1. San Diego
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    01 Oct '07 22:08
    The problem is that, without some energy input AFTER you leave the surface, your orbit will coincide with your starting point parameters again--direction, speed, and location--i.e. you will hit the ground. That is, unless you enter a parabolic or hyperbolic (one-way) orbit. You need a "delta-v" (change in velocity) after you leave the surface.
  2. Joined
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    02 Oct '07 04:18
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    Methinks thee protesteth too much
    Anyway, friendly bet: it doesn't take more than 10% of the energy required to get into an orbit from the ground in a rocket vs our car driving off a big ass cliff (the corner) from whatever orbital it would assume from there to a circular orbit.
    I never protest without reason and it happens that I put more information into a discussion to broaden the view. If everyone was agreeing in everything there wouldn'nt be any ground for any forum, methinks.

    I've haven't done any calculation, but if 10% is true, that means that the shuttle needs an engine boost, 10¤ of the liftoff power to change the original ellipticl orbit into a circular one at apogeum. Conclusion: More, britty much more, than a small engine. We talk about 'a lot' here, methinks.
  3. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
    slatington, pa, usa
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    02 Oct '07 14:02
    Originally posted by FabianFnas
    I never protest without reason and it happens that I put more information into a discussion to broaden the view. If everyone was agreeing in everything there wouldn'nt be any ground for any forum, methinks.

    I've haven't done any calculation, but if 10% is true, that means that the shuttle needs an engine boost, 10¤ of the liftoff power to change the or ...[text shortened]... clusion: More, britty much more, than a small engine. We talk about 'a lot' here, methinks.
    Methinks thee recognizes a joketh time not🙂 Of course with the shuttle, the rockets power is continuously vectored off to get the tangential so when the engines are shut down, they have already done the left twist, so it happens in one smooth transition, kind of like the Osprey, the tilt wing plane that has sucked up 20 billion dollars and killed 30 people already? It transitions between vertical thrust and tangential, or horizontal thrust to turn it into a regular airplane. I really would like to see some real simulations and see if there is some kind of orbit available from micro manipulation of the ramp velocity. I wonder what a geostationary orbit would be like for our fabled cubical planet? I was thinking in terms of how you would go about building a space elevator on such a place. I am thinking in terms of a sci-fi book about the place and once you have the technology to build such a place, the benefits like a mostly energy free transport system. Question, the variation of the same thing on earth would be making a chord shaped tunnel dipping down into the earth, evacuating it and running a train, accomplishing much the same thing, but where does the energy come from? What happens in the long run to the planet if such a transport were to be actually built. Obviously, on our cubical planet, it would be much easier engineering wise to build than one on the Earth but given one is built, where does the energy come from, I mean you accel and decel for 'free'. ( the ultimate example of that would be drilling a tunnel straight down through the center of the earth and evacuating that tunnel and just dropping a craft, it accelerates to just about escape velocity when it passes the center of the earth and then decels on the trip back up until it has zero velocity at the other end where you just brake it in place, people get off, new people and cargo get on and let go the brakes and the cycle starts anew. So suppose you have a very long lived civilization, billions of years, and thousands of such tunnels, where does the energy come from and is there a down side for the planet, like shrinking or something.
  4. Standard memberuzless
    The So Fist
    Voice of Reason
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    02 Oct '07 15:23
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    Hey, SOMEONE has to imagine the weird stuff🙂
    I think in light of the fact that the earth has mascons that effect the orbit of satellites, making the orbital path deviate from a nice clean ellipse, then I think it safe to make the analogy of the cubical planet just being a case of a planet with extreme mascons and an orbit rather squarelike would happen, ...[text shortened]... o orbit? And would it make a difference if the road was built corner to corner or face to face?
    That sounds a lot like the pattern I posted back on page 1
  5. Joined
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    02 Oct '07 18:50
    Anything that big and with the same mass as the earth could not be a cube due to gravity. It would be pulled into a sphere.
  6. Joined
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    02 Oct '07 19:05
    There is no such thing as free energy.It's all stored in one way or another. Dropping through the earth would use gravitational energy. it would be very efficient however and last as long as the earth does so in everyday terms it would appear free. After trillions of years all the energy in the universe will be used up apart from photons of huge wavelenghts and a few other particles.
  7. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
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    02 Oct '07 20:00
    Originally posted by mightyboosh
    There is no such thing as free energy.It's all stored in one way or another. Dropping through the earth would use gravitational energy. it would be very efficient however and last as long as the earth does so in everyday terms it would appear free. After trillions of years all the energy in the universe will be used up apart from photons of huge wavelenghts and a few other particles.
    So after even a trillion years, supposing the earth survives the red giant phase of the sun and so forth, nothing would happen to the earth as a result of the draining of this gravitational energy?
  8. Standard memberAThousandYoung
    Shoot the Squatters?
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    05 Oct '07 02:35
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    So after even a trillion years, supposing the earth survives the red giant phase of the sun and so forth, nothing would happen to the earth as a result of the draining of this gravitational energy?
    I don't think there would be a draining of energy without friction. You'd simply get potential energy changing to kinetic energy and back again. The energy would never leave the Earth.
  9. Standard memberwormwood
    If Theres Hell Below
    We're All Gonna Go!
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    05 Oct '07 12:48
    Originally posted by AThousandYoung
    I don't think there would be a draining of energy without friction. You'd simply get potential energy changing to kinetic energy and back again. The energy would never leave the Earth.
    tidal forces between the planet and the 'free-fall-elevator' would gradually transform all of the the energy into heat, which would eventually radiate into space.
  10. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
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    05 Oct '07 13:39
    Originally posted by wormwood
    tidal forces between the planet and the 'free-fall-elevator' would gradually transform all of the the energy into heat, which would eventually radiate into space.
    But with E=MC^2, that energy has to represent or suck out a certain amount of mass from the system I would think, so whatever the amount of energy is, there would be an equivalent mass loss, or so it seems to me. Maybe it would only be a few milligrams of loss per trip, something like that. I know the calculations for for launching a shuttle mass into orbit for matter-antimatter was a matter of a few milligrams, that is to say if you had an antimatter rocket, (the designs are already done, they know how to build one if they had a ready supply of antimatter) that is how much antimatter would be used up getting a shuttle into orbit, so it would seem to me something like that order of things for the loss of matter due to the energy of dropping down 4000 miles into the earth.
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