05 Mar 2015, 2:06 pm
Well, the gigantic gold record---pitted to represent ones and zeros just like a DVD or old record---contains the goodies: "Greetings from the President of the United States...Hello from the Secretary-General of the United Nations" etc....a sampling of our music, our languages, pictures and videos of Earth, etc. One of the songs is, in fact, "I can't get no Satisfaction" by Rolling Stones. This does not depend on electrical power to retain its information. So I imagine that, if humans of the 19th century technology and knowledge can decipher the Rosetta Stone (and read Egyptian hieroglyphs written thousands of years before our time from a deceased civilization), then it would not stretch my imagination to believe that a civilization out there, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years ahead of us in advancement can decipher a gigantic, gold DVD-like...thingy.
There were Nobel prize winning physicists and astronomers who, at the time, said that was not a good idea. Stephen Hawking is of this opinion, apparently. And also that radio message we sent to Gliese-[whatever #] that is 12 LY distant (or something like that, I can't remember exactly but it's not too far), IMHO is the worst idea since Abraham Lincoln said to Mrs Lincoln "Darling, I'm bored, let's take in a show tonight." Again, a portion of the eggheads concur (though just in case certain somebod[ies] duck [their] head[s] into this thread, I must attach the standard disclaimer of anecdotal support, only.)
Yes, it could slow down that way. Or it could have TWO pusher plates, one for speeding up and one for slowing down.
But what I want to know is, what about the HOLES in the pusher plate, or in its center, where the nukes are shooting out of? It would have to be exactly where you do not want holes, as they would defeat one of the two purposes of the pusher plate in the first place (1. cause the spaceship to accelerate due to the shock waves from the nukes; 2. protect the entire rest of the ship from....uh....nuclear bombs going off in proximity of the spacecraft.)
OK, not a scientist, but I do not see this being done successfully from the ground. I cannot imagine all the "eggheads" agreed on this one. At least, I would hope not. The heavier (or more massive) the ship the bigger the first nuclear bomb[s] being set off on the ground to get it going. The bigger the nukes, the......you get the idea.
Do you get NETFLIX or something similar in the UK? It is an American documentary and as I said it is called Evacuate Earth. A neutron star is hurtling toward the solar system, making lots of nasty shit bump into the Earth and the rest of the solar system. We have 75 years of warning to get a quarter of a million people the hell out of dodge.
Which (typical of an ADHD brain) reminds me of another flick, Dr. Strangelove. The president is saying "Gee, I'd hate to have to decide who gets to go down [into the fallout-free mines] and who has to stay up." and Strangelove (one of those German scientists likely brought over via Operation PAPERCLIP) says "It would not be difficult, Mein Fuhrer....oops, I mean, Mr President. I t could be accomplished with a computer. And with a ratio of say, 10 females to each male, I estimate we would return to the present gross national product within 20 years!"
They cover that in the documentary, as 250,000 is a pitiful fraction of 7 billion-ish. But of course, even though the spaceship could initially hold much greater than that amount, there'd have to be living space for the next two generations who would live on board. Because the Journey to Barnard's Star (the one they found with a possibly habitable planet 12 LY away) would take about 70 years at 7% or so of the speed of light.
Ok.....but I was just hoping there would be a lunar colony within my lifetime. And I do not care if it is Chinese as long as they are a democracy by then. [The Chinese have sworn to make a lunar landing of their own by 2025 or 2030 or something like that but it could just be the bravado of the Communist Party elites.]
Exactly, what would be involved in "terraforming" Mars? any idea how one terraforms a planet; or turns a piece of crappy cosmic real estate into a fixer-upper, and then tart it up for the galactic real estate agents?