I don't have "Death From The Skies" so I can't confirm that it's not in there, but it occurred to me that another source of the possible demise of our species could be getting in the way of a relativistic Bussard Ramjet.



True Hard Sci-Fi

I wouldn't worry about them too much; if they are set up the way Bussard described, they would create more drag than thrust, so they are unlikely to reach the blinding speeds described in Tau Zero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard...of_feasibility

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New Orion's Arm Site . The Starlark . Against a Diamond Sky (OA Novella Collection) . OA Flickr set

Larry Niven has used drive systems as weapons in his books for decades, too...

I think one of Niven's laws is that a reaction drive's effectiveness as a reaction drive is proportional to its effectiveness as a weapon.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Nice drawings here
http://www.bisbos.com/rocketscience/...t/bussard.html

They seem to be based on Sternbach's artwork for Cosmos

More here
http://www.bisbos.com/rocketscience/spacecraft.html

Here is something rather like a Bussard collector--but only for atmo-harvesting
http://www.bisbos.com/rocketscience/...ac/profac.html

Bussards may not be much good for relativistic speeds, but what about in-solar system use?
Wow, if the challenges could be met, and we got over our phobia of nuclear energy, and treated it as a potentially dangerous, but potentially useful, source of energy, then PROFAC, is amazing looking.

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I have often wondered what it would take to terraform Venus--and I am wondering about such atmo-harvesting.

But here is another idea.

What if we make Venus even hotter?

We have been wracking our brains about how to cool it off. But if we were to orbit this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel...ng_solar_power but bigger in order to super-heat Venus atmo--we might be able to blow a good bit of it off.

Then you hit a switch and have the structure be an occulter disk. Spinning the planet up and depositing volitiles--thats another matter...

I have been wondering about super-engineering projects, so if this is thread hi-jacking, forgive me.

If I were to have a cosmic superstring between two black holes, would they approach each other like the two dogs eating spagetti in Lady and the tramp?

And if two black holes were to approach each other and be rotating in such a way as to resemble the two wheels needed to accelerate tennis balls, could the frame dragging have the same effect? I was wondering if that might be the only way to do a warp jump of some kind...OT

I wonder if Fields released by a Bussard might be useful in any of the above project. Not for propulsion--but for other purposes...

New space books and more.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Your...5432329&sr=1-1
http://boingboing.net/2009/05/22/t-m...phic-nove.html
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1586484974/...l_830vciijx8_e

History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense
Vol. I 1945-1955; Vol. II 1956-1972
Army, Center of Military History, 2009
[UG733 .H576 2009 v.1, v.2] D 114.2:ST 8/4/v.1-2/2009
from http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/40/40.html

Here's an idea I had a few years ago to use Bussard Ramscoop-type technology to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars-like worlds
http://eg.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=o...=4851d85e0791b
Note that it would only really have to operate at full strength during a solar storm; most of the rest of the time Mars' new atmosphere would be good enough protection.

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New Orion's Arm Site . The Starlark . Against a Diamond Sky (OA Novella Collection) . OA Flickr set