IDM - #002: Solar System alignment defense

[davi]

Project #002

Topic:
"Solar System alignment defense";
For years Nasa and other space-research organizations have worried about the effects of a metor coming into the earth's rotation, yet it has now come to the attention of these organizations that for earth to survive as it is, ALL the planets in the system must be held in their natural orbit around the sun. If a metor were to destroy mars, the system itself would be thrown out of loop.

It is up to you to design a defense system to protect the entire solar system from catastrophes.

The guidelines are:

• [b]The defense system must beable to protect our entire solar system
• [b]It must have ability to protect against metor-threats.
• Cannot upset the balance of the solar system.

Deadline:
May 31.


- for any questions or help go here:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37512


Post your Designs for this month, and have fun!

[Profil]

just a ref on the planets orbits from above
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/sub...olarsystem.GIF

[vaughany_boy]

wow, that's pretty complex. Should make for some interesting and varied entries.

[BlueMech]

I'm assumig the orbits don't travel in straight lines, but also move up and down in that orbit. But even so, in bajimillions of years, and/or in the supposed bajamillion years before now, shouldn't have/will pluto hit our old firend, the neptune.

[0kelvin]

I'm assumig the orbits don't travel in straight lines, but also move up and down in that orbit. But even so, in bajimillions of years, and/or in the supposed bajamillion years before now, shouldn't have/will pluto hit our old firend, the neptune.

No, the orbits are tilted and never actually intersect. But it is interesting to note that from time to time, Pluto isn't the farthest planet from the sun. Be sure to save that trivia gold for your next awesome party. Chicks dig astronomy facts.



0kelvin

[|NTeRN]

just a lil info on asteroids

theres 3 basic types of asteroids.
1 a single asteroid
2 a pair of asteriods (normally rotating around each other)
3 a small cluster or group of smaller asteroids.

the problem is that each has its difficulty in being destroyed. the first can be destroyed by a nuke if small. however if larger a nuke would do nothing more then put a dent in it

2 since theres 2 asteriods you need 2 bombs or one well placed on that could destoy 1 and blast the on of cousre enough to miss a planet

3. believe it or this would be the hardest to defend against. it'd be extremely dificult to manuever a nuke into the middle of the cluster, but more then likey after the explosion the pieces would simply come back together due to the gravity's atraction.

anyways just a lil info to think about (from discovery channel BTW)

[kyliegirl]

thisll be a tough one :s

[PHATandy]

Think i might join in on this one.. sounds although a little complicated. How kind of extreme/futuristic are we allowed to go, as in plain old NUKE em out of the sky or bigg ass gravity rays that move them out of the way? Any limits at all, or they gotta be 'realistic'.... ?

Sounds like an impossibly task realistically, but we can only try.
Andy.

[repet]

every time when i try to imagine this defence system, i came up with a death star like thing

shooting down objects with balistic weapons make's more worth

hm ....

[BrainBug]

every time when i try to imagine this defence system, i came up with a death star like thing

shooting down objects with balistic weapons make's more worth

hm ....

well, a death star is hardly a good thing to defend a whole solar system... you never can get from one end to the other in time without upsetting the ballance

[kyi_72]

so then we are talking about a single piece of equipment? i immediately thought that every planet would have to have its own orbiting version of this thing, or it would never work.

cheers,

k

[Lysandyr]

This idea interested me, so I registered for the forums . What level of technology is being assumed for this design? Is it up to us, or do we have to work to today's tech/very near future stuff? I quite liked the idea of a huge nanobot Dyson Sphere around the solar system, with the 'bots attaching to the asteroid, using its mass to replicate and fashion themselves into an engine using the asteroid itself as the reaction mass. Obviously this isn't really feasible with NASA tech right now , so I want to know if I have to change my idea.

