tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post1781023163458978712..comments2024-03-28T20:47:24.292-05:00Comments on Althouse: "We’re there and Philae is talking to us. We are on the comet."Ann Althousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-53461740341967886522014-11-13T08:44:18.294-06:002014-11-13T08:44:18.294-06:00Michael - I don't understand where people will...Michael - I don't understand where people will live. Will there be an atmosphere down on the comet surface?Original Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714345479248980398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-40554838392055421422014-11-13T06:13:20.689-06:002014-11-13T06:13:20.689-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Michael McNeilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14079419067976326138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-64678378302064612772014-11-13T06:13:19.651-06:002014-11-13T06:13:19.651-06:00The World, The Flesh, and the Devil
by Freeman J. ...The World, The Flesh, and the Devil<br />by Freeman J. Dyson<br /><br />Freeman J. Dyson <br />Institute for Advanced Study <br />Princeton, New Jersey<br /><br />IV. Big TreesMichael McNeilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14079419067976326138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-19112847480455180772014-11-13T05:54:52.047-06:002014-11-13T05:54:52.047-06:00Big Trees (continued)
To make a tree grow in airl...Big Trees (continued)<br /><br />To make a tree grow in airless space by the light of a distant sun is basically a problem of redesigning the skin of its leaves. In every organism the skin is the crucial part which must be most delicately tailored to the demands of the environment. The skin of a leaf in space must satisfy four requirements. It must be opaque to far-ultraviolet radiation to protect the vital tissues from radiation damage. It must be impervious to water. It must transmit visible light to the organs of photosynthesis. It must have extremely low emissivity for far-infrared radiation, so that it can limit loss of heat and keep itself from freezing. A tree whose leaves possess such a skin should be able to take root and flourish upon any comet as near to the sun as the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. Farther out than Saturn the sunlight is too feeble to keep a simple leaf warm, but trees can grow at far greater distances if they provide themselves with compound leaves. A compound leaf would consist of a photosynthetic part which is able to keep itself warm, together with a concave mirror part which itself remains cold but focuses concentrated sunlight upon the photosynthetic part. It should be possible to program the genetic instructions of a tree to produce such leaves and orient them correctly toward the sun. Many existing plants possess structures more complicated than this.<br /><br />Once leaves can be made to function in space, the remaining parts of a tree — trunk, branches, and roots — do not present any great problems. The branches must not freeze, and therefore the bark must be a superior heat insulator. The roots will penetrate and gradually melt the frozen interior of the comet, and the tree will build its substance from the materials that the roots find there. The oxygen which the leaves manufacture must not be exhaled into space; instead it will be transported down to the roots and released into the regions where men will live and take their ease among the tree trunks. One question still remains. How high can a tree on a comet grow? The answer is surprising. On any celestial body whose diameter is of the order of ten miles or less, the force of gravity is so weak that a tree can grow infinitely high. Ordinary wood is strong enough to lift its own weight to an arbitrary distance from the center of gravity. This means that from a comet of ten-mile diameter, trees can grow out for hundreds of miles, collecting the energy of sunlight from an area thousands of times as large as the area of the comet itself. Seen from far away, the comet will look like a small potato sprouting an immense growth of stems and foliage. When man comes to live on the comets, he will find himself returning to the arboreal existence of his ancestors.<br /><br />We shall bring to the comets not only trees but a great variety of other flora and fauna to create for ourselves an environment as beautiful as ever existed on Earth. Perhaps we shall teach our plants to make seeds which will sail out across the ocean of space to propagate life upon comets still unvisited by man. Perhaps we shall start a wave of life which will spread from comet to comet without end until we have achieved the greening of the Galaxy. That may be an end or a beginning, as Bernal said, but from here it is out of sight.Michael McNeilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14079419067976326138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-23708363857907040752014-11-13T05:50:14.792-06:002014-11-13T05:50:14.792-06:00Physicist Freeman Dyson:
Big Trees
