Turbo laser cannons power.

[Connor MacLeod]

My point is not the energy used or that published in a book but the effects as we have seen them in the movie. I see no reason why they would use "200 Gigatons" worth of firepower, when the +-15 kilotons needed to "vaporise" the object acording to the other posting that I read on this site is more than enough to do the job.

You have yet to demonstrate why what we see is not consistent with vaporization of a large, solid mass in a vaccuum.

You also appear to be backpedaling now, insisting that "kiloton" range detonations are sufficient to achieve the effects seen rather than your insistence on the "bombs" yhou have cited would be sufficient to achieve what we see, thereby admitting your earlier claims were bullshit.

My obsevation is that 32kilotons of rock, iron or whatever if heated to vaporisation by any level of energy imput would take much to long to dissipate, minutes not fractions of a second, to account for what we have seen on film.

Provide evidence of this, please. You already admitted that conventional explosives vaporize themselves in a fraction of a second - so why should this not be true for a larger mass?

If we know a.) the mass involved and b.) how long it took to vaporize, we can then measure the approximate energy involved.

If blown apart and "pushed" by the radiation of the detonation, the incandessant gas it self would form a very large cloud/fireball many miles in diamiter not a few dozen yards as depicted in the movie.

Based on what? And how do you claim its only "a few dozen yards?" as the size of the cloud/fireball? become an expert at scaling as well have we?

The "hailow" effect of such blasts is well known and understood, it looks like a smoke ring when in space. It is simply imposable for any known effect to duplicate that seen on screen if the energy level is within many orders of magnatude claimed in the book or elswere on this site.

Yet another claim that you make without backing it up. Is this more of your "expertise", or do you actually have a source for this claim?

Therefore, you either have to have another explination (like mine) or you must suspend disbelief and invent some new effect that goes counter to everything we know today. Which is it?

False Dilemma. You've not proven that what we see in the movies is not consistent with vaporization.

It does not mater what the asteroid is made of. If you had read my whole post you would have seen that I mentioned that solid rock does not require as much energy to fracture as the softer "lump of talc" because the mechanics are different.

ROFLMAO. So not only does the dissipation time for vapor not matter, but asteroid composition doesn't? This grows more and more amusing the greater you try to substantiate your claims.

The effect of appiring to heat up is easily explained buy the dust shock effect and has nothing to do with heat. That effect is were dust particules are blasted away from the surface by a shockwave. The dust like the core of the apple apears bright because of it's uniform surface shape. Even if the object is solid without any "dust" at all, an effect known as "spalling" would make some from the existing surface.

Care to provide screenshots for comparison, or are you just going to insist we take your obviously-infallible word on it?

I propose to buy lunch for some Physics Profs I know down at Fermi Lab and shair the two therories with them and find out which is the most likely of the two or whether a third or more possabilities are better. Care to take me up on it?

Sincerely, Stewart.

And how are we supposed to take your word on their supposed claims. Are they willing to come here and speak for themselves, rather than using themselves as a mouthpiece? Will they be willing to contact someone, say Mike, directly and present their claims? I'm not willing to take your word on some nebulous assertions from unknown scientists.

[Darth Wong]

Second, what the hell are you talking about? What proof do you have it would take many minutes to dissipate? When you add energy to something, it tends to expand. In something as diffuse as vapor or gas, at the kinds of enerrgies we are talking about, this translates into very RAPID expansion.

He obviously has only a very limited grasp of physics, so he has no idea why a nuclear blast would create a more long-lasting luminescent effect than a mere vapourization event such as a chemical explosive detonation (or an asteroid being vapourized). He simply assumes that any event in the high kiloton range must produce exactly the same effect as a nuclear bomb in that range, irrespective of the mass involved.

In a nuclear blast, the high ratio of energy release to mass means that the bomb casing and materials are heated to many tens of millions of Kelvin. This superheated plasma, orders of magnitude hotter than the surface of the Sun, can stay luminescent for quite a while. If an asteroid is heated to only a couple of thousand Kelvin in the process of being vapourized, the gas cloud will dissipate its heat energy much more quickly. The temperature of the resulting gas cloud is an important factor which he completely ignored in his so-called "theory", because he never approached it from a logical standpoint. He never even tried to think in terms of mechanism.

