The Mad Scientists Thread Of Things To Make And Do

zachtheterrible · Nov 14, 2004

the obvious problem w/ microwave guns is that their directivity isn't too great. you knock out your target and the poor pedestrian's digital watch dies, his cell phone dies, and his CD player dies. have they overcome this?

tansis · Nov 14, 2004

With a narrow enough appature, fired from close range
the beam footprint should not spread to far. As for the
grumbling of bystanders as nearby equipment gets struck
and fizzes into oblivion,the cost of replacing such devices is minor compared to the damage that can result by chasing down a speeding motorist.

One safety item that springs to mind is that of heart pacemakers
some studies will have to be done in this area.

Traffic control lights/ systems may well have to be
hardend against EM radiation as a precaution as well

zachtheterrible · Nov 15, 2004

yeah, pacemakers. now THATs a problem :evil: . or the cops could just wait till they get someone out into a deserted area, but of course criminals would learn and stay in populated areas. and its impossible to down the power from what i understand in microwaves. if there's not enuf power the magnetron (did i say tha right?) will not resonate. yikes!!

I heard of a little remote control car that could be launched from a cop's car that has a huge capacitor bank and an antenna. when the antenna touches the car, ZAP. i gues that a spark would have to jump from the car to ground in order to make a complete path.

tansis · Nov 15, 2004

Such a "land torpedo" may prove to be more
of a road hazzard than the speeding criminal.
Must admit though, I like the idea

tansis · Nov 18, 2004

Brain Implants For Beginners - An Introduction

zachtheterrible · Nov 18, 2004

ya know, me being into electronics, i'd take that out of my head and put it in my parent's. :twisted:

mom, i need $1000.

yes son

bmcculla · Nov 19, 2004

One of the crazier energy weapons proposed during the years of the Stratigic Defense Initiative or "starwars" program was the X-Ray laser.

Laser require an energy source to excite the lasing medium. Diode lasers use current, and Flash lamps are fairly common for excitation in other lasers. The X ray laser takes things a little further using a nuclear weapon as the excitation source. Needless to say the thing would be a one use device. A bunch of laser rods would surround a nuclear device. The thing would be launched high in to the atmosphear and each rod would target a different incomming missile. The nuclear device would go off and shortly before the whole thing became a cloud of radioactive gas, a high intensity xray beam would be amplified and focused through each of the rods.

Thankfully the thing was never put into service - exploding several hundred nuclear devices in the upper atmosphear as a defense mechanism has numerous unfortunate drawbacks, most importantly that the resulting radiative materals released would iradiate most of the planet.

zachtheterrible · Nov 19, 2004

kind o stupid if u ask me. destruct millions of dollars 2 shoot a laser.

for that kind of money y didnt they just develop a reusable 1 powered by solar??

bmcculla · Nov 22, 2004

Its Kinda hard to beat the energy pulse coming off of a nuclear explosion. The nuclear explosion also creates super high energy radiation like Gamma and X-rays that are tough to create. With a laser you don't just need to create the energy, you also need to be able to deliver a ton of energy all at once. This is very difficult to do and is why laser weapons are so hard to make. A conventional laser that generated the same energy level (if it is posible with current technology) would be HUGE and therefore hard to get into space. There was a famous speech by someone from MIT in which he joked that by the time you had a laser of sufficient power to actually damage a target you could do significatly more damage by just dropping it on them.

Nigel Goodwin · Nov 22, 2004

I suggest you might like to read the book 'Footfall' by 'Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle' - they use the X-ray laser, and launch a space craft with nuclear bombs - both ideas based in previous military thinking on SDI.

zevon8 · Nov 22, 2004

bmcculla said:
There was a famous speech by someone from MIT in which he joked that by the time you had a laser of sufficient power to actually damage a target you could do significatly more damage by just dropping it on them.

Reminds me of the joke about 2 weapon testing engineers watching the colossal explosion from their latest design....

