Reply to: What happened to the future?

[Doggy Styles]

Funnily enough I walked in on a lunchtime discussion about the viability of such a project between some hydro engineers and marine biologists last year.

The dams at the ends would be immense! And it would pong as it was drained.

The environmentalists would be unhappy, especially when they see just how sterile we've made the North Sea and English Channel with over-fishing and drag nets.

And all that rubbish down there, horrible.

Isn't that the head office of the Dogger Bank?

[TimberWolf]

He's still going strong, smiting kooks left right and centre on sci.physics and sci.chem. He's a bit compulsive about that really, and to be honest I don't know why he (or anyone for that matter) bothers with them, especially as he announced with a big fanfare a year or two ago that he was leaving, to avoid being drowned in a deluge of carp!

For a while he was threatening to grow a 1 Kg diamond and later was annoyed at the whole physics community for not performing his parity violation experiment. Very entertaining.

[BrowneIssue]

I'd commission a massive sea reclamation project.

Sea Wall 1 from John O'Groats to Stavanger Norway.
Sea Wall 2 from Dover to Calais.

Reclaim the land within and join England and Scotland to Europe.

Lots of new land for populations, resource exploitation, etc.
New high speed links in to Europe, reducing the need for some air travel.
Plenty of jobs created.

You could do the same with the North Atlantic and link the USA to Europe.
Again, high speed trains (I mean Mach 2 or faster). Lots of new land, new countries, etc.

Well, you said "big projects" !

Funnily enough I walked in on a lunchtime discussion about the viability of such a project between some hydro engineers and marine biologists last year.

The dams at the ends would be immense! And it would pong as it was drained.

The environmentalists would be unhappy, especially when they see just how sterile we've made the North Sea and English Channel with over-fishing and drag nets.

[NotAllThere]

It's the only "fair" thing to do. See you all in the primordial soup.

I'm just a crouton in the primordial soup.

[NotAllThere]

To be able to do experiments in zero gravity....

micro-gravity

[BrowneIssue]

Never understood why US/Russia built a space station when the moon's already there.

To be able to do experiments in zero gravity.

To see if we could.

To see what extended exposure to zero-G does.

To see what extended 'living in a tin can' does to the mind and body.


Personally I want to see us investing in:

- Airships: why has nobody told the public Helium doesn't explode

- Ekranoplan (ground effect craft): cheap and fast trans-oceanic container shipment. Safe and fast enough and relatively very comfortable and cheap passenger transport.

[Foxy Moron]

Is that next to the swamp of immigrants?

[DimPrawn]

When socialism was discovered evolution began to run backwards. We will exterminate all other species before heading back into the primal soup oursleves where, as tiny primitive organisms we will not dare to evolve beyond any other tiny primitive organisms for fear of excluding them or not respecting their primitive organism rights.

It's the only "fair" thing to do. See you all in the primordial soup.

[xoggoth]

When socialism was discovered evolution began to run backwards. We will exterminate all other species before heading back into the primal soup oursleves where, as tiny primitive organisms we will not dare to evolve beyond any other tiny primitive organisms for fear of excluding them or not respecting their primitive organism rights.

[OwlHoot]

Do you recall seeing Uncle Al's idea for a cheap space station? A submarine.

He's still going strong, smiting kooks left right and centre on sci.physics and sci.chem. He's a bit compulsive about that really, and to be honest I don't know why he (or anyone for that matter) bothers with them, especially as he announced with a big fanfare a year or two ago that he was leaving, to avoid being drowned in a deluge of carp!

[AlfredJPruffock]

Best way to build a space elvator is to go get 2 asteriods from the belt (A c type or super c type for your volatiles and an FE type to use as the actual space station)

on the trip back from the belt use relevant materials in asteriods to create the space tether and then put into geo syncronous orbit and dangle tether into tether point which was built on earth.

could be done in 10 years assuming the clever geezers can get the carbon nanotubes to grow long enough and be strong enough.

Space Tether should be developed further - still got my Mission Badge from STS-46 ! Nah - I wasnt on the Shuttle before you ask - ground IT support back in those days.

[original PM]

Best way to build a space elvator is to go get 2 asteriods from the belt (A c type or super c type for your volatiles and an FE type to use as the actual space station)

on the trip back from the belt use relevant materials in asteriods to create the space tether and then put into geo syncronous orbit and dangle tether into tether point which was built on earth.

could be done in 10 years assuming the clever geezers can get the carbon nanotubes to grow long enough and be strong enough.

[AlfredJPruffock]

True, in essence, everywhere in the Galaxy is in some kind of gravity well. But the effect due to gravity (at the station) would be much less. Plus, being closer to the earth would mean that you can use that gravity to your advantage to sling-shot out into the solar system.



This is almost technically feasible. A bunch of clever chaps at MIT have learned how to grow long carbon filaments which are incredibly strong and yet have very little mass. Bind a few together and dangle them down to earth from a geo-stationary platform, and Bob's your uncle.

Then, you could hoist yer aging Soviet sub up into orbit and call it MIR-2 1/4!

Electro Pulsion Tether is the way to go.

[BlightyBoy]

We want space-stations - not moon bases. Moon bases are in a gravity well.

So are orbiting space stations.

True, in essence, everywhere in the Galaxy is in some kind of gravity well. But the effect due to gravity (at the station) would be much less. Plus, being closer to the earth would mean that you can use that gravity to your advantage to sling-shot out into the solar system.

Unless we build a space elevator.

This is almost technically feasible. A bunch of clever chaps at MIT have learned how to grow long carbon filaments which are incredibly strong and yet have very little mass. Bind a few together and dangle them down to earth from a geo-stationary platform, and Bob's your uncle.

Then, you could hoist yer aging Soviet sub up into orbit and call it MIR-2 1/4!

[Mich the Tester]

Won't somebody please think about the Clangers ?!?!?

We can't just settle on the Moon without their permission can we ?

We should at least have the decency to pay them a visit and ask politely.