OT: There goes the Solar neighborhood...literally

[David Nicol]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:56:35 -0600, Oren Beck <oren_beck at hotmail.com> wrote:

> According to the math I have seen for such experimental holes
> they are in the realm of that engineering math trick question
> about if  a bath tub at 98F or a Oxyacetylene torch flame at
> 6300F has more heat in it . Answer provable by trying to boil
> a bath rub using a torch.

uh, no.  Heat of phase transition has nothing to do with specific heat. "How
much heat is in this?" is usually relative, but an absolute amount for it can
be obtained by converting the temperature to Kelvin and multiplying by
the specific heat and the mass, after adjusting for phase transitions and the
possibility that different phases have different specific heats.  You can't weld
with a bathtub, you can't bathe in a flame.  Well maybe you can, but I can't.


Has anyone else read Gerard O'Neil's "The High Frontier"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/189652267X/tipjartransactioA/

the paperback is available used for under a dollar plus shipping

it's about building orbiting suburbs, but practical.  The plan is to
build a station
on the moon that launches aluminum ore into lunar orbit, which is collected and
refined, also in orbit.  That way, the huge launch cost of building
everything down here
at the bottom of the atmosphere and lifting it out to space is saved.

My reccomendation for an ion rocket is to use iron.  Choose a suitable
iron asteroid,
set up camp in it, accelerate your iron ions and fling them out one
way, save enough
mass to decelerate after you get wherever you're going, but the
question of where
the energy to do all the ion accelerating comes from is still up in the air.  

Perhaps put Oren Beck on a treadmill.


-- 
David L Nicol
"You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"