[abediah]

so then we are talking about a single piece of equipment? i immediately thought that every planet would have to have its own orbiting version of this thing, or it would never work.

cheers,

k

well my design in just several large peices of equipment that work together, so at least 1 or 2 may be in range to take care of the asteroid, while the third or fourth will have time to make it, or can kind of be the rear guard so nothing sneaks up on them. i dunno

[kurtataylor]

Hello, sounds really interesting. I dusted off my account, which I had never used for this one. Lot of freedom with it, I think any kind of technology is going to be acceptable on this.
Seems to me that a simple answer is required to be able to pull this one off, but for it to be effective it needs to take into consideration that the universe is freakin' big. The first thing that struck my brain was an energy barrier powered by a direct feed into the sun or something, but that wouldn't be enough power to generate a glowing energy shield around the universe. I don't think it would make a great picture either.

[Crane]

....dude..

it says solar system..
thats a bit smaller than the universe..
......................................
....................
...........
.....
can you say solar system?
________________________________

Anyway, this sounds kool, i prefer this to cow since i'm more into tech stuff and sci fi.
Direct energy feed from the sun is a good idea for someone who can't read
theres no way it could be something that could cover the whole solar system, just not that many resources, and prob would be cost-inefficient unless there was a huge threat that was powerful enough to take out a solar system, taking that into mind that the tech level would have to be pretty high for both species, both would need a massive power supply.

oops, just read its only for meteors, well i'll leave that one there since it took some time to write. Well you could put a massive steel wall to float around with rockets to guild it in the way of flying icy balls!
ha, I was thinking of something that could maniplulate the sun and use it for a defense, use its energy to break up the threat, but i don't know if having something powerful enough would cause major side effects, unstability, possible collapse, black holes, loss of energy.
Or i was thinking something like halo, i thought of it before halo came to mind so i didn't take the idea straight from it. could be a massive ring or sphere capable of linking up and creating a sheild for a short time, maybe a few hours, but powerful enough to totally destroy meteors, the power supply would maybe come from artifical sources, maybe fusion reactions, nuke and so on, yet the tech would be alot more advanced so we would have great means of produncing power, and also use the suns energy with maybe mini solar power/converter rings.
just my ideas.. good luck too all!

[Craig Houghton]

Immolating Duplicating Machines

How does something the size of a housecat save the solar system? Well, the I.D.M, or Immolating Duplicating Machine, is rather fond of big families. IDMs are the 'weapons' of a system of small very inexpensive satellites that are released to corners far and near within the solar system. They monitor, and they wait. Upon verification from Earth, a satellite launches an IDM at any threatening heavenly body. Upon touchdown, the IDM begins to fragment the meteor into tiny pieces which it vacuums into it's belly for processing. Then, it uses those raw materials to build a relatively exact duplicate of itself upon it's back _while_ it feeds. Like inkjet technology in 3D, it lays out the parts of the complex duplicate tiny dot by dot. Then, there are two. The reproductive process continues exponentially with each one turning the raw materials of the meteor into another eating machine. A handful quickly becomes an army. Almost any object can be eaten within a few days, and when all that is left is a congomerate of IDMs, they disperse into empty space.



I'll probably revise once I see problems come morning. The idea is based on the concept of a von Neumann, or self-replicating machine.

Thanks for looking,
Craig.

[Lysandyr]

Aw bugger, that was the same thing I was thinking Craig, just with nanomachines instead of larger robots. No worries, I'll probably finish mine off anyway.

[davi]

seems to be a pretty small turn out for this project ;[

[Craig Houghton]

It's only because they saw my entry and decided they may as well toss-out their last minute wips.

One isn't much of a crowd. Is anyone.. out there?

-Craig

[faxmaster]

In the hope of inspiring more people to post their, quote, "last-minute wips":

Well, I got something started, but I haven't gotten too far on it:


Just your basic big huge ship with a grappeling arm on front. More specifically, it hangs out in the outer edges of the solar system where it latches on to any threatening space rocks and uses its gigantic engines to redirect the asteroid into an orbit that doesn't involve the destruction of human civilization. It also doubles as a refuling sation for out-bound starships (hence the refuling white starship).

Well, I guess we still have two days. Maybe I'll get something finished in time.

