Using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our Milky Way galaxy comprised of two enormous gamma-ray emitting bubbles. (Image courtesy of NASA)
Posted on 03/18/2012 7:30:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Actually the tech for a dyson swarm is easily within reach for us, all you need is machines that make more power capturing satelites to power the factories that build more more factories to make more power satelites. Several maufacturing bases on Mercury could eventually spread over the surface of mercury and then disassemble the whole planet Mercury to make such a swarm that would surround the sun and capture most all of the sun’s energy output.
Once we figure out automated space mining and fabrication it is pretty much a done deal.
Wouldn’t have to be a sphere. Could be a ring. A ring world. Course that would be unstable so you would need to place Bussard ramjets around the edge.
Dyson’s agenda was political (what a surprise) — the stated purpose for such a structure would be to use absolutely every bit of energy coming from the Sun.
No possible rationale is given for needing that amount of, well, lebensraum.
What it does is point to the need for higher-density forms of electricity generation.
When it gets to the point (thousands of years?) where the price of energy can be expected to rise and bring about social collapse (not the artificial rise being engineered by Zero and his Saudi masters) the construction of huge-ass photovoltaic arrays in space — and the needed infrastructure to deliver the electricity to our surface — will have been around a while.
I would rather have a Dyson Swarm of O’Neil Type Space colonies, protects you from a single point of failure....
Of course if ZPE was ever easily realized then gathering energy from stars would be passe, and you could have giant colonies built inthe interstellar medium and ort clouds that would be “silent running” type colonies as added protection against any alien attackers...
One of my favorites. I saw it cold — I hadn’t seen the preview, and was practically jumping up and down. Easily my favorite appearance of one of TOS actors in TNG.
(nerd alert! nerd alert!)
Mine as well ... as a former engineer, I always liked the Scotty character.
The bootstrapping needed to construct things of huge size (including colonization ships ;’) is itself something we may be able to do now. Best thing to do at first is to mine for gold and silver and such, in order to get the fiat money complainers aboard. :’) One machine built on the surface would be launched to an asteroid and process it into materials; a second machine built here would be launched to the same area and buiild the processed materials into more pairs of machines.
And a third machine would use the slag and tailings to extrude a mineral foam for use as both planetary shielding (from impacts and such) and the shells of other eventual space structures.
The only problem I see with humans living in space is, no water cooler discussions in the mornings.
Micrograv, so no water cooler.
No axis of rotation, so no morning.
SCOTT’S VOICE Shunt the deuterium from the main cryo pump to the auxiliary tank.
GEORDI’S VOICE The tank can’t handle that much pressure.
Scott pokes his head out for a moment.
SCOTT Where’d you get that idea?
Geordi looks out at him.
GEORDI It’s in the impulse engine specifications.
SCOTT Regulation forty-two slash fifteen... “Pressure Variances in IRC Tank Storage”?
GEORDI Right.
SCOTT Forget it. I wrote it.
Scott puts his head back in the console.
SCOTT A good engineer is always a wee bit conservative... at least on paper. Just by-pass the secondary cut-off valve and boost the flow... it’ll work.
Here’s a defense:
http://www.monroeworld.com/forums/showthread.php?271-Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-lost-script
Genesis 11:6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
I take that verse literally.
Using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our Milky Way galaxy comprised of two enormous gamma-ray emitting bubbles. (Image courtesy of NASA)
It was a man who worked for the British Post Office that created that first digital computer.
Tommy Flowers
Tommy Flowers' work was unsung due to the secrecy surrounding it. He designed and created the first electronic binary digital computer for Bletchley Park. Bletchley was the center for allied cryptography in WW2. He was assisted in it's design by Alan Turing, Turing was quite possibly the greatest mind of the 20th century.
The digital computer is not simply a box that sits on your desk and lets you surf the web and play video games. It is the ultimate tool, it amplifies the human mind and body. It will soon allow total manipulation at the atomic level (nanotechnology) and at the macro scale via automatons controlled by computers at our direction.
The nano scale abilities will deliver to us physical immortality. The macro scale abilities will deliver to us the control of everything you can see, the Earth, the Solar system...eventually the entire galaxy and beyond.
Once you control both the micro and macro world there simply is no limit.
This is why things such as Dyson Spheres are possible.
I’d hate to pay the taxes to not build a solar wind turbine to power an electric sun.
I loved that line!
One thing I wished they'd done in the script is somehow leave Geordi alone in dire straits on the Jenolen, so he could have called back to the Transporter Room & said- "Beam me up, Scotty!"
The Colossus
Be back later ...I don't understand bubbles....especially early on a Sunday morning.
But where would we find all this material??
Oh yeah . . . .
Chances are most civilizations veer to the right. To choose the left requires a willingness to let go of national boundaries and idealistic dogma.
That reminds me of being in school watching those old reel-to-reel movies.
I forget where I read it, but it was a sci-fi conceit that many of the red giants are actually much brighter stars seen through dyson spheres. I guess you could say the same for red dwarfs, that they are even more common than we think, and explain all the theorized extra mass the the universe is supposed to have by saying it is in red dwarf dyson spheres that we can’t see.
Freegards
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