Photon Guy

Twenty one years ago today the space shuttle Columbia burned up upon reentry of the Earth's atmosphere due to failure of the heat shield because of damage to a wing from foam breaking loose during launch. All seven astronauts on board were tragically killed. RIP Columbia Crew.

Well by the same token I think a good moon rock or mars rock would be a very valuable commercial property yet we don't see much if any commercial demand for the space program. NASA is entirely government funded and we don't have any private space companies that go into space. If we can create a demand for paleontology with fossils perhaps we can create a demand for the space industry. The problem with something being government funded is that if we are to increase funding the only ways we can do that is if we were to cut back on other stuff that's government funded or by raising taxes, neither of those are popular choices. But we make tons of progress in terms of bettering our lives with space exploration. All sorts of experiments are done in space and all sorts of really useful discoveries are being made, everything from medicine to communications to defense to transportation, you name it. With paleontology though it could be argued that there's not much we could learn from it since dinosaurs are extinct and have been for a long time, unless you want to argue in favor of just increasing our general knowledge in everything including dinosaurs but you still probably wouldn't get much government funding for it. You will most likely always get less government funding for paleontology than you will for NASA and NASA doesn't get a whole lot of funding as it is so I'm thinking that just like with space exploration, the study of dinosaurs works best if its done by private companies that make their profit from consumers. The question is, what can you get out of dinosaur research that you can provide to consumers that would have enough of a demand that they would pay good money for it? Museums come to mind, but you only make so much from running a museum. The only way I see to make a really good profit for paleontology is if we were to have something such as Jurassic Park where we have live dinosaurs, but as we know the Jurassic Park franchise is just movies and is pure fiction, as disappointing as that is.

Good point. To send supplies to the ISS you would only need to reach a velocity of 17000, perhaps less if you're firing from a high altitude, so friction would be less of a problem than if you were firing at escape velocity. The atmosphere is significantly thinner at the peak of Mount Everest than it is at sea level so at such an altitude friction is less of a problem. You might not need to subject your craft to such extreme Gs if you have a railgun with a very long barrel so that acceleration is much more gradual but that it still reaches the desired velocity by the time it leaves the muzzle. Also as TheVat pointed out, you wouldn't need your craft to reach escape velocity as orbital velocity is much lower. That would be an engineering project to design such systems but we're not talking about launching people. A good mechanical system should be able to withstand more Gs than a person. And as I mentioned above, you might not need to subject the system to such extreme Gs. The railgun could be designed so that there's a vacuum in the barrel. The muzzle could be closed, opening only when the craft exits it. The railgun I've seen pictures of have barrels. You could have the railgun permanently stationed at a higher altitude, it could be built on top of a platform or as TheVat said you might be able to use a mountain for support. Crafts containing supplies to be sent into space could be brought up to the railgun by elevator.

I don't see any folder on this forum for paleontology so I thought this would be the best place on this forum to post this. Dinosaurs are fascinating but Im wondering how paleontologists get the funding to do their research. I don't really see much of a demand for such research so most research would not be consumer funded I take it, and to the best of my knowledge the government does not fund such research so Im wondering where the funding comes from.

If you ask me we should've done this a long time ago but here is a video on a plan to bring back samples from Mars.

Some meteors do manage to land without burning up, they're called meteorites, so that goes to show it is possible for an object to pass through the earth's atmosphere at such incredible speeds without burning up. A spacecraft launched by a railgun could have special heat shielding as well as cooling systems. The heat shielding might have to be better than the shielding used now but it could be done. That plus good cooling systems might be adequate to protect against the heat and friction. Also, the spacecraft doesn't have to be launched at ground level. It could be launched from on top of a tall structure or you could even have a railgun with a long enough barrel that by the time it exits the muzzle its well above ground level. A longer railgun could also allow for a more gradual acceleration which would be desirable. The escape velocity on Earth is 24923 MPH so it's about the same speed as meteors hitting the earth's atmosphere that you mentioned. The problems of friction and heat could be solved by what I mentioned above. And also if you launch from a higher altitude the escape velocity is lower so that is another advantage of doing that. The idea of using railguns is to cut fuel costs and the spacecraft being sent by such means would weigh far less because they wouldn't have to lug around all that fuel that would otherwise be used if you were to try to get to orbit the old fashioned way.

