Constantinople
Banned
PODs with such far reaching consequences kind of screw the whole thing up buddy.
Early space flight--how early can we reasonably go?
- Thread starter NHBL
- Start date
PODs with such far reaching consequences kind of screw the whole thing up buddy.
Some thoughts...and much appreciated
I didn't think that much advancement in the time could be done, given my time frame and how cutting edge the technology was. But, suppose that, for whatever reason, a nation became very focussed on a moon landing, to the point of putting a significant percentage of the nation's resources into it. It's captured the imagination of the population, so anything that can be seen as contributing towards this lofty goal will get lots of attention. How much faster now?
Incidently, for people who say to eliminate Christianity, or do something with the Ottoman Turks at their height, how would that create a manned moon landing within the specified 6 years after the POD?
I didn't think that much advancement in the time could be done, given my time frame and how cutting edge the technology was. But, suppose that, for whatever reason, a nation became very focussed on a moon landing, to the point of putting a significant percentage of the nation's resources into it. It's captured the imagination of the population, so anything that can be seen as contributing towards this lofty goal will get lots of attention. How much faster now?
Incidently, for people who say to eliminate Christianity, or do something with the Ottoman Turks at their height, how would that create a manned moon landing within the specified 6 years after the POD?
Huh - maybe I'm sleepy or something (it's a bit late) but, um,...
Are we making a mountain out of a mole hill, ie overcomplicating the technology required?
Let's take the concept of putting a satellite in orbit first.
We do it with a rocket launch and some carefully precalculated equations and a tiny bit of adjustment once in place.
You can you do that with a cannon. Just need to make it big enough.
So... extend that to a flight to the moon.
Same cannon, but fire a up pieces of a rocket, assemble in orbit and then, using radio to communicate burns (length, thrust, and vector) you can do all the computations before time or on the ground.
So all you really need is radio... or do you even need that if you increase the amount of math before hand? Fire pieces into orbits that will intersect, then build. Then aim for moon and fire thrusters?
Safe? Nah
Without any difficulties? Nah
Possible? Why not?
Seriously, if you did all the math before hand you should, in theory, be able to use that cannon to shoot an object into an orbit that decays into a slingshot orbit from earth into an orbit around the moon. Trickier than a 3-rail bounce and triple ball split in pool, but still calculatable. Now, getting back gets even more insanely tricky, but possible.
At least that way, you don't have to drag Babbages computer with you
Done this way, or with any other similar style of shortcuts, you could maybe get there in the early 1900's. At best. More likely the 40-50's as mentioned.
And that's with a lot of butterflies.
The only other way to meet the challenge would be to compress a few hundred years of scientific advances into the 66 year period. ASB's are the only way I can think of.
Hmmm one other possibility *might* exist. China. If it didn't undergo cultural convulsions in the 1800's but embraced steampunk Victorian Era British culture 100%... They might have the sheer population to push science much quicker *if* they could somehow share information as quickly and easily as we do on the internet...
Population because a certain % of your pop are geniuses. If an IQ genius of 180 arises in 1/1000000, if you have 6 billion, you have 60 of them. Get 'em together and science flies.
Literally.
Are we making a mountain out of a mole hill, ie overcomplicating the technology required?
Let's take the concept of putting a satellite in orbit first.
We do it with a rocket launch and some carefully precalculated equations and a tiny bit of adjustment once in place.
You can you do that with a cannon. Just need to make it big enough.
So... extend that to a flight to the moon.
Same cannon, but fire a up pieces of a rocket, assemble in orbit and then, using radio to communicate burns (length, thrust, and vector) you can do all the computations before time or on the ground.
So all you really need is radio... or do you even need that if you increase the amount of math before hand? Fire pieces into orbits that will intersect, then build. Then aim for moon and fire thrusters?
Safe? Nah
Without any difficulties? Nah
Possible? Why not?
Seriously, if you did all the math before hand you should, in theory, be able to use that cannon to shoot an object into an orbit that decays into a slingshot orbit from earth into an orbit around the moon. Trickier than a 3-rail bounce and triple ball split in pool, but still calculatable. Now, getting back gets even more insanely tricky, but possible.
At least that way, you don't have to drag Babbages computer with you
Done this way, or with any other similar style of shortcuts, you could maybe get there in the early 1900's. At best. More likely the 40-50's as mentioned.
And that's with a lot of butterflies.
The only other way to meet the challenge would be to compress a few hundred years of scientific advances into the 66 year period. ASB's are the only way I can think of.
Hmmm one other possibility *might* exist. China. If it didn't undergo cultural convulsions in the 1800's but embraced steampunk Victorian Era British culture 100%... They might have the sheer population to push science much quicker *if* they could somehow share information as quickly and easily as we do on the internet...
Population because a certain % of your pop are geniuses. If an IQ genius of 180 arises in 1/1000000, if you have 6 billion, you have 60 of them. Get 'em together and science flies.
Literally.
Heros of Alexandria came up with a working steam-driven object in ca 150 AD--they treated his invention as a toy. However, I suggest that if they had taken him seriously and developed his ideas to their fullest potential, we could've seen a Roman equivelant of the European industrial revolution by, say, 300 AD. If Roman science had advanced at the same rate as European science in the 17th to 19th Centuries, we could have seen HTA travel by about 400 AD. It would be the equivalent of the period ca 1650-1900 AD.
The steam engine didn't cause the industrial revolution, the industrial revolution caused the steam engine. Adding a steam engine - at least the kind they would build - to the Roman economy does little more than adding wind- or water-mills: Several hundred years of infrequent use, followed by intensive exploitation from 1000 or so. It would certainly, certainly not cause a corresponding explosion in scientific knowledge except as a far, far distant knock-on effect.
Sorry, that really isn't how things work.
Also, it's completely to the side of the thread topic. Sixty six years, you guys.