Category: random ideas

The idea of putting solar power stations in space and beaming the energy to earth in the form of microwaves is not a new one. However, the notion of steering hurricanes with microwaves is relatively new. Heating the clouds at the right place and the right time, theoretically, could alter the trajectory or strength of the storm.

Of course, this thing could be a weapon. Imagine a story set in the future where some terrorist gets control of the microwave satellite and uses it to pump up a satellite and aim it at Florida.

One of the other effects of putting microwaves to sea water, however, is that it potentially can cause it to burn. I don’t know if this would be too helpful for steering or building the strength of the storm, but it would be a cool special effect to add to the mix and build tension as the storm comes in closer.

The story could have two threads, one which followed a miraculous survival of several people on earth, the other could follow the efforts of the government to stop the terrorists without losing the solar station. In the end, a code is used to release a biological experiment being conducted on the station. It kills the terrorist and her group, giving the ending a little reminiscent of “War of the Worlds.”

I’m almost tempted to cast Elizabeth Hurley as one of the terrorists so that she can reprise her role as the Devil and create “Hell on Earth.”

Whenever a sci fi writer sits down to write a space opera, he/she must decide what mode of space travel to use. Can our ships travel faster than light? If not, how do we deal with the vast distances that must be traveled?

Star Wars introduced the idea of setting a story “a long time ago in a galaxy far away…”. Why not place the story in a globular cluster, a dense spherical collection of stars that orbits the galactic core? Stars could conceivably be on the order of 0.01 light years apart in this setting, much closer than the stars in our neighborhood.

I had hoped that the densely packed stars would provide enough energy to let the sail accelerate for the whole journey between suns. Unfortunately, my calculations show there just is not enough light in the regions between stars to really matter. A beautiful idea killed by an ugly fact!

However, a set of satelites equipped with mirrors and/or lasers could be placed at each star supplying the necessary force for acceleration or deceleration. If I did my calculations correctly, one could build a ship with a mass of 50 metric tons (just for reference, the Starship Enterprise was 190,000 metric tons), solar sails with an area of 100 km^2 (the sail mass would be another 10 metric tons if we suppose advanced materials with .1 g/m^2), and an energy flux about 140 mega watt / m^2 (that’s about 100,000 times larger than the flux of light from the sun to the earth).

The journey would start with an 8 grav acceleration. That might be a little rough, but perhaps the people who live in this globular cluster are hardy specimens. They should eventually reach a terminal speed of 1% the speed of light. This would allow transit between nearest stars on the order of one year (!), but the trip would be fraught with peril. What if the other end does not start firing its laser on time or on target? You might not be able to stop. If you want to play it safe, you send a signal to your destination and wait for a response. (Of course, I am not even mentioning the possibility of running into something at speed)

If you wanted to fight an interstellar war, attacking a system you did not control might be very difficult. You might have to make do with a drive-by shooting. You’d have to be careful, the enemy would be likely to dump small rocks along your approach path, so you might have to settle for a distant trajectory. Could you still make your targets then? Certainly not that hard if you are accustomed to shooting womp rats from a rickety desert speeder.

The new Dr. Who series that the BBC has created is probably one of the greatest Sci-Fi series of all time. And I’m glad to see that the Master has finally returned. It will be interesting to see whether they add the kind of depth to his character that they added to the character of the Dr. himself.

What motivates the Master? Why is he the way he is? My wife and I have believed, since I was in grad school, that it was jealousy.

When I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois, you had to take and pass a qualifying exam before you would be permitted to go ahead and get your doctorate. By the time you had taken your last shot at the test, you had already invested about two years in graduate study. It would be cruel to send a student away with nothing at that point, so the U of I gave you the option of taking a master’s degree and leaving. So it seems logical to conclude that the Doctor passed his test — but the Master, well he just left with his Master’s degree.

It was just bound to make him jealous, angry and vengeful.

I hear about 9/11 conspiracy theories often, especially the claim that the towers fell at free-fall speed. The conspiricists suggest that they were brought down by demolition charges. Of all the various claims, this made the least sense to me. It is reminiscent of Elmer Fudd’s “I know how to get rid of this rabbit and make it look like an accident.” Anyhow, I finally got around to doing some google searching, and some reading, and I thought I’d share the results.

1. Popular Mechanics :: This one doesn’t explain the free-fall claim, it does address a number of others. Perhaps not as in depth as one would like. It does talk about why tower seven collapsed.
2. Debunking 9/11 :: Unsurprisingly, there are sites dedicated to debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. This one explained the free-fall problem by demonstrating that the measurement of when the fall was over was done improperly. A little error of forty stories!
3. Journal of Debunking 9/11 :: While I had guessed there were websites dedicated to debunking 9/11, I had not imagined that it could support a regular publication. Perhaps, however, this is more of an e-zine or a blog.
4. A Collection of Debunking sites :: In case the above is not enough for you all.

Of course, there are the debunking the debunking sites. 🙂 I sense an infinite loop in the process of growing…