will@anasazi.UUCP (Will Fuller) (01/14/86)
<REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR FINGERS>
One means of creating the temperatures and pressures necessary for
nuclear fusion is atmospheric ablation.
In this scenario a ceramic sphere containing a mixture of hydrogen
isotopes would be made to enter the atmosphere with a large initial
velocity. As the ceramic ablates away the temperatures and pressures
in the core of the sphere climb (this is a similar mechanism as the
one currently practiced for sustained fusion reactions via high
power laser). Another (more tasteful) application might be to use
the ceramic pellets as a fuel for a *very fast* ramjet.
I would like to see anybody's SDI knock out half a mole of billiard balls
traveling at tens of kilometers per second.
--
William H. Fuller
{decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!willtim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (01/18/86)
>I would like to see anybody's SDI knock out half a mole of billiard balls >traveling at tens of kilometers per second. > Lets see, 1/2 mole ~= 1E23 = 4.6E7^3. A billiard ball is about 3 inches in diameter. This gives us a cube of billiard balls ~2000 miles on a side. I don't think this is practical. :-) -- Tim Smith sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (01/19/86)
The idea of using very high velocity projectiles to initiate fusion has been considered. It isn't too terribly feasible. One would have to ram projectiles together at > 100 km/sec; just hitting air would do nothing.
will@anasazi.UUCP (Will Fuller) (01/20/86)
In article <8601182109.AA26118@s1-b.arpa> dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) writes: >The idea of using very high velocity projectiles to initiate fusion has >been considered. It isn't too terribly feasible. One would have to >ram projectiles together at > 100 km/sec; just hitting air would do >nothing. Ramming objects together is quite another matter entirely. What was origionally proposed was to use the heat generated by aerobraking for ablation. I have no idea what temperatures would be required to obtain the desired combination of temperature and pressure inside a ceramic sphere by the ablation process. Seems like some of you laser fusion experts out there could hang some numbers on this one. Further, I have no idea what sort of atmospheric impact velocities would be required to achieve the above temperatures. Perhaps some of the NASA types on the net could fill in some numbers. The only "wow" number that I can think of off hand is that the Soviet Vennera lander was subject to temperatures in excess of the surface temperature of the sun (far cry from the interior) when it entered the Venusian atmosphere. Seems like ~6-7 years back some fellow writing in Mercury or Icarus or maybe even the Ap. J., tried to show that a meteorite with trace hydrogen isotopes might have caused the Siberian Tenchutka (spelling?) meteoritic devestation. Unfortunately, the only journals I have available any more are the UN*X Reveiw, etc., (gek!) or I would try to find the article again. -- William H. Fuller {decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!will
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (01/21/86)
> One means of creating the temperatures and pressures necessary for > nuclear fusion is atmospheric ablation. Alas, it won't work. Yes, you can get heat and pressure that way, but nowhere near *enough* of either. The energy is coming from the kinetic energy of the projectile, so the maximum heating can be calculated by assuming that all the kinetic energy is instantly turned into heat and none of the energy is lost to the atmosphere. You end up with temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, tops. Not good enough, by orders of magnitude. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (01/28/86)
In article <497@anasazi.UUCP> will@anasazi.UUCP (Will Fuller) writes: >The only "wow" number that I can think of off hand is that the Soviet >Vennera lander was subject to temperatures in excess of the surface >temperature of the sun (far cry from the interior) when it entered the >Venusian atmosphere. This is not really very impressive. I believe a welding torch does the same. Anything which is heated enough to glow white is at about solar surface temperature. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
spk328@uiucuxf.CSO.UIUC.EDU (01/31/86)
We could always just set up a base on the moon, and throw rocks. (BIG rocks)...non-nuclear, and has about the same effect as a small atomic bomb. Also very hard to stop. Benjy Mouse University of Illinois
julian@riacs.UUCP (02/08/86)
> We could always just set up a base on the moon, and throw rocks. > (BIG rocks)...non-nuclear, and has about the same effect as a small > atomic bomb. Also very hard to stop. > > Benjy Mouse > University of Illinois an idea (first, as far as i know) proposed in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" Robert A. Heinlein 1963?4? (somewhere around there, when I was still young) -- "If Chaos himself sat umpire, what better could he do?" Julian "a tribble took it" Gomez (ARPA: julian@riacs) 415-694-6141 415-694-6363 (UUCP: decvax!decwrl!julian@riacs) RIACS - Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science