the actual near-side so as to
minimize potential energy?


I believe that's the current consensus view -- that the nearside-farside
orientation of the asymmetry is a result, not a cause, because the basic
asymmetry pre-dated the tidal locking.

Turns out that it is a bit difficult to establish the precise history of
the Moon's rotation and orbit, for two reasons. First, resonances are by
nature non-linear, so the final result is not very sensitive to the
initial conditions, and it's hard to extrapolate the current situation
back to learn about how it evolved. Second, one crucial variable in the
evolution of such systems is the rate of tidal energy dissipation... and
for Earth, that's dominated by ocean tides, and varies strongly with the
shape and position of the continents, which has changed over time in ways
that aren't well calibrated (except for the fairly recent past).
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
 




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