[Stewart at SDI]

You have miss read what I said. The part that is not my aria of expertise is the expansion rate of gas on vacum. The effects of explosions are my aria of expertise. If you had read my analisis in detail you would know what I was talking about. Maby. I may not have explained it at a level you can understand.

It does not mater what type of mass we are "vaporising" here only the quantity and the energy involved. Since the explosion did not exibit any of the various signatures of high energy detonations, then we must assume, (I hate that word.) that something else must have happened.

The signatures that we should see from such a shot are;

1. Bright Light. Millions of times brighter that that seen in the films.

2. Fire Ball. A rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas.

3. Halo Effect. As the cloud of gas expands, it forms a halo or ring like object that we see.

As the mass gets larger, the effects mentioned above last longer. If the mass stays the same but the energy content gets larger the effects last longer. If the mass gets larger at the same time as the energy goes up then the effects last very much longer. Since we see a puff of smoke followed by some debreis scatering that only lasts .25-.3 seconds any normal person who had seen film of any similar shot ( explosive test) would conclude that the total energy reliesed was realitively small. Not in the kilotons or even tons of TNT that are being bandied about.

In the Turbo-Laser Canon analisis that I read on this site, and I am sorry if I did not give credit to it's author, who's name I can not remember, It mentioned that time was a critical component of the equasion. He was right, but not for the reason that he thaught. The time that the event takes to evolve and dissipate is much to short to account for the energies claimed. None of the mechanisms cited mater. They could all be correct. What is important is the time required to disperce the mass quoted. It simply could not have happened in .3 seconds, 30 seconds maby even 300 seconds.

Some have said that no nuclear tests were ever conducted in space. One other poster cited several at various altitudes and said that at least one in his/her oppinion was in space. The air is so thin at 40 Km altitude that for all intents and perposes it might as well be space as we know it. Heavy dence satilites can make more than a few orbits at this or lower altitudes while their orbits decay. By the time you get to 80 Km, satilites can last for years. One of those tests cited was at 400 Km. This is space for any purpose but arguing minutia. I have said go rent the vidio and see for your self if the effects shown in the movie resemble the nuclear shot in that vidio. I claim and will continue to do so that they do not. Therefore, there must be some other expliation, cannon or not.

As a neutral observer, My interest in this debate is purely one of professional pride. I am a fan of both series and do not have my personal fantasy wrapped up in either one. My fantasies involve fast cars, skis, Ladies and big guns.

P.S. for the uninformed out there, the Bright Light and rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas should be self explanitory, but the halo effect might be unknown to some of you. As a sphere of incandessant gas expands in space, there is nothing to push some of the atoms back into the center of the sphere. It therefore soon gets to be a near vacuum again. Since every atom gives off light in every direction, as you look at the center of the ball it is effectivly only two units of thickness, one on each side, and thus seems quite dull. However as the line of sight gets closer to the tangent of the surface you must look threw more and more layers of gas, each radiating it's tiny quotient of light, untill it apears very bright. Thus it looks like a halo or smoke ring. The size of this sphere will be dependant on the origional mass of the gas involved, but will be independant of the energy involved. It will be visible untill the density and energy are low enough that your eye can no longer percieve it. As more energy is added, the rate of groth increases but so does the luminosity thus making it apier to get much bigger.

[Howedar]

3. Halo Effect. As the cloud of gas expands, it forms a halo or ring like object that we see.

Does anyone else find this deliciously ironic?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Oh my God!

[Ghost Rider]

Anyone else getting a kick out of his lower then average spelling ability as well as his lack of technical knowledge?

And good call Howedar...the Halo effect...guess someone's been smoking too much Scoot-weed.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

No kidding. I seriously doubt that anyone with that severe of dyslexia and technical inneptitude could actually work for whatever the hell goverment agendy he said he worked for without getting fired for incompotency, if even hired in the first place.

[Stark]

He snuck past the recruiters, and now he's an Equal Opportunity case and they *can't* sack him??

Explains why he spends his days in places like this...