Im not sure about the legality of dynamite but I believe anybody with the money can get a tunnel-borer. But regardless, the 2A does not cover such stuff, just like it doesn't cover drugs. Certain drugs you can have access to only if you're a licensed doctor but that otherwise are banned and that's fine because the 2A does not identify any right to access such stuff. The 2A identifies the right to keep and bear arms, not the right to keep and bear other stuff such as dynamite and tunnel-borers and certain dangerous drugs. Because they had access to them when the Constitution, including the 2A was ratified. When the 2A which identifies the right to keep and bear arms, and that's exactly what it does as it doesn't grant the right it identifies it, muskets were the military/police grade guns back then and citizens had full access to them. Today it's semi automatic guns and in some cases full automatic guns that the police and military use so that's what citizens should have access to as those are the arms of today. The arms that are mentioned in the 2A are in reference to whatever the arms of today are. Back when the Constitution was ratified it was muskets, today it's the more advanced guns that I mentioned. Our country's founders weren't dumb, they knew weapons would get more advanced in the future. So if you want to restrict citizens to muskets as some people say the right to keep and bear arms identified by the 2A only applies to muskets, then its only proper to restrict the police and military to muskets and the kinds of guns that were used back then as well. To allow the military access to more advanced guns and not citizens is a double standard. That's exactly what they're needed for, or to put it more precisely, to protect themselves from the government should the government become oppressive. In the USA it's the citizens that are supposed to control the government, not the other way around. The USA was created for the people by the people. We've got many checks and balances in place but the right to keep and bear arms, as identified by the 2A, is a final check and balance. If all else fails the people can revolt against the government should the government become oppressive.

None that I can think of, but the point is that just because the lightspeed barrier can't be broken by conventional means doesn't mean it can't be broken period.

You have that same problem with friction and the heat it generates with any sort of spacecraft that reaches escape velocity. Conventional spacecraft are made to withstand the friction and heat with special heat shielding. A spacecraft sent into space by a railgun could have that same sort of shielding, and it could have cooling systems too. Yes it would need some engines and fuel to maneuver to the station as you point out but not the tremendous fuel that you need to reach escape velocity the way conventional spacecraft do as the railgun would take care of that. But we don't send supplies from the moon to the ISS, we send it from Earth to the ISS. I suppose we could set up a moon base and start mining the moon and producing supplies on the moon that way, but that's a long way off. Lots of supplies. Water for instance. And food that you don't mind having squashed. Food remains edible when it's squashed.

The way I see it, any kind of gun that the police and military have access to citizens should also have access to. So if you want to ban certain guns from citizens, ban them from the police and military too.

Space itself apparently could be moved by using objects with negative mass. The problem is finding matter that has negative mass which so far only exists in theory but it is a possibility.

What would be the practicality of using railguns to send supplies into space? The way a railgun works is by using magnets to propel objects at really high speeds so a railgun would no doubt be able to propel a spacecraft at escape velocity and by doing so, it would eliminate the need of fuel to launch spacecraft into space. Such spacecraft would have to be unmanned as the acceleration of a railgun would be too much for people to withstand, they would be squashed like pancakes, but I see no reason why supplies couldn't be sent that way. So the idea is that spacecraft containing supplies could be launched into space and then retrieved by personnel on the ISS, Im wondering how that would work.

Not by conventional means but there are theoretical ways of breaking the lightspeed barrier, such as if you were somehow able to move space itself and "ride" it, much like a surfer riding a wave.

You could, but that wouldn't have the horsepower of a gasoline vehicle. Well modern cartridges are airtight so they don't get oxygen from the environment. Are you saying that modern gunpowder itself has oxygen in it?

To the best of my knowledge, conventional combustion requires oxygen. When you make a fire in the fireplace you need oxygen for it to burn. You need your fuel source which might be wood that you're burning in the fireplace, you need the energy to ignite it which can be produced by rubbing sticks together although in this day and age you would use matches or a lighter, and you need oxygen which on Earth is abundant enough in the environment. In a different environment without oxygen, such as on the moon, it would not work. You would not be able to start a fire in a fireplace on the moon unless you're able to provide the necessary oxygen somehow because on the moon there is no oxygen in the environment. Anyway I was thinking about how to produce tools that use fire or combustion that would be able to function in an environment that doesn't have oxygen such as the environment of the moon. I believe guns would work just as well on the moon or in the vacuum of space as they would on Earth because when the primer is struck it produces the necessary oxygen. A gun fires by the primer being struck by a hammer or pin which in turn ignites the propellant in the cartridge and as the propellant burns it creates the pressure that fires the bullet. Obviously the propellant needs oxygen to burn but the primer provides the necessary oxygen when it is struck. Cars however would not work on the moon. The way a car works is a spark is used to ignite the gasoline in the cylinder which burns and produces the pressure to push up the piston, the upward motion of the piston pushes a crankshaft which turns a series of gears which turns the wheels causing the car to go forward. For the gasoline to burn it needs oxygen which the car gets from the environment so you would need an environment that has oxygen for a car to work. So I was thinking about how to make a car you could drive on the moon or in an environment without oxygen, and how to make other stuff that works by combustion that can be used in environments without oxygen. It works with guns so it should work with other stuff.