I have spoken...Physicist Freeman Dyson:<br /><br />Big Trees<br /><br />I have spoken about the two first steps of biological engineering. The first will transform our industry and the second will transform our earth-bound ecology. It is now time to speak of the third step, which is the colonization of space. I believe in fact that biological engineering is the essential tool which will make Bernal's dream of the expansion of mankind in space a practical possibility.<br /><br />First I have to clear away a few popular misconceptions about space as a habitat. It is generally considered that planets are important. Except for Earth, they are not. Mars is waterless, and the others are for various reasons basically inhospitable to man. It is generally considered that beyond the sun's family of planets there is absolute emptiness extending for light years until you come to another star. In fact it is likely that space around the solar system is populated by huge numbers of comets, small worlds a few miles in diameter, rich in water and the other chemicals essential to life. We see one of these comets only when it happens to suffer a random perturbation of its orbit which sends it plunging close to the sun. It seems that roughly one comet per year is captured into the region near the sun, where it eventually evaporates and disintegrates. If we assume that the supply of distant comets is sufficient to sustain this process over the thousands of millions of years that the solar system has existed, then the total population of comets loosely attached to the sun must be numbered in the thousands of millions. The combined surface area of these comets is then a thousand or ten thousand times that of Earth. I conclude from these facts that comets, not planets, are the major potential habitat of life in space. If it were true that other stars have as many comets as the sun, it then would follow that comets pervade our entire Galaxy. We have no evidence either supporting or contradicting this hypothesis. If true, it implies that our Galaxy is a much friendlier place for interstellar travelers than it is popularly supposed to be. The average distance between habitable oases in the desert of space is not measured in light years, but is of the order of a light day or less.<br /><br />I propose to you then an optimistic view of the Galaxy an an abode of life. Countless millions of comets are out there, amply supplied with water, carbon, and nitrogen, the basic constituents of living cells. We see when they fall close to the sun that they contain all the common elements necessary to our existence. They lack only two essential requirements for human settlement, namely warmth and air. And now biological engineering will come to our rescue. We shall learn how to grow trees on comets.Michael McNeilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14079419067976326138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-80791623309339017762014-11-12T22:22:51.115-06:002014-11-12T22:22:51.115-06:00Absolutely awesome feat, even if it was more of a ...Absolutely awesome feat, even if it was more of a docking than a landing.richard mcenroehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659450906647134430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-4025405179402070952014-11-12T20:37:25.216-06:002014-11-12T20:37:25.216-06:00It is a sad fact that an entire 50% of Americans a...It is a sad fact that an entire 50% of Americans are dumber than average.themightypuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03288837159628526731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-52916561928126073202014-11-12T18:52:06.093-06:002014-11-12T18:52:06.093-06:00I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I misspelled t...<a href="http://thehal9000.com/" rel="nofollow">I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I misspelled that.</a>NotWhoIUsedtoBehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14568355742926021406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-76471997512559005532014-11-12T17:41:09.918-06:002014-11-12T17:41:09.918-06:00Dave = David
Sorry.Dave = David<br />Sorry.Original Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714345479248980398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-14927151243659843972014-11-12T17:34:13.743-06:002014-11-12T17:34:13.743-06:00No problem, Dave. At the risk of offending, which...No problem, Dave. At the risk of offending, which I don't mean to do, rhhardin was referring to the <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter" rel="nofollow"> Mars Climate Orbiter</a>. Not exactly our space program's finest hour.Original Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714345479248980398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-89268974587938147652014-11-12T16:50:25.376-06:002014-11-12T16:50:25.376-06:00Original Mike said...
"Watts" wasn't...<i>Original Mike said...<br />"Watts" wasn't enough for you, David? I needed a sarcasm tag too?</i><br /><br />Totally missed it Mike. I would not be the guy to calculate the landing vectors it seems.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17424384180201600935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-83494950628278904922014-11-12T16:32:16.870-06:002014-11-12T16:32:16.870-06:00Dropping a washing machine onto a 2.5 mile wide bl...Dropping a washing machine onto a 2.5 mile wide blob travelling faster than the speed limit is an amazing piece of work. Also, the pics of the blob look like the beginnings of a clay sculpture, pre-potter's wheel, which lends all sortsa Biblical tinges to it visually/metaphorically.Frothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12298053347029821581noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-68807089900540913552014-11-12T16:31:44.499-06:002014-11-12T16:31:44.499-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Rustyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938263272237104128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-32672877627657026602014-11-12T16:31:43.654-06:002014-11-12T16:31:43.654-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Rustyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938263272237104128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-86903349908313256562014-11-12T16:31:42.562-06:002014-11-12T16:31:42.562-06:00They use newton/meters.