Honestly, I don't know how you guys do it!

[EmperorMing]

No kidding. I seriously doubt that anyone with that severe of dyslexia and technical inneptitude could actually work for whatever the hell goverment agendy he said he worked for without getting fired for incompotency, if even hired in the first place.

You would be surprised at who can be hired for the U.S. Government...

You know the saying, "Good enough for Government work?"

[Connor MacLeod]

You have miss read what I said. The part that is not my aria of expertise is the expansion rate of gas on vacum. The effects of explosions are my aria of expertise.

So even though you admit to incomplete knowledge regarding the subject, you insist that your point of view is correct? Just what sort of logic are you trying to foist off on us here?

If you had read my analisis in detail you would know what I was talking about. Maby. I may not have explained it at a level you can understand.

Oh, so even though you admit your commenting on something that you admit you don't know about, you insist that we somehow must be too stupid to understand your logic. Which is funny, because I never have this problem with Mike or Curtis Saxton when they explain stuff to me, and neither is exactly a sub-par intellect. Which means you are admitting to being technically complicated on purpose to confuse those debating with you, rather than attempting to explain to them. Typical tactic of a dishonest debator.

It does not mater what type of mass we are "vaporising" here only the quantity and the energy involved.

Type is important for determining mass (its only unimporttant if we know the mass independently - nice attempt to backpedal on asteroid composition, incidentally. For that matter, knowing the kind of matter we are affecting is also relevant in terms of melting points, specific heats and latent heats, since they differ frrom material to material.)

Moreoever, you ignore (as Mike pointed out) how temperature matters (since temperature, as well as latent and specific heats, are relevant to calculating the energy input.), and how this impacts what we observe. The temperature of a vaporized 20 meter asteroid will differ from the temperature of the vaporized casing of a far less massive nucler bomb for the same results and level of energy (if both the bomb and the asteroid involve X joules, and both result in vaporization, but since the bomb is much less massive than the asteroid, the bomb casing will be heated to a much higher temperature since the energy input is the same.)

Since the explosion did not exibit any of the various signatures of high energy detonations, then we must assume, (I hate that word.) that something else must have happened.

You continually insist the visuals do not match what we should see, yet you've provided no concrete proof of this or a satisfactory explanation why. In fact, anything you've proven the point that a high-energy vaporization occured (remember the bit about conventional explosives?)

The signatures that we should see from such a shot are;

1. Bright Light. Millions of times brighter that that seen in the films.

2. Fire Ball. A rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas.

3. Halo Effect. As the cloud of gas expands, it forms a halo or ring like object that we see.

As the mass gets larger, the effects mentioned above last longer. If the mass stays the same but the energy content gets larger the effects last longer. If the mass gets larger at the same time as the energy goes up then the effects last very much longer. Since we see a puff of smoke followed by some debreis scatering that only lasts .25-.3 seconds any normal person who had seen film of any similar shot ( explosive test) would conclude that the total energy reliesed was realitively small. Not in the kilotons or even tons of TNT that are being bandied about.

The asteroids are only heated to thousands of degrees, not millions, and the mass of the asteroid is far greater than the mass of a nuclear bomb of comparable yield. Your comparison is meaningless and your logic dishonest.

In the Turbo-Laser Canon analisis that I read on this site, and I am sorry if I did not give credit to it's author, who's name I can not remember, It mentioned that time was a critical component of the equasion. He was right, but not for the reason that he thaught. The time that the event takes to evolve and dissipate is much to short to account for the energies claimed. None of the mechanisms cited mater. They could all be correct. What is important is the time required to disperce the mass quoted. It simply could not have happened in .3 seconds, 30 seconds maby even 300 seconds.

Let's go over this again, shall we?

To calculate the energy required to vaporize a certain kind of mass:

a.) The temperatures involved (startting temp, melting point, etc.)

b.) Specific heat and latent heats (of fusion and vaporization - which is dependent upon the materials involved.)

c.) The mass involved.

Now, A.) and C.) are the only variables involved in the calcluations (latent and specific heats are dependent upon the material only, and will change based only on the materials involved.) when the energy involved is constant. This means that if the temperature increases, the mass must decrease by a corresponding amount (if the mass did not change but the temperature increased, the energy yield would increase.)

