Things look like they could get ugly for NASA

[GNEP]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[thop]

How can a satellite transport a 38,000km long rope?

[KRSESQ]

Thop:

Presumably the satellite would manufacture the cable (or in this case, ribbon) and extend it gradually toward the equator. I'm not entirely clear on what raw material would be used or how much would be required, though.

If they do it anything like in The Fountains Of Paradise, an initial thread would be followed up by a thicker and stronger cable, then a fabricating robot would travel up and down the line, gradually widening it to operational thickness.

The carbon nanotubes the thing would be made of would be strong enough that a cable a centimeter in diameter would hold a couple of tons.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

Saying we didn't go to the moon because of the Van Allen belts is like saying you can't drive from Detroit to Chicago because it might hail during the trip.

Absorbed dosage (which is the important part of radiation exposure because it can ionize DNA, RNA & proteins) is related to three major factors;

1. intensity.

The particles in the Van Allen belts have an energy of roughly 30 KeV (about that of a mammogram), which can be filtered by a few mm of aluminum. Many of them (ex: helium nuclei) would be stopped by a sheet of paper. Even so some scattrered radiation, albet it at much lower energies, would make it into the craft slightly increasing the background radiation levels in the cabin. This makes #2 important;

2. exposure time

There are two Van Allen belts which together extend from 400 to 60,000 miles up. When a lunar mission does its lunar insertion burn it rapidly reaches escape velocity (25,000 mph), meaning the crew is exposed to the belts for approximately 3 hours. Hardly what one could classify as "long term exposure" at those intensities.

3. density of the absorber

Humans are mostly water, so modeling human exposure is quite easy. With low energies most absorbtion takes place in the first inch or so of tissue depth, meaning the deep organs and those covered by bone (the brain, bone marrow etc.) are pretty much shielded. The most likely reaction to low level exposure is cataracts after many years of unfiltered exposure.

Orbital manned missions, as well as long duration unmanned satellite orbits, are kept below 400 miles to shorten the exposure time...which is just common sense since it also is cheaper and easier to put something in a <400 mile orbit anyhow.

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

You know better than than Dr. Mordrid! You're supposed to avoid contact with potentially rabid animals, not walk up and talk to them!

[KRSESQ]

Save your effort, Doc. You'll never convince his ilk.

He's the kind of guy who'll walk naked out an airlock into hard vacuum just to prove he's "not really in space."

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

We can only hope that on occaision a neuron or two will fire

Dr. Mordrid

[KRSESQ]

Of course the joke's on him because everyone knows that the astronauts did land on the moon, but they came back hopelessly insane, driven mad by the Terrible Secret Of Space. The men we now recognize as the Apollo astronauts are imposters hired and trained for public appearances to keep people from realising that Space has a Terrible Secret!

Kevin

[cjolley]

Oh great, just what the Nut Cakes need:
more leavening!
chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

One more for the speculation list;

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_747632.html

And that purple streak may be a chromatic aberration caused by the Nikon 880 digital camera used to shoot it;

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30904

Dr. Mordrid

[Dilitante1]

sigh.....

There was a warning about a month ago Doc:
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS