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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Tue, 21 Jan 2003 16:52:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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990 times
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In lugnet.space, Jordan D. Greer writes:
> Assuming that the rock's rest mass is 1000 tonnes, accelerating it to
> 90% of light speed would require 2.0647*10^23 joules of energy. This is
> an energy release 4.9324*10^7 times the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, the
> largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by humans.
> Don't tell me that an energy release of this magnitude would not be
> noticed by the opposing side. If you're going to generate that much
> energy, you might as well directly apply it to the target to avoid
> wasteful expenditure of resources.
Holy Moly! You sure know your physics! :)
I would add though, that if the attacker in this scenario were concerned
with "expenditure of resources" then they would be very unwise to ever
consider killing a planet known to harbor life. Let's for a moment assume
that for life-as-we-know-it to prosper to technological capacity that it
must evolve on a planet with Earth-like elements, Earth-like compounds,
Earth-like gravitational forces, and Earth-like temperatures. In the
scenario where this assumption is true, then such planets would be fairly
rare and the resources they provide would be invaluable to any such advanced
society. Recognizing that their own homeworld's resources would someday be
exhausted, the attacker in this scenario would not likely want to kill the
defender in such a way that the planet becomes uninhabitable.
> On the other hand, knocking rocks into a planet is a much simpler
> proposition. One only has to reduce the kinetic energy of a rock
> orbiting the target to less than that of the rock's gravitational
> binding energy.
> If you need to kill a planet, sending into the target's gravity well a
> rock of huge mass will require much less technological capabilities than
> accelerating a rock to relativistic velocities.
Good point. If planet killing is desired, then I agree with you there.
Cheers,
-Hendo
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| Ahh, but that assumes you have the technology. His theory is that you (...) also (...) Unless acceleration is almost instantaneous, the waste energy of whatever accelerates the rock to light speed will reach you long before the rock does. Assuming (...) (22 years ago, 21-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
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