Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bill Rutherford (07 Dec 2014 02:52 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Billye Gilbert (07 Dec 2014 03:13 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? greg caires (07 Dec 2014 03:55 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Evyn MacDude (07 Dec 2014 04:08 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (07 Dec 2014 05:45 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bill Rutherford (07 Dec 2014 06:31 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (07 Dec 2014 07:38 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Richard Aiken (07 Dec 2014 14:47 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Billye Gilbert (07 Dec 2014 20:28 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Jeffrey Schwartz (09 Dec 2014 14:32 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (09 Dec 2014 17:04 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Jeffrey Schwartz (09 Dec 2014 17:44 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Jeffrey Schwartz (10 Dec 2014 15:19 UTC)
RE: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Anthony Jackson (10 Dec 2014 23:18 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (10 Dec 2014 03:13 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Alex Goodwin (07 Dec 2014 15:23 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bill Rutherford (07 Dec 2014 16:21 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Richard Aiken (07 Dec 2014 16:23 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Rich Trickey (07 Dec 2014 20:24 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 04:01 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 04:01 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bill Rutherford (08 Dec 2014 05:25 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Thad Coons (08 Dec 2014 06:12 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (08 Dec 2014 07:25 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 14:00 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (09 Dec 2014 00:22 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (09 Dec 2014 00:50 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bruce Johnson (09 Dec 2014 16:17 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Jeffrey Schwartz (09 Dec 2014 17:06 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Richard Aiken (09 Dec 2014 17:32 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Kelly St. Clair (08 Dec 2014 07:18 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Kurt Feltenberger (08 Dec 2014 13:41 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 14:00 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (08 Dec 2014 22:27 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Phil Pugliese (08 Dec 2014 23:09 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (08 Dec 2014 23:31 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Richard Aiken (09 Dec 2014 00:05 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 04:01 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Ian Whitchurch (08 Dec 2014 04:10 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (08 Dec 2014 14:00 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Grimmund (12 Dec 2014 15:07 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? Bruce Johnson (12 Dec 2014 16:46 UTC)
Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx (13 Dec 2014 02:16 UTC)

Re: [TML] Fueling from an icy asteroid or rock? shadow@xxxxxx 10 Dec 2014 03:13 UTC

On 9 Dec 2014 at 12:43, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:04 PM,  <xxxxxx@shadowgard.com> wrote:
> > On 9 Dec 2014 at 9:31, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
> >
> >> I'm kinda wondering if using the _ship's_ lasers for this would be the
> >> easy solution to the problem.
> >>
> >> Stand off by 10km, and bathe the ice-ball in 150Mj of laser mojo until
> >> it is vapor.
> >> Then move in and skim the vapor.
> >
> > Weapons grade lasers don't melt. They dump so much energy into a
> > spot, so fast, that the material *explodes* into plasma.
> >
> > Even if you dialed them way down, the vapor would disperse into the
> > vacuum far too fast for you to skim it.
> >
> > And at high enough energies to get the "blast" effect, many if not
> > most of the chunks will be departing at high speed.
> >
>
> That makes sense...
> ..but...
>
> I can see the pulse hitting the big ball of ice, and there being a
> Bang! as it heats a small area to plasma, which then explodes and
> makes a crater.
> But wouldn't the crater walls be pretty hot?
> And they'd steam off?

Thing is, you are in a vacuum. And *room temp* water vapor is moving
pretty damn fast. Hotter molecules are moving faster.

In a vacuum, they pretty much move in a straight line. So they
disperse in milliseconds.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com