AngelLestat

I dont have any idea of the price of that thin and double aluminum wire. But in any case, if our misssion it would be short, maybe we can risk us with a single thin aluminum wire. That is something that we can get in any place. I would do my research on that. The weight that it needs to passive deploy the tether is similar in size and weight to a smartphone battery. In case you want a long time mission, maybe the smartphone would not be a good choice. But the cost saving using a smartphone are not only those that you mention. You dont need to develope the OS for that or software to control all the basic things (sensors, transmission, manuver software, etc) if you use a smartphone. You can use the already develope softwares for those smartphones. You can also control how much resolution your cameras would use, what phone devices needs to be off or on.. You have tons of software already develop for smartphones that would help you to process data before send it, we can save a lot of energy in transmission sending only the most relevant data. Then the fact that you had already all include and connect it to one device, is a huge benefic. The 2 cameras are very usefull, all sensors are very usefull (some only in the launch, but that is valueable data too) Smartphones already had software to consume the minimun energy with the processor. You get all in one thing, memory, battery, bluetooth, etc. And what can be more cheap than a smartphone? That is why nasa or other big agencies are doing the same in their cubesats, to show people how to save money. You want something with propulsion (lets forget about tether for now), how you would keep stabilize the cubesats in the propulssion phase?

If you want to put just a camera to take picture from out there. You would not get any funds. Nobody would care. There is nothing new. On the other hand, test an electrodynamic tether (is just a aluminum wire) with a load in the extreme, is something with real scientific value and no hard to do. Ok, there were many people who tried and they find that the tether do not survive long time due to micro debris, for that reason the new tethers are double, so there is almost no chance to get hit in the joint. Almost all the parts needed to harvester the tether energy and get propulsion from this are in sale. We can test many principles with this, gravity gradient, energy harvesting and propulssion and final deorbiting. Release the tether is simple, you give it a small push, the gravity do the rest.

The problem is that in KSP anything with wings fly.. It would be a headache try to design an aerodynamic shape (fit in the cubesat) to keep orientation and control over all the reentry without burn. In that case I would go for a inflatable glider, this would reduce the reentry speed with bigger wing area, but the design would be a big mess too. Aerodynamics is not something easy. Taking into account that we can not do tests over the reentry conditions. Nice pictures and concept.. but I guess that is too hard even for NASA.

Go to the cubesats section of that paper. Those measures are for a 3U cubesat. 1600mts 0,58kg in tether. Then all the hardware to charge the tether and storage energy. Which give you 1,1kg total located in (1U) then in the paper said that you have 2U free of space to wherever you want to do. Of course a 3U sat is a lot. Maybe there is a way to reduce that for a light way 2U configuration. Or maybe a 1U configuration with half of the tether. -------------- No matter what approach we want to follow, once you had some good idea, I guess it would be advisable to find support from people with experience in these kind of projects/technologies to guide us.

http://enu.kz/repository/2010/AIAA-2010-8844.pdf How this paper shows, you can have 1600 meters of aluminum tether just using 0,58kg of mass. This count as propulsion system, gravity gradient and energy harvesting. This produce 50% more energy than cover the 6 sides of the cubesat with PV (with similar weight). It can deorbiting in just 16 days, or you can use it to raise your orbit as well. You end with a 16 days cycle, because as your orbit altitude is reduced, then you harvest more energy with can be used to propulsion and to maintain your altitude. Also it would be advisable to not had a huge lifespam mission, because this mean that we can use cheap parts and the mission risk decrease. For example we can use smartphones which contain highly advanced technologies and incorporate several key features that are integral to a satellite – such as cameras, radio links, accelerometers, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope and high performance computer processors – almost everything a spacecraft needs. Your 60 meters example are sell (similar dimensions) as deorbiting modules for 1U or 3U, they weight 80g http://www.tethers.com/SpecSheets/Brochure_TermTape.pdf We can get also the software to simul our manuvers: http://www.tethers.com/TetherSim.html I guess everyone needs to understand that if we had a camera, needs to be no more than 1 or 2 mpixel. Higher resolution --> higher CCD power consumption --> more data to transmit --> more power consumption. now remember that a cubesat can not harvester a lot of energy. If you are lucky you can only transmit for 1 to 10 min by day. With a really low bandwidth. Of course there is not!! If we found consensus in just 3 days, its mean that we are doing something wrong.

