[TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation design)

[Andrew Long]

On 2 Dec 2007, at 15:28, Knapp wrote:

>> Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told  
>> me that
>> this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised  
>> gasses to
>> millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
>> Sun#Atmosphere)
>>
I remember, way back when, in a short article by Arthur C. Clarke (or  
maybe it was Dr. Asimov; they both seemed to sugar each others' tea  
in the old days), where he was demolishing some un-learned press  
article that tried to explain how we'd never have have space flight,  
and in fact shouldn't even try.

The basis of this was that the Van Allen belts (or some other region  
of the outer atmosphere) was Very Hot (millions of degrees?) and so  
any probe that we sent up would just melt. And punching holes in the  
layer separating us from all this hot gas might just bring it all  
down on us.  This was explained as being not really a problem due to  
the extremely low density of the gasses at that height, and that the  
temperatures were just an expression of the mean free path for atoms.

Does this relate to these huge temperatures in the Corona?


>> So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in  
>> anything made of
>> metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or similar  
>> ceramic.  Of
>> course, the effects of such magnetism on a human brain would be  
>> interesting
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)  
>> so maybe a
>> robot?  A mechanical ceramic robot?

I was so sad to read about this kind of thing... I was really looking  
forward to riding Bussard ramscoops after reading Larry Niven's known  
space books.

  I was roughing out some fanfic about having someone trying to  
'herd' some starseeds from one system to another. The protagonist had  
been hired because he had been on that slowboat (the Lazy eight- 
something?) that had gone astray and was thus experienced at STL  
travel (unlike Bey Schaeffer, who was also along on the trip). The  
expedition had been funded by Gregory Pelton (Bey's frind 'Elephant')  
after the adventure of the evaporating starship.

Sadly, when I found that ramscoops were deadly it just took the heart  
out of my plot.

Ah, those were the days.

Andy (BOF)

-- 
Andrew Long
andrew dot long at yahoo dot com