New Mars Forums

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: MADMEN

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … tml]Eating away at killer asteroids(NEOs - near earth objects)

*Very interesting.  Nuclear powered.  Discusses use in "swarms."  I thought I saw a sentence about keeping them parked in orbit until deployed for use, but I can't find it again.  Lots of illustrations. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Cobra Commander

Member

From: The outskirts of Detroit.

Registered: 2002-04-09

Posts: 3,039

Re: MADMEN

Very cool. Even if they're never needed the technology has other applications. Just making nuclear popular a regular thing up there is worth it.

But then, we'd also have hundreds of nuclear-powered mass drivers in orbit. Could have some other uses...

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: MADMEN

Oah! Great this is being studied, as CC said, a lot of other uses for this tech... for terraforming, mining, station-building, etc etc...

Heehee, Cindy: yes, yet another 'you shoulda read KSR's trilogy:' it is exactly this tech that is used etensively in his stories to get interesting things happening/possible...

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: MADMEN

Oah! Great this is being studied, as CC said, a lot of other uses for this tech... for terraforming, mining, station-building, etc etc...

Heehee, Cindy: yes, yet another 'you shoulda read KSR's trilogy:' it is exactly this tech that is used etensively in his stories to get interesting things happening/possible...

*Cobra, I had a hunch you'd like this article when I read it at space.com (but that's not why I posted it). 

Rik:  KSR...arrghh. 

Well, I definitely like the MADMEN idea much better than trying to shoot down interloping space rocks with Earth-launched nuclear missiles.  :-\

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

REB

Banned

From: Houston, Texas

Registered: 2004-04-07

Posts: 555

Website

Re: MADMEN

I like this idea. I am glad to see research being done on this.

Such technology and knowledge could help in other areas, like terraforming.

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

SBird

Banned

Registered: 2004-03-10

Posts: 490

Re: MADMEN

Heh, when I clicked on the link, I thought that this thread was about the International Space Agency guy. :laugh:

This is a cool idea, space is an ideal place to test out small autonomous robot swarms.  They'll have a multitude of uses including mining, exploration and ecientific data gathering.