From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 23:07:05 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>Spike, spike, spike... Just dismantle the friggen moons. I've done
>that calc -- you can do it *really* quickly (days if I remember
>correctly). Its a necessary step in the process of dismantling
>Mars itself. So we might as well just get on with it. I've got
>this great mental image of a gang of luddites standing on the
>last remaining moon of Mars, arms around each others shoulders
>waving signs for the camera crew as one observes the small rock
>on which they are standing getting smaller and smaller and smaller. R.
>
Now I see what Damien was going on about.
{8^D
Regarding the diamond tower, it occurred to me today
that we need not use exotic materials if we have enormous
quantities of the ordinary stuff. We could create a 30 km
high pile of rock and dirt out in the Sahara Desert, where
no one should get too worried about our wrecking something.
The pile would be circular at the base, perhaps 100 km across.
Then we build a 60 km long cannon which rests on the slope.
From this we fire stuff into orbit.
I had an idea that we build a number of tunnels with two
railroad tracks in each. The tunnels radiate like spokes
of a wheel. Let us assume 8 of them, each 50 km in length.
In the middle we start a vertical tube where the railroad tracks
spiral upward along the inside from the edges to the center,
at which time they spiral to the top. At the top they dump
their load to the outside of the vertical tube. The empty car
spirals back down and goes out for another load.. There are
at least two separate tracks so that train cars carry loads of
soil can go up while empty cars go down. The tracks must
be sturdy enough to carry a number of cars at the same
time, so there is an almost continuous flow of rock and soil.
The vertical tube is always only a maximum of 20 meters or
so above the top of the sandpile. When the sandpile reaches
the top of the tube, another section is added on. Here is the
tricky part: somehow the upper sections of the vertical tube
must create a loadpath into the sand. Im not sure I know how
to do that, but it seems like it should be possible. Keep going
thus until the sandpile is 30 km high, so that payloads are
blasted into thin air. No exotic materials required for any
part of this plan. It is so low tech, I almost lose interest.
spike
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