In the case of the asteroid, because the mass is substantially greater, the temperature will be much lower than with a less massive object (IE a nuke) vaporized by the same amount of energy.

Some have said that no nuclear tests were ever conducted in space. One other poster cited several at various altitudes and said that at least one in his/her oppinion was in space. The air is so thin at 40 Km altitude that for all intents and perposes it might as well be space as we know it. Heavy dence satilites can make more than a few orbits at this or lower altitudes while their orbits decay. By the time you get to 80 Km, satilites can last for years. One of those tests cited was at 400 Km. This is space for any purpose but arguing minutia. I have said go rent the vidio and see for your self if the effects shown in the movie resemble the nuclear shot in that vidio. I claim and will continue to do so that they do not. Therefore, there must be some other expliation, cannon or not.

ROFLMAO, so you expect people to go find the evidence to support your theory yourself?? Why the hell should you be exempted from providing the evidence yourself, as you were the one making the claim?

As a neutral observer, My interest in this debate is purely one of professional pride. I am a fan of both series and do not have my personal fantasy wrapped up in either one. My fantasies involve fast cars, skis, Ladies and big guns.

That merely makes you an unbiased idiot. It doesn't excuse the fact your claims amount to a pile of speculative bullshit.

P.S. for the uninformed out there, the Bright Light and rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas should be self explanitory, but the halo effect might be unknown to some of you. As a sphere of incandessant gas expands in space, there is nothing to push some of the atoms back into the center of the sphere. It therefore soon gets to be a near vacuum again. Since every atom gives off light in every direction, as you look at the center of the ball it is effectivly only two units of thickness, one on each side, and thus seems quite dull. However as the line of sight gets closer to the tangent of the surface you must look threw more and more layers of gas, each radiating it's tiny quotient of light, untill it apears very bright. Thus it looks like a halo or smoke ring. The size of this sphere will be dependant on the origional mass of the gas involved, but will be independant of the energy involved. It will be visible untill the density and energy are low enough that your eye can no longer percieve it. As more energy is added, the rate of groth increases but so does the luminosity thus making it apier to get much bigger.

And as already pointed out, the luminosity is going to depend heavily on the temperature (which for a given amount of energy will depend on the materials involved as well as the mass.) Adding the same amount of energy to two substantially different masses will result in substantially different temperatures, and hence the luminosity will *ALSO* differ highly.

[Darth Wong]

You have miss read what I said.

Wrong, you completely missed the point of the rebuttals. You're posting to hear the sound of your own voice.

The part that is not my aria of expertise is the expansion rate of gas on vacum. The effects of explosions are my aria of expertise. If you had read my analisis in detail you would know what I was talking about. Maby. I may not have explained it at a level you can understand.

Quit the condescending bullshit. You ignored the points of the rebuttals, which can only mean that YOU did not understand.

It does not mater what type of mass we are "vaporising" here only the quantity and the energy involved.

It is the ratio of energy to mass which matters here, dumb-ass.

Since the explosion did not exibit any of the various signatures of high energy detonations,

Actually, it DOES exhibit the behaviour of an event with an energy to mass ratio typical of vapourization. This point has been made several times, and you have ignored it.

then we must assume, (I hate that word.) that something else must have happened.

The signatures that we should see from such a shot are;

1. Bright Light. Millions of times brighter that that seen in the films.

2. Fire Ball. A rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas.

3. Halo Effect. As the cloud of gas expands, it forms a halo or ring like object that we see.

As the mass gets larger, the effects mentioned above last longer. If the mass stays the same but the energy content gets larger the effects last longer. If the mass gets larger at the same time as the energy goes up then the effects last very much longer. Since we see a puff of smoke followed by some debreis scatering that only lasts .25-.3 seconds any normal person who had seen film of any similar shot ( explosive test) would conclude that the total energy reliesed was realitively small. Not in the kilotons or even tons of TNT that are being bandied about.

The amounts of energy you describe would not even fracture the asteroid, dumb-ass.

