Recent content by stefan r

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    Realistic fast Interstellar Propulsion Methods

    This measure of "big" is disappointing IMO. If your puny economy ride was parked by Neptune L5 it would need to be 50 km just to be detectable. Need to up that by 5 to 7 orders of magnitude
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    B Supernova Ejection: How Large Are the Chunks?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale Some things are impossible. Traveling faster than light for example. Other things are just out of budget. If your lab has a budget that includes using over 10^30 kg of material for a simple experiment demonstrating things that you already know...
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    B Supernova Ejection: How Large Are the Chunks?

    It depends on circumstances. With most supernova there are no chunks. The material expands and cools. You get solids firming as the cooled material impacts other material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_star In some 1ax supernovas there is a remnant. An extreme case would be a...
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    Oxygenating a 'primordial' atmosphere...

    A planet's surface is a surface. It has square meters. Things sitting on the surface have mass. So tons. Tons per square meter. We could use PSI but we need to know the gravity. That and i prefer metric.
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    I am making an alien race and need help with their biology

    If you just need gold color for religious belief then check out the rufous hummingbird and the gold beetle. For both "god like" and insane coloring check out the cuttlefish. They have chromophores and iridiphores. Some cuttlefish hypnotize crabs with crazy iridescent light shows.
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    Oxygenating a 'primordial' atmosphere...

    The easiest and fastest way to sequester carbon dioxide is going to be asteroidal magnesium and other alkali or alkaline earth elements. If you want cheap sloppy fast you can crash olivine and burn it on reentry. In my opinion more sophisticated colonists will fashion magnesium alloy frames...
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    Medical What determines the long-term effectiveness of a viral vaccine?

    I think blaming the media is nonsense. Public wants a product. There is demand for the product. Few care what term you assign. It is fine that UPS and USPS do not pick up trash. It is not what they do. It is fine that trash collectors do not deliver our mail. Either way there is work...
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    Detection of spacecraft at large distances

    Use black body radiator as a reference. You have several degrees of freedom. The temperature of the ship can be adjusted by making it a larger radiating surface. If you want it to be easy for characters to spot make it glow red like an electric stove. The story from Oumuamua should help...
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    Why Did Reddit Trigger a GameStop Stock Surge?

    It does not cost anything to buy and hold. Obviously costs the initial purchase but there is no ongoing cash needed. The options markets are still moving large quantities of money around GME. Bets have been made on options for January 2023 and 2024. The puts and calls are still out there...
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    Is a Self-Building 'Seed' Ship the Future of Space Travel?

    I believe Carl Sagan/Ann Druyan wrote about this in the book Comet. It has been a while but: The minimum size is approximately a walnut. Walnuts have 2 meaty lobes that we sometimes eat. The payload of the ship would dedicate one meat lobe to data storage. The other lobe has a moving...
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    The James Webb Space Telescope

    There should still be a reconning even if it does work. The wait was too long and the price tag too high. I do hope that all will be well and we get a return on most of that expense. With enough billions we can advance to in-space construction. We might not get a better scope in that...
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    I Is the Sun a low-mass star or a medium-mass star?

    Red dwarfs are main sequence stars. They have convection all the way to the core. Some stars have a radiative zone and convection in the upper layers. Larger stars the radiative zone extends to the surface. Some huge stars are fully convective.
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    I Composition of Jupiter: Ices, Cores & Outer Gas Layers

    Juno probe took gravity measurements.
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    Maximum safe mass of an asteroid in geostationary orbit

    On Mars the elevator is going to be very close to or beyond limits of what can be done. Hop's blog (not peer reviewed link) goes into very nice detail. His Lower Phobos tether using Zylon looks particularly believable IMO. If you want to use better material like graphene you could get away with...
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    Centaur Mass for Jupiter's 4th Lagrange Point

    Centaurs orbit the Sun at rate that Jupiter orbits the Sun. An L4 of the Centaur would have to orbit Jupiter at the rate our Centaur orbits Jupiter. Wikipedia says Lagrange points are only stable if the object ratio is greater than 24.96. A Jupiter mass planet can have a Trojan more massive...
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