/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3357215
There are estimated to be up to ~1.5 million asteroids in the asteroid belt. That video shows that we've discovered ~500,000. While it seems like the asteroid belt is a soup made of rocks, ready to smash into any unlucky spacecraft that ventures through it, the reality is quite different. In fact, the distance between individual asteroids in the belt measures in hundreds to thousands of kilometers, and were you standing on one arbitrary asteroid, you would likely be unable to see any others.

>>3357151
You mistakenly assume the asteroid is magically set on a collision course with the Earth immediately. Apophis for example, might hit the Earth in 2036, but that does not mean it is past the orbit of Pluto and flying towards us. It is in an orbit around our star, just like any of the other objects within our solar system, but its orbit just happens to intersect with that of the Earth's periodically.

An asteroid could be within Near Earth Orbit, and still not hit us for twenty years.

As for altering the trajectory of an asteroid? It's a simple physics problem. Alter the trajectory of the object early enough, and over the course of 10 years, that 1cm difference turns into 300,000km's from where it would have originally been had it stayed in its previous orbit. So we don't even necessarily need high explosives or nukes. We could attach some rockets, use a gravitational tugboat, or sling a solar sail on it. Just so long as it is done early enough to alter the objects' trajectory significantly over time.

>>3353637
I'm going to let you in on a not-so-secret secret.

We have the ability to detect space rocks a few meters in diameter at hundreds of thousands of kilometers distance.

Watch this video:
http://youtu.be/S_d-gs0WoUw?hd=1

It shows the number of asteroids we've detected. We are only getting better as time progresses.

They're not replacing it.

They're simply going to buy their nuclear power from France.

>>3349840
Total *confirmed* deaths for Chernobyl sit under 100.

Past that, it is all statistics. What we know of radiation poisoning predicts an increase in cancer rates and deaths over time, applying this to Chernobyl we've predicted several thousand deaths from the radiation release.

However, because of the way this all works, there's no possibility for us to really confirm how many deaths there are. (It is difficult to look at a person and say "Yep, this leukemia was caused by radioactive particles released by Chernobyl")

Unfortunately, due to the imprecise nature of predicting deaths caused by radioactive materials, we've got nutjobs running around claiming idiocy like "Chernobyl killed 20 million people".

This is the spectrum of our sun.

>>3346778
Jews did not build the pyramids.

>>3346682
Pretty much all of that is true.

>>3346372
The habitable zone is defined as the area around a star where liquid water can exist.

>>3346271
Venus is already in the habitable zone of our star. So is Mars.

The red and green triangles have different slopes.

>>3325505
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/

Are you certain of that?

Perhaps your field manuals are different from what is freely available in the link?

>>3325486
You will not be thrown in prison for sharing these sorts of files unless they are classified material. [which I doubt they are]

Information is not evil. What you do with it can be.

Yes, of course.

inb4 e/lit/ists

>>3303322
It is economically sound because it ensures the future growth of our species. There are an enormous amount of resources in our solar system, much more than just Earth holds.

It is foolish to believe that the paltry amount of money we currently spend on space exploration would even 'fix' anything in the world, and it is equally foolish to assume that every single scientist should be working on the cure for cancer or new TV's, or whatever it is you think money is better spent on.

>>3303158
There were a series of dam failures in China that resulted in about 170,000 - 230,000 deaths. ~26,000 of which were directly from the dam breakage. [The rest were from famine and disease as a result]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

>>3303130
Pain from suffocation is caused by CO2. I do not know the fundamental process of why, I believe it has to do something with blood acidification from the excess CO2 in the blood stream and the autonomic responses in the body as a result.

In any case, you can likely take any noble gas you'd like, and breathe it to the point of suffocation without feeling anything but drowsiness. I would recommend nitrogen instead of helium however, as it is easier to build a machine that extracts nitrogen from the air, and Helium is a finite resource on Earth which should not be wasted by suffocating people to death with it. [Let alone wasted in balloons at fairs and parks...]

>>3302955
>I could say nuclear bombs are safer than real bombs because they've caused less deaths in the past.

We haven't experienced total war since the invention of nuclear weapons and the end of the second world war. Nobody wants to use nuclear weapons because it means mutually assured destruction. The issue with your analogy is that you assume nuclear power plants will cause devastation grossly in excess of what anything else could do - hence jumping to nuclear weapons vs. conventional weapons.

What you fail to grasp is that nuclear power *IS NOT* as devastating as other forms of power generation. Oil alone has done untold damage politically and economically in the world, nevermind the land and oceans that have been destroyed and polluted, and the contributions towards global warming.

Coal power creates desolate wastelands and dumps of toxic chemicals, in addition to releasing a great deal of radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere under normal operation, AND causing significantly more deaths than nuclear has ever caused.

Even Hydroelectric is worse than nuclear - the dams we build turn hundreds of square kilometers into man-made lakes, and hydro has caused the greatest number of deaths of all forms of power generation thanks to some rare but extremely messy accidents.

You have to be willingly ignorant to believe that nuclear is not safer and more efficient than all the other alternatives.

>>3302882
Additionally, I wish to point out that you are arguing against some extremely bright and intelligent physicists who have done a lot of number crunching and math.

Your entire argument seems to sum up as: "It was never built, so it is fake."

But you ignore the fact that the real causes of the program to be canceled were the partial test ban treaty, and alternative but competitive launch systems like Sea Dragon which offered similar payload space while not potentially polluting the atmosphere with radioactive isotopes.

Of course, Sea Dragon went and got canceled too... but that is a different topic.

>>3302882
>Generating thrust from ablating a shield just wont cut it. Also that shield is supposed to move tens of feet in milliseconds its all just total bullshit and no real agency is going to seriously ever going to work on it again because they all know its bullshit.

Here is a video of the fundamental concept working as intended: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Lxx2VAYi8#t=21s

Additionally, you may wish to glance over this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#The_first_nuclear-propelled_manmade_object_in_space..
3F

If anyone has any questions about space, I'd be happy to [try to] answer them.