[ExI] big dumb booster question

[Adrian Tymes]

--- On Mon, 4/26/10, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > ...On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> > 
> > How well, and how long, would they last on Venus?
> 
> Hmmm, don't know about that.

Can you ask?

> > What about sundiving - let a probe send back telemetry as 
> > long as possible?...
> 
> That is a good possibility.  The outer layer chars to
> pretty much pure
> carbon, which is really good for high temperatures.

So how does one submit these ideas to DARPA?  Is there a
site, or can you do it through your contacts?

> > Do they stand up to volcanoes well?
> 
> Drop it in thru the ash?  Of course it wouldn't
> survive any impact, but I
> think you had in mind having it send chemical composition
> and temperature
> data before impact?  That's an idea.

Yeah.  I was thinking to send it in through the magma of an
active one mid-eruption, actually.  Let it swim upstream
(where "upstream" is down: go in through a flow that's
being pushed upward) as far as it can get.

[re: use as artillery]
> The problem we never could solve is that it would look to
> the commies like a
> nuclear attack.  So we put in the Disadvantage column
> "might trigger
> unlimited nuclear war" with the parenthetical comment:
> (bad).  We had all
> seen Ghost Busters.  So it was tested but never put
> into production.

So don't use it against a nuclear power.  For instance, if
we have to invade Iran in 5 years or so, it might be
useful.  Or reserve it for use in conjunction with regular
war, so it'll be obviously non-nuclear (because we're not
sending our troops through land we've just irradiated, and
they know it).