Re: USA urges scientists to block out sun

"Ian Stirling" <root@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45c388d0$0$8719$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You're not looking at millions or billions.

Sedna's orbital speed is somewhere around a kilometer a second.
If the total delta-v needed is 2Km/s, then it needs around 10^25 Ns of
impulse.
Saturn V produces a little under 10^10Ns, or that means 10^15 - or a
quadrillion.
A million billion.

By 2075 is when Sedna should have been moving along much faster, as well
as being a whole lot closer to boot. All we've got to do is sort of
keep that ball rolling in our direction, and then try to figure out how
the hell we're ever going to park that arriving orb in our L1 pocket.

We'll most likely need to incorporate the all-knowing wizardly expertise
of our nuclear/U235 William Mook, and/or perhaps accomplish something
He3/fusion in order to make a massive steam rocket thruster out of all
that red ice.

How about the notions of litho-diverting that sucker via massive
impactors, like what got our moon into orbiting Earth?
-

Sliding Sedna in the back door, of essentially parking that icy redish
orb into Earth L1 (some interactive station keeping required), that's
moving along at roughly 29 km/s, is at best going to be a damn neat
trick, not to mention having accomplished one heck of a delta-V
improvement from its current km/s status.

According to the preliminary orbital physics of Ian Stirling, if
doubling its velocity from 1.04 km/s to that of 2 km/s demands a delta-v
worth 1e25 Ns, whereas obtaining 29 km/s is then imposing 29e25 Ns, as
clearly representing what a truly horrific effort it's going to take,
along with resolving any number of other unresolved complications that
could easily develop along the way (such as running itself into Earth or
even smacking our moon could lead to some unfortunate consequences).

However, Sedna may not be quite as large and massive as we'd thought,
and by the year 2075 it's going to be moving at a much greater velocity
before heading back out into the Kuiper belt. Diverting Sedna into
taking advantage of the gravity pull of Jupiter and of whatever else can
be accommodated, should greatly help to deliver the vast majority of the
required delta-v.

Too bad we don't seem to own a suitable supercouputer, along with a
fully interactive 3D physics simulator of dealing with such complex
orbital mechanics. Perhaps China has one, and as such we could beg for
their services.
-
Brad Guth


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