In the Turbo-Laser Canon analisis that I read on this site, and I am sorry if I did not give credit to it's author, who's name I can not remember, It mentioned that time was a critical component of the equasion. He was right, but not for the reason that he thaught. The time that the event takes to evolve and dissipate is much to short to account for the energies claimed. None of the mechanisms cited mater. They could all be correct. What is important is the time required to disperce the mass quoted. It simply could not have happened in .3 seconds, 30 seconds maby even 300 seconds.

Let me explain this for you very slowly. It is the RATIO of energy to mass which matters. You keep speaking of the absolute quantity of energy while completely ignoring the question of how much mass this energy is dispersed into, and then you act as if this energy should always have exactly the same effect regardless of the mass/energy ratio! Are you a complete imbecile, or are you willfully ignoring the point?

Some have said that no nuclear tests were ever conducted in space. <snip>

A mistake on someone else's part which was already answered without your help, so this "rebuttal" is irrelevant to the main points being raised and is obviously being made because you think it will make you look smart. I notice that you deliberately go after the weakest retorts and ignore the strongest ones. Very poor form, Stewart.

As a neutral observer, My interest in this debate is purely one of professional pride. I am a fan of both series and do not have my personal fantasy wrapped up in either one. My fantasies involve fast cars, skis, Ladies and big guns.

Speaking of your "professional pride", please provide proof of your scientific credentials.

P.S. for the uninformed out there, the Bright Light and rapidly expanding sphere of incandesant gas should be self explanitory, but the halo effect might be unknown to some of you. As a sphere of incandessant gas expands in space, there is nothing to push some of the atoms back into the center of the sphere. It therefore soon gets to be a near vacuum again. Since every atom gives off light in every direction, as you look at the center of the ball it is effectivly only two units of thickness, one on each side, and thus seems quite dull. However as the line of sight gets closer to the tangent of the surface you must look threw more and more layers of gas, each radiating it's tiny quotient of light, untill it apears very bright. Thus it looks like a halo or smoke ring. The size of this sphere will be dependant on the origional mass of the gas involved, but will be independant of the energy involved. It will be visible untill the density and energy are low enough that your eye can no longer percieve it. As more energy is added, the rate of groth increases but so does the luminosity thus making it apier to get much bigger.

Once again, you ignore the question of energy to mass RATIO, and pretend that the quantity of mass has no effect on the visible manifestations of any given amount of energy. Please grow a brain.

[Stewart at SDI]

My point is that the asteriod could not have been vaporised at all. No mater what it is made of or how large it is, vaporisation entails heating to the point that it becomes gasious. The mass ratio has nothing to do with the temperature that something becomes incandesant, wich is long before it will gassify or "vaporise". Evidence of that heating is lacking. In microgravity space, a volume of gas will expand in every direction equaly, and soon form a roughly spherical shape. There is no evedence of a uniform dispersal of the vapor as one would expect in a vacuum. The halo effect is universaly accepted under these conditions and it too is missing.

How large would the cloud of vapor be if the initial mass was 32,000 tons and the temperature was above the vaporisation point of Iron or stone or whatever? Why do you continue to cite such faulty logic as fact? No matter how many times it is said it is still faulty. The correct term for this technique is the big lie. I am the one who has challenged the asertions and no one there has answered the questions that I have raised. Why do you insist that it is my turn to answer your attacks? If I remember corectly Bernuely's equasions could give those answers. The original author certainly appiers to have the skills to do them, What are the answers?

It is a forgone conclusion that when your opponents resort to ad hominum attacks that you are right and getting under their skin. I have lived with Dyslexia, terrible spelling and bad grammar all my life. It has cost me several really terrific jobs and to be the butt of many jibes. At this point in my life, aged 54, semi-retired going on 16 years and confident in my powers, I am certain that nothing that anyone on this board can say will damage me.

I still await your reply to my origional possition. Sincerely, Stewart.

[Tribun]

Mike, we have heared his idiotic rants long enough.

Please give him the full Imperial smackdown!

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Mike, we have heared his idiotic rants long enough.

Please give him the full Imperial smackdown!

Patience. Ones of this breed are somewhat rare, and you don't want to wear them out so soon...

