Re: Anti-matter
Steven L.
"rober...@hotmail.com" <rober...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ii51md$3sv$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
> On 1/30/2011 7:27 PM, Joe Snodgrass wrote:
> > What's the best way to make anti-matter for your rocket engine? An
> > accelerator. That's why Clarke's spaceship was so long in the 2001
> > movie.
>
> All this time I thought it has fission powered engines (and general
> electrical power generation as well) and the long boom was supposed to
> reduce the crew's radiation exposure.
Not quite true either.
In Clarke's original conception (as expressed in his novelization), the
spaceship Discovery had giant radiating fins attached along the long
boom, to dissipate the enormous heat from the fission engines.
But Kubrick decided that this would make the ship look like some giant
insect, and so the wings came off, leaving just the long boom.
-- Steven L.
Tinkerer
"Steven L." <sdli...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:mdudnSNecLNuvdfQ...@earthlink.com...
I had no idea that Honda were making these. Wish I'd found out before I
settled on the CRV. ;o)
--
Tinkerer
Dillon Pyron
Bet you couldn't get the sucker into your garage, though. Even a
double deep. Or even park it in your half mile long driveway.
--
- dillon I am not invalid
An object's desireability to a dog is directly
proportional to its desireability to another dog.
Steven L.
"Mike Dworetsky" <plati...@pants.btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:D7adncQMycn2gtTQ...@bt.com:
> Joe Snodgrass wrote:
> > On Jan 30, 8:02 pm, robertva <robert_...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
> >> On 1/30/2011 7:27 PM, Joe Snodgrass wrote:
> >>
> >>> What's the best way to make anti-matter for your rocket engine? An
> >>> accelerator. That's why Clarke's spaceship was so long in the 2001
> >>> movie.
> >>
> >> All this time I thought it has fission powered engines (and general
> >> electrical power generation as well) and the long boom was supposed
> >> to reduce the crew's radiation exposure. There wold also need to be
> >> some serious volume for consumables storage, with two crewmen eating
> >> and breathing for the entire voyage. There would also need to be
> >> some place to store the air pumped out of that huge bay every time
> >> they used a pod.
> >
> > Unless it were a pulsed engine. You spend a few days building up your
> > anti-matter supply and then, PCHOOM!!, fire all of the guns at once
> > and explode into space. I'm still working on why you'd want to do
> > that, but I do know that one of the Skunk Works' classified projects
> > at Area 51 is a pulsed conventional engine. They must like 'em pulsed
> > for some reason.
>
> Thermodynamics still applies; it would take more energy to produce the
> antimatter than you would get out of it, because the manufacturing is not
> 100% efficient [partly because production results in various particles that
> leak away and carry energy]. Better to apply that energy to producing
> propulsion directly than producing antimatter.
>
> A pulsed conventional engine (like the WW2 V1 flying bombs) is very basic
> technology, very cheap to manufcture, but remarkably enough, it still
> requires a fuel tank to be filled up before launch; they don't manufacture
> the fuel on board during flight, in between pulses.
In the 1950s, the Pentagon funded a research project, Orion, to build a
starship that could be powered by the explosion of a series of atomic
bombs, one after the other. A "pusher plate" made of special materials
would shield the starship cabin from the atomic explosions, and act as a
shock absorber to smooth out the impulses. A dispenser not unlike that
in a Coca-Cola vending machine would drop atomic bombs out the
spaceship, one after the other. These would explode against the pusher
plate, one at a time, propelling the ship forward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
Orion was cancelled when the U.S. signed the Outer Space Treaty which
forbade nuclear testing in space.
-- Steven L.
Steven L.
"moviePig" <pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote in message
news:3c8a0b4c-0fb8-4e63...@y35g2000prc.googlegroups.com:
> On Jan 31, 10:35�am, Anim8rFSK <ANIM8R...@cox.net> wrote:
> > In article
> > <11cfab6d-ee73-4337-9578-7dc781219...@o8g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> >
> >
> > �moviePig <pwall...@moviepig.com> wrote:
> > > On Jan 31, 12:43�am, Anim8rFSK <ANIM8R...@cox.net> wrote:
> > > > In article <8qmqalFfq...@mid.individual.net>,
> > > > �Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
> >
> > > > > calvin <cri...@windstream.net> wrote:
> >
> > > > > >On Jan 30, 7:27�pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > >> What's the best way to make anti-matter for your rocket engine? �An
> > > > > >> accelerator. �That's why Clarke's spaceship was so long in the 2001
> > > > > >> movie.
> >
> > > > > >The real reason was that they wanted it to be shaped like
> > > > > >a bone, like the one thrown in the air early in the movie.
> >
> > > > > I don't think that was really all that important. �They did the scene
> > > > > cutover between the bone and the Pan Am shuttle to orbit.
> >
> > > > Huh? �The cut from the bone is to an orbiting atomic bomb. �And like so
> > > > much of 2001, there's no way to know that without doing outside reading.
> >
> > > I suppose one certainly could have inferred it. �But I gotta say, at
> > > first blush, it seems actually to weaken the metaphor (... ironically,
> > > by strengthening it).
> >
> > Is there a metaphor? �I thought the message was just "4 million years
> > later, humans are still tossing their weapons in the air" and/or "hey,
> > gang, look, a match cut!"
>
> It's a 'match cut' that spans a million(?) years of humanity's
> physical and mental evolution -- rendered humorous by sudden silence
> and and lack of 'dissolve'. The metaphor I've always taken from it is
> that all of mankind's prideful achievement comprises no more than an
> extrapolation of his received gift for tinkering with ever more
> complex toys. In comparison, your 'weapons' interpretation is
> obviously much more specific... and, unfortunately, pretty
> plausible...
As I've always said: The radical scientific theories of today, are the
weapon systems of tomorrow.
-- Steven L.
Halmyre
sdli...@earthlink.net says...
Kubrick was considering this as a method for Discovery's propulsion in
2001:ASO, but decided that he'd already had enough of exploding nukes.
--
Halmyre
The more you know the less the better