Subject:
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Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Jan 2003 21:10:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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760 times
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Brandon Harris wrote:
> There was some physics geek who wrote this great little thing
> about the effects of firing a can of ravioli at a star
> destroyer at varying speeds. It's been circulating the net
> for years and years - I first saw it in college. Anyways,
> the sheer amount of devastation that a can of ravioli would be
> able to do at even Mach 4 is pretty impressive.
At an SF convention when I was in college, one fellow gave his theory of
what first contact would be like:
A large rock hurtling towards Earth at relativistic speeds. Boom! Flash!
His theory was that once you develop the capability to easily visit
other star systems, that you also easily have the capability of
accelerating rocks to relativistic speeds. Since there's not much one
can do to defend against such a tactic, should you find any
technological society on another planet, you must pre-emptively strike.
I have a more optomistic viewpoint on life than that but I can see the
logic.
Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| (...) Fascinating. Although one interpretation of this is to say that any society is inherently a threat due to their very existance, and thus all societies should be erradicated. This type of logic is dangerous because it opens up the possibility (...) (21 years ago, 15-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
| | | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| (...) One of my favorite products from Ad Astra games (who make games that actually use science) is a T-Shirt, with the front showing: "Give a person a relativistic rock, and they will shatter a planet today. Teach them to do the math, and they will (...) (21 years ago, 16-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| (...) Probably not, actually. Fighters/bombers are expensive peices of equipment and getting them into (and out of) an atmosphere is a problem. If you want to bomb a territory, just drop rocks on it. Cheap, easy, accurate, utterly devastating, and (...) (21 years ago, 15-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
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