[Darth Wong]

My point is that the asteriod could not have been vaporised at all. No mater what it is made of or how large it is, vaporisation entails heating to the point that it becomes gasious.

No shit. The same is true of a chemical explosive in vacuum, dumb-ass.

The mass ratio has nothing to do with the temperature that something becomes incandesant, wich is long before it will gassify or "vaporise".

No shit. The same is true of a chemical explosive in vacuum, dumb-ass.

Evidence of that heating is lacking. In microgravity space, a volume of gas will expand in every direction equaly, and soon form a roughly spherical shape. There is no evedence of a uniform dispersal of the vapor as one would expect in a vacuum. The halo effect is universaly accepted under these conditions and it too is missing.

You conceded earlier that the visual effect of a chemical explosion is just like that of the asteroid, and for the umpteenth time, a chemical explosion is a vapourization event, dumb-ass.

How large would the cloud of vapor be if the initial mass was 32,000 tons and the temperature was above the vaporisation point of Iron or stone or whatever? Why do you continue to cite such faulty logic as fact? No matter how many times it is said it is still faulty. The correct term for this technique is the big lie.

And yet you have done nothing whatsoever to disprove any of these claims except to cite the behaviour of nuclear blasts in which the mass/energy ratio is orders of magnitude different than the situation we're talking about.

I am the one who has challenged the asertions and no one there has answered the questions that I have raised. Why do you insist that it is my turn to answer your attacks?

Because we HAVE answered your claim, dumb-ass. The mass/energy ratio is vastly different, which is why it doesn't look like a nuclear weapon going off. Now answer our counterpoint: show why this should NOT look like a chemical explosion, which just happens to be a vapourization event.

If I remember corectly Bernuely's equasions could give those answers. The original author certainly appiers to have the skills to do them, What are the answers?

What do Bernoulli's equations have to do with your asinine claim that gas at several thousand K should look just like gas at tens of millions of K?

It is a forgone conclusion that when your opponents resort to ad hominum attacks that you are right and getting under their skin. I have lived with Dyslexia, terrible spelling and bad grammar all my life. It has cost me several really terrific jobs and to be the butt of many jibes. At this point in my life, aged 54, semi-retired going on 16 years and confident in my powers, I am certain that nothing that anyone on this board can say will damage me.

And I am equally certain that nothing you say carries the weight of actual research, since you can't back up any of your claims. Your entire argument is based on the moronic notion that a cloud of gas at a couple of thousand K should take just as long to fade from luminescence as a cloud of gas at tens of millions of K.

I still await your reply to my origional possition. Sincerely, Stewart.

I still await the time when you will stop ignoring the rebuttal of temperature, since it has been made in every single post here and you keep sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la la I can't hear you".

Answer me this, moron. Why do you think a cloud of gas at 2000K should look just like a cloud of gas at 50 million K?

[Connor MacLeod]

My point is that the asteriod could not have been vaporised at all. No mater what it is made of or how large it is, vaporisation entails heating to the point that it becomes gasious.

Yes, but we already know this. You're the one who appears to have the comprehension problems here.

The mass ratio has nothing to do with the temperature that something becomes incandesant, wich is long before it will gassify or "vaporise".

Yes, it does. Mike's already explained this. The more energy you put into something, the hotter it gets and the longer it will stay luminous (it will glow until it gets rid of all that energy, remember?) The "Mass to energy" ratio is VERY important in this, because if you have a very low mass and very high energy, the difference will result in a very high temperature. Increase the mass, and the temperature will go down.

As has been pointed out, the fact that the mass is so high for the given amount of energy input to achieve asteroid vaporization means that the asteroid is only heated to thousands of degrees, which it loses very quickly. Your "logic" only works if we assume it was heated to a *much* higher temperature, which would for the given mass result in a vastly higher level of energy than we are discussing.

Of course, since you obviously know everything about vaporizing asteroids in space, you can simply tell us just how much energy the asteroid is going to lose in a given frame of time, and by what methods you arrived by this figure (and what evidence supports your assertion.)

