NASA: Aliens will attack because of global warming!!!!

[Xavier_Onassis]

The fantasy is the bizarre world in which morons like Bachmann, Palin and Perry could actually be talented leaders of this country.

I can't imagine that anyone in NASA has not thought about life on other planets. There are very few people who have not.
More so than most, people in NASA are aware of the huge distances between stars and planets in the universe and the unlikelihood that travel during a human lifetime will ever actually be possible.

I don't see where that is fantasy at all. I have heard the same thoughts from NASA and other scientists, and I am pretty sure that I am hardly the only one.

[Plane]

   There are a lot of diffrent rocket fuels, each with a diffrent caricteristic pollution level.

     Perhaps this is another reason to develop a space elevator as soon as possible.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Perhaps this is another reason to develop a space elevator as soon as possible.
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Before doing this, it needs to be proven that it is actually possible, I would think.

[Plane]

Perhaps this is another reason to develop a space elevator as soon as possible.
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Before doing this, it needs to be proven that it is actually possible, I would think.

   There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the theroy, but as yet there is no cable strong enough to support even its own weight over such a long distance.

     Everything elese seems to be simple to solve problems.

      Carbon tubes promise the potential for cable of monomolecular strength, now if only we can learn how to make them more than an inch long.

[kimba1]

We got along ways before the skyhook is a reality.

[Xavier_Onassis]

So it is a great idea, but sort of like making a jet engine out of cheese: there is nothing available to make it out of.

I would think that the weather and aircraft could present many problems as well. I am not against the idea, simply in favor of making sure it is possible before starting on it.

[kimba1]

it`s even in the bible and that didn`t end well.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Tower of Babel was a really bad idea.

The legend is based on the ziggurats built by people in Anatolia, which is a very bad place to build towers because of the earthquakes. Dubai, Taipei, and Kuala Lumpur have had no major problems with their tall buildings yet, and the Sears Tower is still standing as tall as ever. I don't think that Al Qaeda was acting on divine authority, but perhaps they did.

If reaching into the sky actually god God's drawers in a knot, then why didn't he smite Yuri Gagarin when he was floating about in orbit and said that he saw no God up there? It barely made the papers in the US.

[Plane]

So it is a great idea, but sort of like making a jet engine out of cheese: there is nothing available to make it out of.

I would think that the weather and aircraft could present many problems as well. I am not against the idea, simply in favor of making sure it is possible before starting on it.

Actually making a rocket motor out of cheese is pretty easy, and cheese would not be difficult to utilise as Jet fuel.

Rockets useing asphalt , balona , wood, plastic as fuel grain have been made to work.


Just how much structural strength can one find in cheese rind?

[Xavier_Onassis]

You could CARVE a jet motor out of cheese, of course, but to would not function for any length of time. Cheese dires out and shrinks with heat, and of course it melts and catches fire.

[Plane]

You could CARVE a jet motor out of cheese, of course, but to would not function for any length of time. Cheese dires out and shrinks with heat, and of course it melts and catches fire.

      It would be dead easy to build a jet that used cheese as fuel.

      Perhaps a ramjet could be built of cheese entirely , provided (as you point out ) that the duration of thrust need not be long.

[Amianthus]

You could CARVE a jet motor out of cheese, of course, but to would not function for any length of time. Cheese dires out and shrinks with heat, and of course it melts and catches fire.

Mythbusters made a rocket out of salami.

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/db/food/salami-rocket-fuel.html

[Henny]

I see where one of the authors does work for NASA, and i see where it was published in Acta Astronautica, but i don't see where NASA commissioned the work, so maybe the Guardian misled a bit. If so, my bad.

Quite right. One of the authors NASA as his professional affiliation, that is all. In the world of STM publishing (I work for the company that published this paper), affiliation to does not mean approved by.