<br />I did some simple calculations for the speed Rama is traveling at, there is no way, with anything on the board right now we could catch this thing. We might be able to do a Deep Impact bug on the windshield type mission, if we had something sitting on the pad, but not much else.<br /><br />In miles per hour<br /><br />5,865,696,000,000 – Speed of light<br /><br />293,284,800,000 - .05% of speed of light per year<br /><br />803,520,000 - per day<br /><br />33,480,000 – per hour<br /><br />558,000 - per minute<br /><br />9,300 – per second <br /><br />Pluto’s average distance from Earth – 3,534,000,000<br /><br />It would travel from Pluto to Earth in about 4 days & 4 hours<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>
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Detecting Rama shouldn't be much of a problem, once it gets close enough. It's very big, bigger than all but the biggest asteroids, and probably quite reflective. I think we have enough telescopes facing all over the place that somebody ought to pick it up before it was through the Sun and back out of the Solar System.<br /><br />Catching it is quite a different matter. We just plain don't have any ships capable of 0.05 C. Like Boris1961 says, the best we could do is a Deep Impact sort of mission...and at 0.05 C we'd have to be careful we didn't blow Rama up with too big a probe. 
<div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>________________</p><p>Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming!</p> </div>
<div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>________________</p><p>Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming!</p> </div>A nuclear impulse Orion craft could conceivably catch a Rama type object at up to 5% C (might spring for a few more percent if a more advanced segmental pusher plate, finely graduated nuke yield type Orion design was used).<br /><br />There would be several caveats, though.<br /><br />Rama would have to be detected very far away (up to 30 years out, over a light year!) and the Orion craft would need to be nearly ready for launch at the moment Rama was detected. (Some estimates for building an Orion craft in this size and performance range might be 2 to several centuries.)<br /><br />The trajectory of Rama post solar system encounter would need to be known to high accuracy.<br /><br />The Orion interceptor would need to match position with Rama just as it achieves matching velocity too. The performance of the Orion craft may not be sufficient to engage in a 'stern chase' and have sufficient delta vee to decelerate upon catching up with Rama.<br /><br />We need to know before hand that a craft detonating millions of nuclear weapons on approach to Rama will not be viewed as a threat.<br /><br />Probably do not want too much bomb efflux impinging on Rama prior to contact, irradiating the thing would make exploring it more difficult.<br /><br />Everyone on the Orion craft had better assume they are on a one way mission.<br /><br />The crew also needs to appreciate that their intercept trajectory is going to take 20 to 30 years flight time.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>
Even if we couldn't catch it, just by showing up, it would give a great boon to the space agencies, I would think. So, at least some good would come from it.<br /><br />Rae
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>willpittenger said;<br /><br />Actually, there is a problem with using Anti-matter reactors to throw stuff out the back end like chemical rockets do. The reactions caused by anti-matter leave nothing behind to throw out -- except radiation.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>Not exactly so. <br /><br />Electron/positron reactions do convert 100% to low energy gamma photons at 511,000 electron volts. Not too useful for thrust since they're produced omnidirectionally.<br /><br />It's different with heavier particles like protons and antiprotons. They decay into gamma rays and a spray of secondary particles that eventually decay into neutrinos and low energy gamma photons.<br /><br />About 50% is eventually emitted as neutrinos. Being virtually massless and very weakly interactive with other particles they are essentially useless.<br /><br />The gamma rays would likely be produced omnidirectionally and therefore serve no purpose, unless you had an advanced 'gamma photocell' to generate electricity from them <b>and/or</b> some means of absorbing them and using the resultant heat. <br /><br />That said; the charged particle spray from a proton/antiproton annihilation could well provide propulsion if you could direct or produce it in a 'beam'. Electricity produced from those gammas could help here.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
Rama is the hero of Indian epic Ramayana.I dont know if Arthur Clarke meant Lord Rama.Needles to say it interests me.
I believe he has stated that's where he derived the name from. I can't quite remember where I'd read that though. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis: </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
More than happy to. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis: </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
FWIW;<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendevous_with_Rama<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The "Rama" of the title is the starship, which is initially mistaken for an asteroid and named after the Hindu deity Rama. (By the 22nd century, we are told, scientists have run out of Greek and Roman mythological figures to name astronomical bodies after.) The nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
...and there's your answer, Alok. Most excellent, thanks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis: </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
The listed article was talking about positron reactions to take advantage of less deadly gamma rays. And less energetic, as the article called that reaction, probably means less thrust/power potentional. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
I read this book many years ago long before the three sequals were written. To me there were two ideas in the book that struck me. The first was the concept that the only way we will ever be motivated to build spacecraft that have the capability to intercept an incoming object will be if and when the earth is struck by an asteroid or comet that wipes out a major population center.<br /><br />The second was very subtile. During the course of the story many on earth became concerned that the "Ramans" were on the verge of invading earth and that we had to protect ourselves from them when in actuality they were just using the sun as a gravity assist to get to somewhere else. They didn't know we were here and didn't care.<br /><br />Of course when the later books were written the "Ramans" came back a couple of hundred years later and ended up with some human passengers, but that was only due to our attempt to discover "Ramas" purpose on the first encounter.<br /><br />This probably should have been posted elsewhere but when I saw the title it made me think about the book and how it's message applies to today's situation. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em><font size="2">Bob DeWoody</font></em> </div>
SPOILER to anyone thats going to read it.<br /><br /><br />SPOILERSPACE (highlight the blank area to see it)<br /><font color="#5D6F80"><br />I believe the idea was that the Ramans did everything in 3s so the second craft (not sure if it was the same as the first) comes by 100 years or so later. The Ramans are kind of collecting Species with a space faring ability. Send their empty ship* through inhabited systems and see who gets on board, then return to a marshalling area where I belive there were many other ships or other configurations and see what you got. Basically I think the Ramans were Fishing. I can't remember how it ended now, perhaps I should read it again (it might of been some of the humans got to go back to Earth and see if anyonr wanted to join them hense trip through the Solar system Number 3, as I said they do everything in 3s.)<br /><br />*There where a couple of other species the Ramans had picked up A Spider/Octopus type affair and a Avion</font><br />END SPOILERSPACE <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>
<<<<br />In miles per hour <br /><br />5,865,696,000,000 – Speed of light <br /><br />293,284,800,000 - .05% of speed of light per year <br /><br />803,520,000 - per day <br /> />>><br /><br />I don't think that's right. The first figure is the speed of light in a year, hence the eponymous one light year. Light travels at about 660 million miles per hour, so 5% of this would be about 33 million miles per hour.
