Random Thought Thread

Nathan the Machinist said:
Nate's random thought for the day:

(I'm fully aware that I have probably had this random thought before, but I'm old now, I'm allowed to repeat myself)

A military base on the far side of the Moon would be almost impossible to strike. And you could launch shit off of the Moon in an opposite direction of the orbit of the Moon, at the velocity of the Moon, and that object would be stationary in space and it would fall to Earth in four or five days with an awesome amount of kinetic energy.

The base would have 24-hour sunlight for 2 weeks out of the month which would allow it to amass an enormous amount of solar energy, every month, and the low gravity environment would make handling heavy things much more manageable than here on Earth.

It's interesting to me how some of the world's powers seem to be very interested in revisiting the moon now.
Click to expand...
‘Throwing rocks’ was one of the central premises of Heinlein’s book “The moon is a harsh mistress.” They used cans filled with rocks launched by electromagnetic rail guns, but the potential destructive force was identified.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Imagine a bunch of 10,000 cubic foot containers, with 1000 gallons of water in them, heated to 1000 deg by the sun (or nuclear heat), pressurized to 600 PSI steam pressure, launching big rocks at 4000 fps.
Click to expand...
The trajectories would be a fairly complex calculation, mostly once they encounter the atmosphere. Smallish rocks could contribute exciting airburst effects. Irregularly shaped large rocks would make it difficult to accurately predict impact location since they are influenced by drag.
 
There is a nuclear power plant near me. They were planning to decommission it and estimated it would take 10 years to cool down enough to be handled for disassembly. That was 20 years ago and it still seems fairly active over there. So, there’s no telling what is really going on. It is also feet away from the ocean at sea level in a very earthquake prone area.
 
Richard338 said:
The trajectories would be a fairly complex calculation, mostly once they encounter the atmosphere. Smallish rocks could contribute exciting airburst effects. Irregularly shaped large rocks would make it difficult to accurately predict impact location since they are influenced by drag.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I don't think that steering enormous globs of junk moving at high speeds would really be that difficult. My dad used to do that all the time when I was a kid and we had an Oldsmobile Delta 98.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Yeah, but I don't think that steering enormous globs of junk moving at high speeds would really be that difficult. My dad used to do that all the time when I was a kid and we had an Oldsmobile Delta 98.
Click to expand...

Back in the day when in High School. You missed out of the best

Yes, I was a BA, and these were mine and what I drove
IMG_6972.jpegIMG_6971.jpeg
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon sharpening fat bastards, so, if an asteroid is going to strike the Earth, it would be pretty awesome if it could just go ahead and do that now.
Click to expand...
I say that all the time.

In traffic on my way to work. On my way home in traffic. Watching what the algorithm wants me to think is the important news.

Other times too but for different reasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top