Evidence of that heating is lacking. In microgravity space, a volume of gas will expand in every direction equaly, and soon form a roughly spherical shape. There is no evedence of a uniform dispersal of the vapor as one would expect in a vacuum.

Because it only remains "hot" for a less than a second - once the gas ceases to be luminous, it won't be seen. Do you need to be reminded you have *not* proven yet that the luminosity should last as long as it should? (Proving something requires that one bring forth evidence to support one's position in the discussion one is involved in. Saying "Go look it up yourself" does not satisfy this.)

The halo effect is universaly accepted under these conditions and it too is missing.

Care to provide links to evidence of this "universally accecpted" halo effect? You continually ignore requests to provide proof on your part, what makes you think we're going to stop asking now?

How large would the cloud of vapor be if the initial mass was 32,000 tons and the temperature was above the vaporisation point of Iron or stone or whatever?

Obviously not very long, despite your insistence to the contrary. In fact, you even seem to be admitting yet again that you don't know, even though you try to pretend you do.

Oh yes, and how can the calcs be "above" the point of vaporization? They're based on the minimal requirements to achieve vaporization for a given mass (IE, they're lower limits, ignoring even the inefficiencies involved.)

Why do you continue to cite such faulty logic as fact? No matter how many times it is said it is still faulty.

Then prove it, and provide the evidence to back it up this time without insisting we go out and do the work to prove it for you. (Just how many scientists do you know that tell their collegues to go find the evidence for themselves rather than providing it for them to see?)

The correct term for this technique is the big lie.

Ooooh... your grasp of technical terminology leaves me speechless.

I am the one who has challenged the asertions and no one there has answered the questions that I have raised.

Then try opening your eyes and reading the responses rather than pretending they don't exist.

Why do you insist that it is my turn to answer your attacks?

Oh I see, so simply demanding you provide evidence to prove your position is an "attack?"

If I remember corectly Bernuely's equasions could give those answers. The original author certainly appiers to have the skills to do them, What are the answers?

There you go demanding other people do the work for you. Are you going to debate honestly or not? As the person making the competing claim (and insisting that the original conclusions were wrong) you are *required* to provide the neccessary evidence to back up your claim for us to see. This includes doing the math yourself (as well as explaining it so other people can understand.)

It is a forgone conclusion that when your opponents resort to ad hominum attacks that you are right and getting under their skin. I have lived with Dyslexia, terrible spelling and bad grammar all my life. It has cost me several really terrific jobs and to be the butt of many jibes.

Please indicate where I have ignored your arguments in favor of personal attacks on you. Otherwise stop lying.

At this point in my life, aged 54, semi-retired going on 16 years and confident in my powers, I am certain that nothing that anyone on this board can say will damage me.

So name calling doesn't bother you. Good to know. Now debate honestly and start backing up your claims with something we can check that does not require us to go out of our way to prove your own argguments for you (ever heard of Burden of Proof?)

I still await your reply to my origional possition. Sincerely, Stewart.

In other words, you continue to blithely ignore all counterarguments and insist you've not been refuted yet, even though you haven't provided anything remotely substantial in terms of evidence. For a self-professed 54 year old, you've been remarkably childish in this debate.

[Darth Wong]

Imperial Smackdown Commencing

All right, it's time to take the gloves off. Stewart, I've tried to be patient. However, you keep harping on this "halo effect" as your ultimate proof, and asking pointedly why no one is addressing it directly. Of course, the easy answer is that you are equating apples and oranges, and you are. The appearance of a cloud of 50 million K gas should be much different than the appearance of a cloud of 2000K gas, and quite frankly, anyone but an imbecile should be able to see this without being lectured on it.

But this is only the beginning of the problems for your asinine argument. You see, temperature is not the only distinction between the 400km "Starfish" nuclear detonation and the Hoth asteroid. The other (and arguably more important) distinction is environment. You harp on the 400km "Starfish" detonation as your ultimate proof, but guess what: it's totally irrelevant to the Hoth asteroid field.

