Posted on 05/15/2014 10:03:28 AM PDT by DannyTN
CalTech astronomer Fritz Zwicky was the first to conceive of dark matter, supernovas and neutron stars. He also had a theory about colonizing the solar system using nuclear bombs. We could terraform other planets, he argued, by pulverizing them and then moving them closer or further from the sun.
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(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
“What could go wrong?”
My thought precisely. Might be the understatement of the millenia.
No, the only difference here is that the planets are all in gravitational alignment with one another. Move one and the others will move too.
Here’s my problem. Man has still not even conquered the oceans. Cannot get to the deepest parts, no clue what’s down there...but wants to fly off and conquer space? Go figure.
That's deep.
Not deep, sad actually. haven’t figured out what’s in our own planet but ready to go mess up something outside of it. Oh well, not surprising.
Using nukes as demolitions for harvesting asteroids has been an idea I’ve kicked around from time to time.
Further, it’s also an argument against anti-gun folks when they start talking stupid about “we limit nukes!” in relation to gun ownership.
Mars certainly plays a part in stabilizing the asteroid belt.
I’ve read that its believed that Mercury will one day fall into resonance with Jupiter and be slowly pulled outward from its orbit.
Besides, mars is already in the habitable zone around our sun. Its problem isn’t a lack of solar heat but an inability to hold it.
One idea is to direct asteroids into Mars adding to it's atmosphere as they burn up gradually increasing the air pressure. But then the calculation is if Mars is big enough to sustain a viable atmosphere.
Icy asteroids?
Actually we have sent men to the bottom of the challenger deep and brought them back in the 60s. There’s simply no reason to go back.
The fact that you seem to fear “messing up” space indicates something else.
You would need to generate a magnetic field around mars to help hold an atmosphere.
We always envision earth neatly dead center of the habitable zone around the sun but the reality is that were rather close to the inner edge with 95% of the habitable zone lying outside our orbit.
There’s a lot of people on the planet, we have a lot of man hours, we can conquer multiple frontiers.
Not even a groan? Did you miss the double entendre completely?
But that’s human nature. We always push on multiple frontiers at the same time. We don’t have to have explored the Himalayas to go sailing around the world in search of new worlds. “Send Marco Polo to explore land, I wnat a ship” - Christopher Columbus (maybe).
“According to the article, he wants to downsize Uranus, by blasting chunks off of it. Got to give him credit for vision.”
Well, if I read this right in the article, this is partially from a paper he wrote in 1961. He also said Jupiter would be hard to move around on the surface.
What about the pesky problem of Uranus and Jupiter being made of GAS?
“Actually we have sent men to the bottom of the challenger deep and brought them back in the 60s. Theres simply no reason to go back.”
Ummm...yeah, they go down but every time see something brand new. Guess they shouldn’t worry about discovery down there.
“The fact that you seem to fear messing up space indicates something else.”
I have no fear about it, just think it’s foolish. The fact you make incorrect judgements indicates something as well.
that is true danny, we do push multiple frontiers. I’m one of those who starts one thing and likes to finish before going on to the next. Just my own human nature I suppose.
Diabolical Genius, is something discouraged these days unless it is done for gore-bull warning...
Let’s see...let’s put Feminists on Venus... Queers onUranus...and let’s keep the earth for Conservatives.
Fritz Zwicky has long been known as the crazy uncle of Astronomy. Utterly brilliant and completely nuts. He once grew frustrated with atmospheric distortions in his observations, so he had a graduate assistant fire rifle bullets through the observatory dome in a vain attempt to still the air. His introduction to the Catalogue of Selected Compact Galaxies (found online at http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept02/Zwicky/Zwicky1.html ) is infamous for excoriating the high popes and sycophants of astronomy.
(As an aside, I find that you can replace all references in the above link to astronomy with “global warming” or “climate change” and the rant is still valid)
In short, I’m not surprised to learn of this plan at all.
MikeD, a Zwicky fan since grad school
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