[Dementist]

Perhaps we reached a bit too high a bit too early with the IDM. This is quite an intimidating topic, don't you think?

[young paddy1]

4 solar taps collects energy from the sun which they use to power 9 100 tera watt masers set at the centre of each of them, the maser fire is concentrated into one beam which is then sent to an automated spliter system which divides the beam into separate beams of different power ratings which are them sent to the planetary defence grids around each of the solar system's planets. The taps require more than a quarter of their own energy output to remain in solar orbit and to work the cooling systems onboard.





bit of a half assed attempt did it in a couple of hours today, just seen the thread.

[BrainBug]

damn you young paddy1, i had the EXACT same idea

but i had another one in mind which i will try and do now (2AM now, and it has to be in tomorrow, wish me luck)

[Sammy]

whew, managed to squeeze some thumbnails in during a month of E3 and moving to a new apartment.... but I wanted to participate, even in the slightest.

The concept barely comes across, I may finish it up later if I get a chance.. --- an interstellar gaggle of manufacturing stations drift in seemingly random orbits about our solar-system ---- fixed with large 'magnifying-lens' cells, they're able to focus multiple beams onto an asteroid 'painting' their targets to mathematical precision.
Small darts, no larger than your head, are shot out to intercept and plant themselves upon their target --- The station's magnifying-cells focus a concentrated beam of the sun's energy onto the darts. --- Inside the darts is a microcosm of algae and shrimp that grow at an outstanding rate producing excess gasses, causing the darts to 'balloon' up at aquard pressures.
The gasses come at a constant rate and are filtered towards tiny combustible chambers --- the 'darts' then use their new means of combustion to steer their target slowly off orbit around the solar-system.



Looking forward to next month's ID subject... but lets keep it a bit more simple so more poeple join on

[Majikal]

Very nice sammy. The idea is awsome and the thumbs look cool, even if they arent fully fleshed out.

[Uziel]

Perhaps you could make a IDM topic idea thread.
I would like to work on something you could use every day.
like freezer/microwave of the future,new powersources/powerplants, future public transport,...

[jmascho]

I forgot all about this... Yeah, I think a simpler or more generalized topic might grab some more people, or you could make the title flashing color seizure text.

[BrainBug]

IDM2 a.k.a. HOWLER Missile

The IDM2 (Interplanetairy Defence Mechanism #2) also known as a HOWLER Missile destroys asteroids with the use of a high pitched frequency.

Since sound doesn't travel too well in space the source has to be brought close enough to the target. And the target has to be surrounded by some sort of atmosphere, dense enough to pass on the soundwave. For that purpose scientists develloped a molecular structure that has a most peculiar effect when vibrating on it's resonant frequency.
Once this frequency starts, the "dust" vibrates itsself into any target, like car battery acid biting through human skin (don't try this at home), This causes the asteroid to break up from both the out- and the inside. The remaining pieces are so small they don't really form a threat to any lifeform anymore, since inhabitet planets all have an atmosphere (artificial or natural) that can easily burn them up.

The destruction of targets works as follows:
First the HOWLER is launched towards it's target.
Once in range, the head (commonly known as "DUSTY") breaks loose from the body (commonly known as "NOISY"). While NOISY brakes and starts to open itsself, DUSTY increases velocity and explodes when it is inside the gravity-field of the target.

The FAA (frequency activated acid)-dust is attracted due to gravity and spread out by the time NOISY arrives to produce the soundblast which scatters the asteroid, much like your crystal glasses will break when an opera singer starts showing herself off in front of your house.



sorry the image is so crappy, but i wanted to submit something at least...

[Craig Houghton]

Either my calendar is really fast or...

It's not the biggest turn-out as far as numbers go, but I think the solar system will be safe enough.

-Craig

[Sammy]

Either my calendar is really fast or...

It's not the biggest turn-out as far as numbers go, but I think the solar system will be safe enough.

-Craig

Between us band of bros. and Jupiter sucking up whatever asteroids we slack off on --- I think you're right, we're safe

C'MON WHAT'S THE COMPETITION FOR JUNE!!!!