And this achievement liter...They use newton/meters.<br />And this achievement literally is like hitting a bullet with another bullet. Consider that the lag time is about an hour so the probe was on the asteroid an hour before the information was transmitted back to earth.<br />The programmers deserve a lot of credit.<br />Rustyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938263272237104128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-80951337946172567932014-11-12T15:30:38.860-06:002014-11-12T15:30:38.860-06:00Watts a matta you?Watts a matta you?Wincehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15002449963597087316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-86178163634190730722014-11-12T14:02:24.830-06:002014-11-12T14:02:24.830-06:00OMG, if those Europeans wannabees did it first, th...OMG, if those Europeans wannabees did it first, that makes it into a space race for National pride.<br /><br />I declare a Comet Landing Gap. Crank up Cape Kennedy and the Space Coast. Which makes a little more sense than Bullet Trains to nowhere...but not much.<br /><br />But it is reassuring to hear that the mathematics of the Newtonian physics behind space travel is still a real science somewhere. traditionalguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05706120413005530014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-58533525956312443582014-11-12T13:45:10.180-06:002014-11-12T13:45:10.180-06:00oot-pound? Watts a foot-pound?
The amount of ener...<i>oot-pound? Watts a foot-pound?<br /><br />The amount of energy required to raise one pound a distance of one foot on earth. Not a constant number everywhere but variable depending on gravity.</i><br /><br />Hahaha....talk about entirely missing the joke...<br /><br />It was an amazing achievement, and it was made even more amazing by the fact that the Europeans did it, not the Americans.<br /><br />- Krumhorn<br />Krumhornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06328726862341428372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-11458177206057503182014-11-12T13:13:59.041-06:002014-11-12T13:13:59.041-06:00A wonderful achievement. Now that we know how to l...A wonderful achievement. Now that we know how to land on them, let's figure out a way to deflect them, if the need arises. There's an awful lot of dangerous crap zooming around in the "emptiness" of space. Chef Mojohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10981901090530845072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-5308654998421026522014-11-12T13:04:58.608-06:002014-11-12T13:04:58.608-06:00Any aliens we discover are going to encounter robo...Any aliens we discover are going to encounter robots. Maybe they'll mistake them for us. Maybe they will be us.NotWhoIUsedtoBehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14568355742926021406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-29676781437207092872014-11-12T12:35:25.753-06:002014-11-12T12:35:25.753-06:00I'm guessing they didn't find a UFO flying...I'm guessing they didn't find a UFO flying behind the comet.madAsHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01149940549262340795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-46225855413074715452014-11-12T12:31:31.302-06:002014-11-12T12:31:31.302-06:00"Watts" wasn't enough for you, David..."Watts" wasn't enough for you, David? I needed a sarcasm tag too?Original Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714345479248980398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-85994311288306395432014-11-12T12:17:06.077-06:002014-11-12T12:17:06.077-06:00How come nearly every pic I see about this actuall...How come nearly every pic I see about this actually has the lander in the shot? Are there two landers?<br /><br />Seriously though, there are so many "artists renderings" and mock-ups out there it's difficult to tell what's real and what isn't. Kind of takes away a bit from the excitement.<br /><br />Eagerly awaiting some awesome pics...SteveBrooklineMAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07432255550398175509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-16847200283474040662014-11-12T12:16:14.588-06:002014-11-12T12:16:14.588-06:00Foot-pound? Watts a foot-pound?
The amount of ene...Foot-pound? Watts a foot-pound?<br /><br />The amount of energy required to raise one pound a distance of one foot on earth. Not a constant number everywhere but variable depending on gravity.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17424384180201600935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1821316924629708902014-11-12T12:13:14.297-06:002014-11-12T12:13:14.297-06:00Uh oh. Harpoon defect. Where is Ahab when you need...Uh oh. Harpoon defect. Where is Ahab when you need him?Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17424384180201600935noreply@blogger.com