Greetings, Earthlets!
Er - I mean fellow humans. Yeah, humans. That's what I meant. Okay, this is probably going to be a bit of a long Intro, so I'd better begin by explaining the title, as just whom amongst you is familiar with futurologist Gerry Anderson's Sixties classics is a moot point. What I'd like to get is a Mike Noble illustration, because his artwork was masterly in it's clean lines and attention to detail. Art!
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| A thing of beauty |
Yes indeed, except this was how the past saw the future of spacetravel. Our present has a different perspective, as exemplified in the suggestion from one Alberto Caballero, an amateur who has proposed marrying-up speculative technology into a spacecraft (can't really call it a 'ship') that will whiz it's merry way to Alpha Centauri at over one-fifth of the speed of light. Art! Picture!
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| "Solar One" |
Rather gauzier than XL5. I cannot find a decent picture of the whole thing, unless I pinch one from 'Popular Mechanics', as there don't appear to be any others lying around on teh Interwebz. Art, again!
Most of the acceleration would come through the use of a solar sail one mile square, so no thinking small here. This technology has already been designed, although nobody seems to have actually trialled it in orbit; NASA had a design called 'Sunjammer' after the Arthur C. Clarke short story, but chickened out of deploying it. So this part is feasible.
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| "Ten Years Before The M.A.S.T.*" |
Then there are the lasers ... These are again more conceptual than actual, although they are achievable. The idea is to have a laser barrage ahead of Solar One, vapourising any spatial debris that could damage the vessel, which would also be used as a braking mechanism once closing in on Alpha Centauri. Another battery of lasers at the rear (the stern?) would provide additional acceleration. Art!
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| Ha! Take that, rock! |
Finally, Arturo really eggs the pudding with the use of a Bussard ramscoop at the bow of Solar One, because not only have we never built one of these, we have no idea how to build one, or even if it's feasible. A ramscoop, the theory goes, uses electromagnetic fields to capture molecules in the vastness of space, and - well, scoop them up, using them as fuel. Quite how they become fuel is only vaguely addressed. Art!
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| Bussard ramscoop in artistically-rendered action |
Since the CFR is already providing energy, the ramscoop might be considered only an auxiliary. At any rate, building a functional one is a long way off.
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| Tourist's destination |
Will this vessel ever cross interplanetary space? Hmmm Conrad inclines to the sceptical. I am prepared to be proven wrong in the next 50 years, so get back to me if it happens.
From The Heavens To The Depths
Yes indeed, from touching starshine to guzzling wine. Conrad read, with some incredulity, an account of a Darwin Award winner wannabe, and even came up with a few poor-quality snaps of the event.
Okay, Gabriel was desperate for alcohol. DESPERATE. Whilst driving along in only his boxers, he passed a tanker carrying wine in bulk, and was stricken with wild inspiration. He put on his hazard flashers (a state he was not far from) and had the tanker pull over. Art!
The driver, who feared he had an undiagnosed mechanical problem, decided Gabriel's undiagnosed mental problem was best left to medical professionals and drove off. Gabriel was having none of this. Abandoning his car (DESPERATE, remember?) he jumped on the back of the tanker - Art!
- and then, still wearing only his underwear, clambered underneath the tanker, which was by then travelling at over fifty miles per hour. Art!
That's Gabe, disappearing under the tanker. He then unscrewed a valve beneath the tanker, which began shedding hundreds of gallons of wine, most of it going over the highway, with a portion of it being sluiced down by Gabe. The driver noticed he was losing his cargo (about a thousand gallons in all) and called the police, who found Gabe still alive and in one piece beneath the tanker. Bear in mind he was covered in wine, inebriated and underneath a vehicle that was doing fifty miles per hour in traffic and one can only wonder he managed to hang on at all.
Sorry, Gabe, wine not served in prison.
Back To The Heavens
Conrad, whom as you know likes to knock around odd bits of the internet, came across a blog last night that rejoiced in the name "Moon City Garbage Agency", whose rationale seems to be looking behind the scenes of film sets and film shooting. I came across it in an effort to find out more of the making of "The Longest Day", and there are a couple of items about Point Du Hoe and a beach scene. Nothing about the train wreck <sad face>. Here's the link if you care to examine for yourself -
http://www.moon-city-garbage.agency/
Beware! There's a lot of stuff there and it will eat up your evening if you are not wary. Art!
Finally -
Shall we pull up some nonsensical Heath Robinson inventions? Yes, yes we shall. Let us take a random example - Art!
This is actually a detail from a larger picture, which is supposed to illustrate how the modern family cope with crowded accommodation, which if Art will bestir himself -
You could get away with that in the Thirties. Health and Safety would never allow you nowadays <shakes fist at nanny-state>.
And do you know, with that we are done. Done!
* With apologies to Richard Henry Dana.
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