"...oooohhh.... that was a good one, we should have saved that one....."

sorry, off topic

tansis · Nov 22, 2004

Thankfully the idea of using a nuclear bomb(s) to launch payloads into space and further afield never got very far. Though trials with scale models using conventional explosives looked promising -
known as "Project Orion".
https://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/OrionProj.html

zachtheterrible · Nov 22, 2004

Taylor originally proposed that the vehicle be launched from the ground, probably from the nuclear test site at Jackass Flats, Nevada

and now for a bit of juvenile humor: jackass flats . . .haa haa

bak 2 the nuclear powered laser, ya no wut would really bite, is if ya miss :lol:

tansis · Nov 25, 2004

zachtheterrible said:
kind o stupid if u ask me. destruct millions of dollars 2 shoot a laser.

for that kind of money y didnt they just develop a reusable 1 powered by solar??

Not as daft as it sounds..

Some years ago the idea of generating electrical power in space and beaming it to Earth using microwaves was proposed.
Not only is the science good, but even the accountants were happy with the long term financial returns.

PS:
The upcoming posts entitled "Brain Implants For Beginners" has not been forgotten..but looks likely to end up as a download document.

zachtheterrible · Nov 28, 2004

Some years ago the idea of generating electrical power in space and beaming it to Earth using microwaves was proposed.
Not only is the science good, but even the accountants were happy with the long term financial returns.

cool, not only would it produce power, but just stick the turkey outside and it will cook, even @ night :lol:

seriously, ive been taught to fear microwaves that aren't inside a microwave. n microwaves capable of producing enuf power to light cities would be perdy intense eh?

tansis · Nov 28, 2004

ive been taught to fear microwaves that aren't inside a microwave. n microwaves capable of producing enuf power to light cities would be perdy intense eh?

Taught with good reason, but don't get too paranoid. Microwaves and other high energy RF sources are often to be found "outside the box"

The beam would be so low in density that it wouldn't even feel warm if you happened to walk through it. Little worse than having a cell-phone to your ear / sitting next to a WiFi transponder.

Of course the Solar Power Satellite could be hijacked and the beam safeties overidden , then things could be really made to cook. Probably why this great idea has yet to be put into practice...though I hear the Japanese are keen on the idea

zachtheterrible · Nov 28, 2004

how can such a low density beam carry so much energy? :?

tansis · Nov 28, 2004

One could liken it to collecting raindrops.. each one on its own has negligable energy, yet gather enough and you can make a river.

The rectenna (rectifying antenna) array would be an ellipse 10 x 13 kilometers (6 x 8 miles) in size. It could be designed to let light through, so that crops, or even solar panels, could be placed underneath it

The peak intensity of the microwave beam would be 23 milliwatts per square centimeter (148 milliwatts per square inch). The US standard for industrial exposure to microwaves is 10 milliwatts per square centimeter, while up to 5 milliwatts per square centimeter are allowed to leak from microwave ovens. US standards are based on heating effects. Stricter standards are in effect in some countries. So far, no non-thermal health effects of low-level microwave exposure have been proven, although the issue remains controversial. Nevertheless, even the peak of the beam is not exactly a death ray. Underneath the rectenna, microwave levels are practically nil.

zachtheterrible · Nov 28, 2004

oh, 10x13 kilometers. i was thinkin somethin like a couple hundred meters. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

how much energy could this thing provide?

tansis · Nov 28, 2004

:lol: one of the hazzards with any project in space
the numbers get very big awfully quickly!!!

The short answer is that such a network of orbital power stations
could provide all the electrical power for the planet in theory at least.

for a bit of fun , why not do the math... how big a solar panel array would you need , in order to provide 2KW at 120 [usa] or 230[uk] volts AC?

Two schools of thought exist
a: large and simple using conventional solar cell arrays
b: small and complex that use solar furnaces with turbines

Advantages and drawbacks with either and both will require more than a couple of US shuttle flights per year just for maintenance, yet there is hope.. all the materials can be found on the moon. Lunar production of hardware could slash the cost by some 80%

In terms of payload to Earth orbit , either launched directley from Earth or from Lunar outposts ..we are talking THOUSANDS of tons. The shuttle or Ariane capability is around what .. 25-30 tons a launch

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