Posted on 09/16/2002 1:10:49 PM PDT by RightWhale
My gut tells me "Not too long", but then I suppose I'm supposed to ruminate, not... oh damn, there's another epigram that got away.
Anyway, my trusty, though somewhat dusty "Asimov's New Guide to Science" relates the tale of a Mr. Christofilos, who in 1957 postulated that charged particles would be trapped along the magnetic lines of force in the atmosphere.
In 1958, Project ARGUS took place, and confirmed the Chrisofilos effect, and noted that the radiation from the nuclear bombs detonated in the magnetosphere was persistent, with Explorer IV detecting it "during several hundred of it's trips around the earth". (Don't let the quotation marks fool you, the info in this post is pretty much all plagiarism up to this point.)
Since, Explorer IV's period was 110 minutes, we're talking persistence measuring into days weeks here (why do I always find this stuff at the end of writing a post?).
Uh, so I guess the tether idea could work, as the particles are somewhat persistent.
Bravo!
I wondered how long it would take for someone to suggest this!
Of course, we'd want to retain really sh!tty climates for people who are moslems. They don't deserve decent weather any more than they deserve attractive women or eyes that open all the way.
And while we're on the case, let's move Earth to a better neighborhood, away from all these asteroids and killer comets. We need an orbit with a posh out-of-the-elliptic-plane address that eliminates having to rub elbows with all the space-trash.
Sure, it'll be expensive, but we deserve it.
(And we can always just charge it and then follow up with a Chapter 13.)
The problem is that they are completely serious.
Forward once gave a talk which I attended. He advocated making lots of anti-matter, and made the interesting claim that a pound of anti-iron would be relatively safe. "If you dropped it on the ground, it would just sizzle and melt," he said.
"Yeah, but the sizzling is releasing GAMMA RAYS," I reminded him, and the total energy in the pound of anti-iron might just destroy the earth. Melting it is bad because the surface area increases exponentially.
"Forward" thinking indeed.
--Boris
He's probably a terrorist.
You're either with us, or you are against us.
Not if you use Van Allen suspenders.
I'm just not up to speed on the repercussions of this idea - a man's got to know his limitations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.