So it sounds like what you're saying is that chaos cannot lead to order. That's what you seem to be saying to a certain extent when you talk about how heat is disordered and can't be re-ordered. The concept of entropy is associated with disorder, randomness, or uncertainty, in short, its associated with chaos. But chaos can lead to order, sometimes. There is the concept that if you have an infinite number of chimpanzees with an infinite number of typewriters there is a chance that one of them might write Shakespeare. If you randomly press keys on a keyboard there is a chance, however slim, that you could write the complete works of William Shakespeare. That would be an example of how chaos, pressing keys at random, can lead to order. That would work wonders for electric cars.

I believe heat is one of the greatest losses of kinetic energy. For instance, whenever energy is transferred some is lost in the form of heat. Take for instance when you fire a gun, when you pull the trigger it causes a hammer or pin to strike the primer which sets off the propellant. The propellant is the source of the gun's power. When the propellant is set off it burns and expands, releasing kinetic energy which forces the bullet out of the cartridge, down the barrel and out the muzzle. However, at the same time tremendous heat is produced which is why guns get hot when you fire them. Same thing with cars, a car works by the gasoline being ignited in the cylinder which in turn produces kinetic energy that forces up the piston which turns a series of gears which in turn causes the wheels to turn and the car to move forward. However, tremendous heat is being produced with that too which is why car engines get really hot when you run them and need cooling systems to keep from melting. Anyway, I was thinking if there was some way to recycle heat back into usable energy. Usually heat is a nuisance but I was thinking if there was a way to make it into something useful. Maybe turn it back into potential energy somehow.

When are we going to start using hall thrusters?

Im not having a difficult time.

Well then I would say it's a good thing we retired the shuttle. We're better off using rockets such as Atlas V that we used to get the Curiosity rover to Mars.

But we have built spacecraft that do achieve escape velocity. I don't see why the shuttle couldn't do that considering the fact it could reach altitudes where Earth's escape velocity is very low. As for leaving the moon, the moon's gravity is much weaker than Earth's so it would take far less fuel. And you could just put the shuttle in orbit around the moon and use a lander to get to the moon's surface the way they did with the Saturn V rockets.

All you have to do is build a spacecraft that can achieve escape velocity. Once you reach escape velocity you're guaranteed to not fall back to the Earth, regardless of the gravitational effect of other objects such as the moon. That's how probes such as Voyager work.

I know the space shuttle was retired in 2011 but could a space shuttle go to the moon? I know back when we did send people to the moon it was with the Saturn V rocket and from what I heard you need a powerful rocket such as the Saturn V to make it to the moon. But if a space shuttle can escape the Earth's gravity, which it obviously can, I see no reason why it couldn't make it to the moon.

The National Park Service does not send people into space, which can be very risky. If the space industry was run by private businesses they would be far less likely to take unnecessary risks that can result in people being killed, because they wouldn't want the backlash. Well a private corporation would be far more reluctant than a government organization to take unnecessary risks which would jeopardize people because they wouldn't want the backlash which would result in, if not the company going out of business at least the loss of lots of money, especially if they're competing with other private corporations. The company of Remington that makes guns, there was a time they were making faulty products that were unsafe, some of their guns would even fire without the trigger being pulled. To the best of my knowledge thankfully nobody was killed as a result but they did lose lots of business and as such they had to take certain actions such as firing some of their higher up managers. That's why a single company should not hold a monopoly in the space industry, there should be multiple companies just like it is with airlines.

If a disaster such as Challenger happened with a private company the backlash against the company would be so severe that it would go out of business. As such, a private company would not take such a risk. I know that today they are a government funded and government run organization just as they were back then.