[NicknamedBob]

"...where Amos Ori from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, comes in. He says that according to Einstein's theories, space can be twisted enough to create a local gravity field that looks like a doughnut of some arbitrary size. The gravitational field lines circle around the outside of this doughnut, so that space and time are both tightly curved back on themselves.”

This adds a new "wrinkle" to my plans to build a second-generation ship during our travels. I had arranged sufficient space in the area under the castle to put together a sort of flying saucer shape with, you guessed it! -- a doughnut-shaped high-speed plasma which would generate reactionless thrust, as well as a gravitational field.

If it is further complicated by producing a time-warp as well... Well, it upsets the whole percentage, don'tcha see?

Hey, while we're chatting, and waiting for the shuttle to start its countdown again, whaddaya say we put together a lunar excursion module with some of the shuttle-thrusters, and a pod of some sort?

I've been concerned that our maneuvering in Lunar orbit with the castle and the other enclosures could get a little tricky. If we send a separate probe, we can just sweep by the moon on our way to Mars. It should save a lot of reaction-mass, as well as time.

And this would give us something to talk about while we're waiting for the rest of the modifications to be completed. I have in mind a continuous, light thrust to supply artificial gravity, with a turn-around at mid-point, and then a return the same way after we drop off NASA's packages. If we take off directly toward the sun from the Pacific, we shouldn't even be observed by anyone other than NORAD, and we can ask NASA to run interference for us with them.

Comments? Who wants to go? What should we take, et cetera?

[Tax-chick]

If we're going to the moon, shouldn't we take cheese? And how about a few moose, too?

[Not A Snowbird]

I'll go! Has anyone signed up to bring the Krispy Kremes yet?

[tuliptree76]

Who wants to go?

I'm willing to go pretty much anywhere right now.

[Darksheare]

I don't foresee any overly BAD side effects of the plasma torus time warp effect.*

*said while pointedly ignoring the scantily clad space-fems phasing in and out of relity and floating overhead.
/ bad joke

[sionnsar]

Hi, all!

Thanks for the ping. Sadly, I am on vacation with spotty Internet access (only got on for some business this morning thanks to the cellphone mode, and the accident of being somewhere where I have signal...).

[fanfan]

Comments? Who wants to go? What should we take, et cetera?

Sign me up!

I wrote my first application letter to NASA when I was 11 years old, but I never got in. *sniff*

What should we take? Well, how long will we be gone? I'm thinking food, water, toilet paper, maybe some books, lots of beer, and all of Free Republic.

BTW, what exactly are we dropping off for NASA?

[Mears]

Love to help you guys but I'm still trying to figure out what the meaning of "IS" is.

[Temple Owl]

Wouldn't a horse do just as well?

[Irish_Thatcherite]

I have read about theoretical superluminal devices on Wikipedia, one interesting one is the Alcubierre drive, which is basically Star Trek's warp drive, but a lot of scientists are skeptical of such possibilities - in your opinion, is superluminal travel possible (and remember an FTL spacecraft will have to travel thousands of times C in order for it to be credible)?