From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Sun Jun 21 1998 - 14:45:40 MDT
John K Clark wrote:
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>
> In looking for a good home planet for space a exploring species how about a
> planet that had lots of heavy elements so it was 4 times as dense as the
> Earth but only 2000 miles in diameter. The Earth would have 64 times the
> volume
if its smaller it would have a larger volume???? how is this? Are you listening
to Danny's expanding earth theories again???
> and 16 times the mass, but the gravity on the surface of this small
> world would be exactly the same as we have, 1g. The good part is that the
> escape velocity would only be 1/16 that of the Earth. The horizon would be a
> little close but otherwise things would seem perfectly earth-like on the
> surface, however you could put a billet into orbit with a hand gun, and with
> a rifle you could hit the moon.
>
> The bad part is that the ability to keep an atmosphere depends on the escape
> velocity not the surface gravity, so such a planet wouldn't be able to retain
> one for a very long time, at least not from a geological point of view.
Yes, such a location would be ideal for an exploring species to settle, and it
would be small enough for reasonable tech to maintain an atmosphere fairly easily
for however many thousands of years it is occupied, and make sky hooks feasible.
However, speaking about planets a species would develop on, I think that a Mars
sized planet in an Earth regional orbit would probably work better.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?
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