[Rockhounds] Terraforming Mars might be impossible? for now

[J Bryan Kramer]

Actually Robert A Heinlein had a possible solution to moving asteroids, a
variation of the Orion drive back in one of his books in they 1950's. I
don't recall the name of it. That assumes that they are not blobs of gravel
loosely stuck together as many are now claiming.

Ah here it is, the short story misfit in 1939 before an actual nuclear
device was ever built. He used in situ mined Thorium which doesn't actually
make a good bomb. But actual knowledge of nuclear engineering was years
away at that point in time. But he probably invented the Orion drive. <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfit_(short_story)> I have to wonder if the
person who wrote that Wiki article ever read the story, the 'rocket drive'
was thorium bombs detonated in a pit on the asteroids surface. Maybe they
bowdlerized the story to remove mention of bombs. And the Orion drive is
more significant than 'space marines'.

Even if that would work you still have to get the people, equipment and
supplies out there somehow. Nuclear drives seem to be the near term answer
but even those would be slow. And are future tech anyway.

BK

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by
one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Edmund Burke

J Bryan Krämer       North Florida, USA
photos at: http://pbase.com/photoburner


On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 8:08 AM Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:

>
> What?  A reasoned response grounded in reality?  That
> has fallen out of favor for some reason.
>
> All cars will be driving themselves within 5 years - yeah right.
> That will only work when ALL vehicles are driving themselves,
> and people are not ready to give that up yet.
>
> Artificial intelligence - everybody is doing it.  Never mind
> that there is no AI.  We will change the definition until
> every hand-held phone can do that.
>
> We can't even get #1 done at the moment - go to Mars,
> explore it with people, and get back.  They are planning on
> stranding the Martian explorers on the surface to die.
>
>
> It's OK to dream big, but don't forget that it's just a
> dream at the moment.  Don't extrapolate it to being a
> done deal in 10 years.
>
> I want to hear more about how we harness the sun's energy
> to accurately move massive bodies 2.7 AU out from the sun's
> surface.  Because one thing is for sure - we are not carrying
> that amount of energy out there.
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> On 3/13/20 2:00 PM, rockhounds-request at rockhounds.drizzle.com wrote:
> > Did anyone thing this was a near future possibility? It's always seemed
> to
> > me to off in the future after we have practical interplanetary travel,
> and
> > I don't mean getting blasted into orbit by sitting on top of thousands of
> > tons of explosives to do it.
> >
> > BK
>
>
>
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