Time for a lesson on planetology, Mr. "Stewart from SDI". I don't know what exactly you did for SDI, but we can gather it had nothing to do with satellites, since satellite lifetimes below altitudes of 500km are dictated largely by something called "atmospheric drag". And do you know why? Because there's atmosphere at 400km, you idiot. In fact, the atmospheric region from roughly 80km to 550km is called the ionosphere, which is part of the thermosphere in which gas temperatures are normally 1500K or more.

What did you think causes this persistent halo of yours, dumb-ass? Much of the gas ejected from a nuclear explosion in true vacuum would be travelling at significant fractions of lightspeed, fool. It would not hang around to form a halo of its own accord. The halo is caused by the interaction of the blast energy with the thin but very real atmosphere at 400km altitude! Do you think the gas pops out of the explosion and just decides to hang around? Do you think it puts on little braking systems so it won't fly away? Your arrogance is unbelievable; throughout your entire time on this board you have utterly failed to support your attempt to equate "Starfish" to the Hoth asteroid. Every time an obvious discrepancy was found, you simply ignored it and said "please answer the point".

Don't you get it yet? There was no point to answer in the first place, because all you did was equate apples to oranges.

Let us summarize this situation:

1. You believe that a cloud of gas at 2000K must glow visibly, because a piece of iron glows visibly below that temperature. However, you totally ignore the issue of density; the upper atmospheric gases are actually much hotter than 2000K, yet we do not see them glowing because they are so diffuse that their radiative intensity is insignificant compared to other ambient light sources.
2. You believe that a cloud of gas at 2000K should interact with its environment in the same manner as a cloud of gas at 50 million K would. This is so patently absurd on its surface that to be quite brutally honest, no rebuttal is necessary because only an imbecile would take it seriously in the first place.
3. You believe that the "Starfish" nuclear test detonation at 400km altitude was an example of a nuclear blast in hard vacuum, even though the Earth's ionosphere extends well beyond that altitude. And in fact, this should be common knowledge among people who have knowledge of satellites, which you claim to have. Once again, I repeat that I don't believe any of your boastful claims about your own background. After all, one would expect someone called "Stewart from SDI" to know something about satellites.
4. You attempted to use your "halo effect" as de facto proof of your claims even though you had no cogent explanation for what actually caused this halo effect except to mumble that hot gas glows. If you had ever seriously attempted to investigate what might cause this effect, then you would have recognized that it was irrelevant to the Hoth asteroid belt.

Stewart, you are a fine example of what happens when someone with no scientific background attempts to involve himself in what is essentially a technical discussion. Your entire argument boiled down to a halo effect which you didn't even understand, so you simply assumed it must support your argument, and then ran with this assumption ... straight into a wall.

Suck on that, Stewart.

[Slartibartfast]

We know from the many direct observations and remote spectographs that "Asteroids" are not "Rocky Iron" but more like soft lumps of talcum powder.

Is this proof that the Star Destroyer wasn't damaged by the asteroid, but was instead just powdering its nose?

[HRogge]

We know from the many direct observations and remote spectographs that "Asteroids" are not "Rocky Iron" but more like soft lumps of talcum powder.

If you don't believe us, maybe you will believe NASA:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/asteroid1.html

I will quote the relevant part for you:
Of all the meteorites examined, 92.8 percent are composed of silicate (stone), and 5.7 percent are composed of iron and nickel; the rest are a mixture of the three materials. Stony meteorites are the hardest to identify since they look very much like terrestrial rocks.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I think he might be mistaking comets with asteroids.

[harbringer]

K I wasn't going to say anything since I don't have a scientific background, but Stewart if I CAN UNDERSTAND what peoples objections are to your argument surely YOU must. If you can't answer them don't argue - it only proves your a moron.

Sorry for interupting.

[Darth Wong]

What's the matter, Stewart? Cat got your tongue?

Face it; your premises have been shown to be false, your deductions have been shown to be false, and you have been shown to be false.

Unless, of course, it's possible to be a space weapons expert and not know much about satellites

[Ted C]

I'm wondering if Stewart is foolish enough to show his face again. It's been over 24 hours since his last post.

[Darth Wong]

Oh Stewart ... helloooooooo .... anybody there?

[Robert Walper]

Oh Stewart ... helloooooooo .... anybody there?

Did I hear an echo?