It's (ballpark) about 9,300 Mps (.05 C, that is). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis: </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
<font color="yellow"> I don't think that's right. The first figure is the speed of light in a year, hence the eponymous one light year. Light travels at about 660 million miles per hour, so 5% of this would be about 33 million miles per hour. </font><br /><br /> You are right, I said<br /><br /><font color="orange"> 5,865,696,000,000 – Speed of light <br /><br />293,284,800,000 - .05% of speed of light per year <br /><br />803,520,000 - per day <br /><br />33,480,000 – per hour <br /><br />558,000 - per minute <br /><br />9,300 – per second <br /><br />Pluto’s average distance from Earth – 3,534,000,000 <br /><br />It would travel from Pluto to Earth in about 4 days & 4 hours <br />year </font><br /><br /> I should have said;<br /><br /><font color="purple">5,865,696,000,000 – Speed of light <br /><br /> 293,284,800,000 - Distance an object could travel in 1 year at .05% of speed of light <br /><br />803,520,000 - per day <br /><br />33,480,000 – per hour <br /><br />558,000 - per minute <br /><br />9,300 – per second <br /><br />Pluto’s average distance from Earth – 3,534,000,000 <br /><br />It would travel from Pluto to Earth in about 4 days & 4 hours<br /> </font><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>
Which is well below warp one. I seem to remember a Star Trek movie where they passed Jupiter and then passed Saturn a few seconds later and weren't even up to speed yet. Both are science fiction so equally feasible.<br /><br />200 years ago it was thought if you went faster than you could go on a horse you would be killed, 70 years ago the sound barrier was insurmountable. Someday the speed of light will just be a number. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
I don't see any changes between the two versions (before and corrected). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I seem to remember a Star Trek movie where they passed Jupiter and then passed Saturn a few seconds later and weren't even up to speed yet.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />I should note that Star Trek writers and producers confuse the orbit of a planet (or other object) with the planet itself. It would be sheer coincidence that Jupiter and Saturn are on the same side of the Sun. Yet, the writers somehow arrange for planets to be along the path a ship is taking.<br /><br />This error caused the TNG episode <i>The Best of Both Worlds</i> to feature a Martian based defence system -- for Earth. As the Borg enter the Solar System, both they and <i>Enterprise</i> pass planents. When the Borg reach Mars, the defence system activates. Never mind that Mars may have been on the other side of the Sun. Lousy defence system if you have to rely on Mars being positioned right and beg the enemy to take a specific course that allows you to use that system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
Ironically, Clarke and Lee did not stop at the third book. They just kept going. So maybe the Ramans do somethings in more than 3s. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
willpittenger,<br /><br />Clarke describes the Spaceguard system as being created after a meteorite struck the plains of Northern Italy on September 11, 2077. Spaceguard had radar systems based on Mars, which detect an object beyond the orbit of Jupiter. It is not until several months later that an orbital telescope is available to examine the object, which turns out to be a cylinder about 40 kilometers long. Because it will cross the orbits of the inner planets at a velocity of over 100,000 kilometers per hour, any kind of a probe had been considered impossible, but a nearly-completed deep space probe meant for Neptune is quickly modified. It took three months for the probe to be modified, and the flight time was 7 weeks.<br /><br />So we are talking about an object which is moving at velocities comparble to most asteroids and comets, at least when it is first detected. It is not until it is deep in the Sun's gravity well that it has accelerated to the 100,000 kph referred to earlier. To reach Rama, the Endeavour had robbed three other ships of propellant, and it did not rendezvous until inside the orbit of Venus. All four ships were already in space, performing routine work.<br /><br />This novel is set about 2125, and was written in 1973. The rate of technical advancement is based upon that of the 1960's, and it was generally believed at that time that we would have a base on the Moon by now.<br /><br />Seeing as the detection of Rama is made by radar systems on Mars, rather than visible light telescopes, it is unlikely that we could detect an object 40 kilometers long outside the orbit of Jupiter right now. Interception would be similiar to intercepting a comet, which has been done, albiet with instrument packages weighing only a few score kilograms.<br /><br />At the time that this novel was written, there was little or no knowledge of the asteroids which travel between the Earth and Sun, because we have no way of seeing them from the Earth, except on rare occai <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>
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