Thanks for that. What prompted the question in the first place was wondering how it would be if the parts of a spacecraft (not a space station) were tethered in such a way so that the life support section would be at one end of the tether while the the rest of the ship was distributed along the...
In discussions about simulating gravity in a spaceship by the use of tethered masses revolving around a common centre, the assumption appears to be that these masses must be equal. Would instabilities occur were this not the case? Or would the problem go away simply by placing the hub at an...
It has been pointed out that even if the Beale papers are a hoax, the two undeciphered ciphers themselves could still be genuine ciphers. There's no treasure at the end of the day, that's all. A possible alternative, mentioned by Simon Singh (I think?) is that the Beale papers are genuine and...
(Please excuse me if this is the wrong section to ask this question) With reference to 'The Code Book' by Simon Singh, will it be possible for a computer to crack the as yet still undeciphered first and third (alleged) ciphers of the famous Beale Ciphers? If so, how might this be achieved? Many...
Thanks again for the instructive comments. They have really got me thinking! :smile:
Stefan, just a clarification: a perihelion flyby means viewed at a distance of 1 AU - e.g. from Earth orbit? So if that works out at magnitude 8 for a 4GW output, I take it then that its apparent brightness...
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Thanks for the helpful (and encouraging) responses. I guess the issue began when I read a paper by Dr Robert Zubrin (see link below) about the detection of alien spacecraft , in which he restricted his detection criteria to four kinds of non-FTL propulsion: fisson, fusion, antimatter and...
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Yes, sorry if I wasn't being clear enough. I meant the rocket exhaust, or even heat radiation. My apologies again. Thanks for getting back to me anyway. Jaz.
According to NASA the Space Shuttle required 12 GW to get it off the launch pad. So if a hypothetical rocket at the Second Lagrange Point (where the JWT is heading for right now) was producing the same amount of watts, all other things being equal, how far away in space could this output be...
That is interesting. So as well as blocking the worst of UV radiation, the atmosphere really does have a shielding effect when it comes to solar/cosmic radiation, at least here on Earth. Thanks for the explanation.
The same applies to the Inuit and Laplanders in the high northern latitudes. It's just that the thought occurred that they might have adapted over time to any increased radiation levels. Evidently this is not the case.
So in view of the fact that surface conditions at the poles are safe enough...
Given that the magnetosphere plays a major role in protecting life here on Earth, how hazardous is the incoming space radiation at the poles? Here I mean at ground level, as opposed to being in an airplane. I'm thinking especially about solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and the like, but...