This are just some of the sites who sell this parts: http://www.cubesatkit.com/ http://www.cubesat.org/index.php/collaborate/suppliers http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=88&category_id=9&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=71&vmcchk=1&Itemid=71 http://stephenmurphey.com/where-to-buy-cubesat-parts/ We need to connect all parts depending our mission. The problem is that we are not an university or some group well organized. We all live in different locations. But it would depend on how good the submitted idea would be, and how feasible it is to be done. Then with attention, all is possible. Maybe squad can help with the project organization.

Radio waves are not light, are just another part of the spectrum. Light speed has nothing to do with bandwidth. Why Li-fy is many times faster than wi-fy? My problem with this approach is that nasa already did this from the ISS, they transmited a large video using lasers in few seconds. Instead, my suggestion was never try it. And you can measure many things with just one cheap thing, there is no need of reaction whells either, and we dont contribute with space debris because it also work as deorbiting technique. GO GO space tether!! XD

wow, 25 pages in 2 days.. This is gathering a lot of attention. The idea is good, and it can be done. I read only the first 15 pages, so sorry if I repeat something. The most important is the chosen mission and (maybe) second mission. If its an interesting mission with real practical value, then raise funds would be a lot easier. For those who talk about solar system missions like phobos, venus, moon, etc. I think that it would be only feasible in the next 5 years in case the launch cost were reduced to 1/7 at least. In that case, my vote it would be for a Venus mission with aero capture to place a spacecraft ballon to take pictures at 60 km of altitude. (which no even soviets or nasa did it) The same ballon that we use to float in Venus atmosphere, would serve also to provide a safe aerocapture reducing the overall density of the spacecraft. This would be easier than try to land in phobos. By easy I mean (90% of chance that something would go wrong), also we need use the already satellites launched in the solar system to transmit the data, for example the venus express satellite from ESA is reaching their final days. --------------------------------------------------------------- But a more realistic scenario it would be a low earth orbit mission. What it would be the science value in that? We can test an E-sail (already mention in the page 14), that it will consist in a long conductive tether with a little load in the extreme. With this tether we can try to collect energy without using much PV and as deorbiting force. Using this configuration we can also use the gravity gradient to point always to the earth without reaction wheels. For a secondary mission if we achieve go back to earth, we can test an reentry aerobrake system for cubesats. PD: I hear that people use cellphones in cubesats as Camera, unit procesor, accelerometer, etc. Also the software is easier to develop.

I guess most satelittes would use reactions wheels. Because gravity gradient it will be only enoght to produce this effect (in my opinion) with very long satellites.

know if something can be economically viable or not depending on how efficient different approach could be, is one thing. But make a 1000 years!!! prediction of the technological requirements needed for this purpose shows a complety lack of knowledge about the topic and how fast technology grows.

