Yes, the sensors on Clementine that suggested the existence of water on
the south pole of the moon in a crater that was in perpetual darkness,
saw what they saw by starlight from a hundred or more miles up. pretty
good sensors...
>
> >I don't care, because all that really matters to me is the crater size and
> >James figures seemed to scale to roughly the same values as on Earth. The
> >only disadvantage is that I'd have a harder time destroying your
> >mass-driver. *However* just think what my EMP will do to your
> >multi-kilometer long string of superconducting coils? I may not even need
> >to hit it to destroy it. James?
>
> I am not aware of any EMP studies on superconductors. Obviously, they could
> handle EMP up to a certain point without a problem due to their
> superconducting nature, but superconductors do have flux load limits. They
> would certainly offer more protection than ordinary conductors, especially
> if you are using the supercooled ceramic type superconductors. My
> (unqualified) theory is that when you have a flux overload, the
> superconductor would start to heat up. At a certain temperature point, it
> would resume an entirely ceramic nature, which would then be unaffected by
> EMP. If this was the case, EMP might be more of a nuisance than a threat.
> But I am not qualified to make any kind of definitive judgement on this.
>
> -James Rogers
> jamesr@best.com
Thanks James. Neither am I, and maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that
superconductors are unaffected by magnetic fields? In any event, even if
it suffered from flux overload, it would simply put the gun out of
action for a minute at most. As superconductors also conduct heat
extremely efficiently, from what I've read, then the coils would cool
pretty quickly. Even if I'm wrong about the temp conduction thing, it
would still cool down pretty soon and be operable again.
James Wrote:
> At 06:24 PM 1/13/97 +0000, Mark Grant wrote:
> >
> >Hmm, isn't that about the same figure that I gave, if you scale it for 1MT
> >rather than 10MT? That is, 500 - 1000 x 10^(1/3) ~= 1200 - 2400. AFAIR I
> >said 1500 for 10 MT, and actually that was diameter rather than radius so
> >your figure would be larger.
> >
>
>
> After doing additional research, I may have to modify my above stated
> figures a little bit. The 500-1000 meter range for a 1-Mt lunar surface
> burst was extrapolated from nuclear data for surface bursts on earth
> (obviously, since there have never been lunar nuclear tests). The problem
> is that it was difficult to remove atmospheric related cratering effects
> from blast and ground shock related effects, since my engineering books
> always assume that the blast occurs on earth.
>
> It occurred to me that studying *underground* nuclear tests, I could get
> information on nuclear explosions in an environment where atmospheric
> factors are not involved. Unfortunately, nobody publishes underground
> nuclear test data. What I was able to do, however, was get information on
> yield and crater dimensions after the underground chamber collapsed for a
> couple underground tests. There are standard civil engineering equations
> that allowed me to reconstruct the underground blast damage effects based on
> crater dimension and shape. Based on this data, I constructed a new set of
> data for lunar explosions based on underground nuclear tests. I think this
> data may be more accurate, since it only reflects ground shock related damage.
>
> I based my results on a 10-Mt lunar surface burst, since this seems to be
> the "standard" baseline for argumentative purposes.
>
> For a lunar 10-Mt yield, distance from ground zero:
>
> 0-500 meters :you are screwed
> 500-800 meters :hardened shelter required
> >800 meters :standard lunar structure should survive
>
>
> These figures assume that underground nuclear tests are reasonably accurate
> models for calculation of lunar nuclear effects.
I think that they may still be optimistic. Vacuum and hard space
radiation have a particularly insidious capability to sinter materials
together over time, so lunar ground is much more solid than even desert
scrublands. Also, what did you do to account for energy in the blast
reflected back to space? I would be interested in learning your
equations/calculations/methodology for coming to these conclusion....
Even though I still love em. i'm just curious....
General Grant, I will respectfully accept your surrender when you have
finally come to your senses..... he he....
-- TANSTAAFL!!!Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ President retroman@tpk.net Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com
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