Okay let's say they discover a Super Earth Planet.
28 Sep 2014, 3:59 pm
But someone pointed out that there is such a thing as "oribital decay". Low orbit debris eventually falls out of orbit and onto the earth ( most actually burns up in the atmosphere before hitting the ground). So all of that cosmic dandruff around the earth will clear itsself up on its own.
But even then I would think that we would still have to go in cycles: decades of abstaining from launches to let near space clean itsself up, alternating with years with forging ahead with launching again.
Simple solution? Imitate the moon. It seems to experience prolonged orbital success.
What are you talking about?
The subject is low orbit man made artifacts (like 100, or 500 miles up). The Moon is in high orbit ( a quarter of a million miles up). The Moon's orbit is also decaying, though extremely slowly (like a trillion years from now it fall to earth and get pulverized into gravel by tidal forces from the earth's gravity into a ring like around Saturn-but we have a trillion years before we have to worry about it).So for practical purposes you are right - the moon has "oribital success"- it stays where we all expect it to be in space- in the same orbit month after month.
But in the case of space debris we WANT orbital decay. Thats the point.We want the junk to clear out so we can go back to using near space for new space traffic.
The stuff we have up there is a mix of active satellites, inactive satellites, lost gloves of astronauts, and pieces of vehicles smashed in collisions,and pieces of pieces of pieces of stuff from collison. Imagine a tiny flying screw hitting your car on the highway. Wouldnt do much damage. But image if it hit your car at 17000 miles an hour (orbital spead). It would be like a hand grenade going off on your windshield. We're in danger of walling ourselves off from space with this debris because it seems to be reaching the saturation point. So thats why we need orbital decay to clean up near space.
That's why it's so wasteful. Aim for a trillion year orbital decay instead of a ten year one.
28 Sep 2014, 5:24 pm
But someone pointed out that there is such a thing as "oribital decay". Low orbit debris eventually falls out of orbit and onto the earth ( most actually burns up in the atmosphere before hitting the ground). So all of that cosmic dandruff around the earth will clear itsself up on its own.
But even then I would think that we would still have to go in cycles: decades of abstaining from launches to let near space clean itsself up, alternating with years with forging ahead with launching again.
Simple solution? Imitate the moon. It seems to experience prolonged orbital success.
What are you talking about?
The subject is low orbit man made artifacts (like 100, or 500 miles up). The Moon is in high orbit ( a quarter of a million miles up). The Moon's orbit is also decaying, though extremely slowly (like a trillion years from now it fall to earth and get pulverized into gravel by tidal forces from the earth's gravity into a ring like around Saturn-but we have a trillion years before we have to worry about it).So for practical purposes you are right - the moon has "oribital success"- it stays where we all expect it to be in space- in the same orbit month after month.
But in the case of space debris we WANT orbital decay. Thats the point.We want the junk to clear out so we can go back to using near space for new space traffic.
The stuff we have up there is a mix of active satellites, inactive satellites, lost gloves of astronauts, and pieces of vehicles smashed in collisions,and pieces of pieces of pieces of stuff from collison. Imagine a tiny flying screw hitting your car on the highway. Wouldnt do much damage. But image if it hit your car at 17000 miles an hour (orbital spead). It would be like a hand grenade going off on your windshield. We're in danger of walling ourselves off from space with this debris because it seems to be reaching the saturation point. So thats why we need orbital decay to clean up near space.
That's why it's so wasteful. Aim for a trillion year orbital decay instead of a ten year one.
But I just got through explaining that we WANT stuff to fall down. We DONT want it to stay up there forever.
28 Sep 2014, 11:43 pm
The Russians do have a project to clean up near space in the works.
Most likely just a launch hole for themselves.
The Commons Problem, everyone can launch anything, then disown it. Hundreds of years later something very expensive with people on board gets hit by a Jamacian Bobsled.
As for a second Earth, the local area has been scanned, nothing.
These are apes, so even ten light years is out of their range.
On scale, from Mars, the Sun is just another star. On Venus, it must cover half the sky.
For a long range project, moving one of the outer planets inward, attaching a moon, wet it down with a few comets, would be cheaper and faster than going anywhere.
Moving Venus out would work. Give it a big Moon, shade it from the Sun, a permanant lunar eclipse, and it would be ice in a hundred years.
Our main limit is we can not get much in space, it costs $20,000 a pound, and until we build an elevator, construct an orbital ring, we are not going to get the big contracts going.
The best way to get an Earth like planet around the nearest stars is build it here, slingshot it around the sun, and direct it to the next star. If it has a magnetic field, and atmosphere, humans could go along for the ride. It would be a snowball for the trip, but could be seeded with life, that will awake when it orbits a new star.
Living underground would not have the spaceship problems. It would have air, water, and endless space with gravity.
There have been reports of wandering planets between the stars. Speculation that Venus was a recent capture.
Towing planets has problems, the impact of rocks thrown is the best addition of force, comets count more than rocks. A train of comets coming around the sun, hitting Venus in series, could expand it's orbit, without breaking it. Once it is moving, more hits increase speed, and it would take fifty years to knock it out of the gravity well, and on to another star. Mecury would make a good Moon.
Moving planets around for a few hundred years would be good practice for a several thousand year trip to the next star.
There are several that combined with comets, which we have a large supply, mass from the asteroid belt, also good supply, and given a Moon, could be terraformed here, and be livable within a hundred years.
There has been speculation of directing comets to Mars, for water and atmosphere. Mars lacks a magnetic field. That is harder to fix.
If there was another Earth, always on the other side of the Sun, I doubt we could send people there. Maybe three for a oneway trip. Radio would be blocked. They could not return, we would never know.
A ship that could carry hundreds to Mars, with everything they need to survive, is way beyond out current means.
First build an off planet space shipyard. Then we can make plans.
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