[extropy-chat] A sad day

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Gary Miller wrote:

> What if you used a deep under ground nuclear blast to create a
> large hollow or molten area at the point where the plates come together.

Gary, an underground nuclear blast could well trigger a shift
in the plates.  Which if you do it frequently as Mike suggests
for avalanche control could well work.

The strategy isn't going to create a large hollow area (at least
not without perhaps creating as many problems as its trying to solve).
A large liquid area could help if you are in effect converting a
break fault into a slip fault.  But in any case, triggering a 4.0
is much better than waiting for a 7.6.

Its one of the first good suggestions (other than diverting incoming
asteroids) that I've seen for the use of nuclear devices.  The other
would perhaps involve a long discussion about the Orion Project [1].

Robert

1. For those unaware of the Orion Project you can google it or look
it up in wikipedia.  It was basically a plan for an atomic bomb
powered spacecraft.  Freeman Dyson was involved with it for some
period of time back in the '60s.