No, because is something that I read it before, but I dont remember where. I know that the average mass structure its 2 times the sheet sail mass. And it can be lower. Of course I can not be sure on sunjammer because I dont have that info. I already saw them before when I wrote my previous post, I was searching the mass of those instruments. But it does not mention either. Also we can expect low weight design components for anything that its made for space. Ok, Lets take the Dawn Mission example (is the spacecraft launched with the most advance ion thruster that I could find) http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/Dawn_overview.pdf http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2007-043A It has 450 kg Xenon, 3 Ion engines with 3200-1900 ISP, they need 3 kw, for that reason PV need to be Dry mass 747.1 kg fueled launch mass of 1217kg But is not easy to divide all the components needed for the mission from the components needed for propulsion. For example it has Mechanical/structure 108 kg (gymbals, tanks, etc) Ion Engines 129 kg Electrical power system 204 kg (I dont know what porcentage we would need to cut in case we dont use ion engines, this include the solar cells) In the manual it said that their delta V is 10 km/s If we made the math with 3100 ISP it give us 13 km/s (of course is not always 3100) The max thrust is 0.092 N. So what sail dimensions we need to get something similar? This is a tricky questions, because it depends on the time which took to the ion engines to achieve that speed and the travel time. We need 9 times the sunjammer area to provide the same max thrust. If we took a conservative value about sail + structure mass from sunjammer would be 18kg. So with only 162 kg of sail, you can achieve similar thrust than 450 + 129 + 100 +20 = 700 kg (estimate mass of dawn propulsion system) You can take lower values for sail due to distance, add different issues, or things, but the case remains. Solar sails are very usefull, more if we pass from the 15g/m2 to 2g/m2. I dont see any description of how you did the math and where all those numbers come from. I hope I have made ​​a more clear example. Ok that approach seems correct, but how do you calculate the thrust vector? Because in solar sails you always had the prograde and retrograde components plus the radial out commponent. Also the best way to made a sundive with solar sails is not a spiral toward the sun, first you gain altitud at the same time you slow your orbit speed, then you fall. Sorry, but things in space are measure it taking into account how usefull they are. But from the "like" point. I found Solar Sails beautiful and inspiring. In our early years Sails gave us the medium to cross oceans. Now hundreds of years later, we are in the shore of a new ocean, and sails come back to save us one more time. He knows that, he was mentioning the use of solar sails at 1AU average. They are not, in fact solar sails is the propulssion system that less damage would receive from the interstellar medium at high or low speeds. The sail does not need shield as I explain some post earlier, the mass of your spacecraft is highly reduced because you dont need any proppelent, so if you have a manned vehicle, only that part needs to be shielded, but if you take any fusion or (wherever proppelent technology) you would find that the spacecraft area in risk increase exponentially.

In my humble opinion, we will have to get used to the idea that information can not travel faster than the speed of light. We would need to deal with that.

It does not said nothing about "tiny", we need to add batteries, solar cells (Im not sure if are really need it, a solar sail in theory can generate electricity just using the solar wind if some part of the sail are conductive), trasmissor, processor, ashes, etc. The true is that we dont know nothing about the actual weight, I send a message asking, but no answer of course. That really bothers me when they dont share enoght info. I might agree that maybe the instruments would not represent much weight, but we dont know for sure. ??? That depends of how far are from the sun, I would said that RTG is a good option if you are far Mars orbit. I am not very farmiliar with ion thrusters, can you give me a source where mention power consumption, xeon consumptions, total payload and deltav? Or just thrust, I would calculate the deltav. Because the data which I read from wikipedia talks about lot of kg of xeon and 1 to 7kw. I dont know what you found, because there is NONE sunjammer information about that xD You still need to make that case There is no confusion, the weight of the structure is 2 times the weight of the sail. It said clearly in the last table. "The mass of the sail (including all sail hardware carried by the sailcraft after the sail is deployed except for control) is - 122.6 kg for a total areal density of 1 dm2" You had the spacecraft sail parts, and the deployment parts. The deployment parts (the same as sunjammer) are detached from the sail after this is fully deploy it. There is also papers/patents which explain methods to reduce the structure weight of the solar sails. But none of those are in use in the current solar sails. Maybe you are right, but I would like to elaborate this case to compare if you find time later. Yeah, you reach the 95% of the speed in just 15 minutes. I guess was Zubrin the guy who first calculated something similar but with worst materials. Then Adam Crowl update the numbers using Carbon Nanotube new densities with quarter wave method to make the surface refractive. http://crowlspace.com/?p=1882 http://crowlspace.com/?p=1585 http://crowlspace.com/?p=1580 It uses a gravity assist of jupiter to make the sundive. I found a Solar Sail calculator, but it does not take into account your initial speed or the CTN quarter wave material example. http://www.georgedishman.f2s.com/solar/Calculator.html No, the drag is not an issue, your sail is so thin that any atom or molecule that hit the sail, only slow the sail atom that you miss. It makes a microscopic hole, the momentum is not absorbed by the spacecraft. The stronger magnetic fields by other hand, might be a real issue in case your sail is made of a conductive layer as CNT. What formule do you use? I dont use the Mathematica since 10 years, and I never was very good at it. If I need something I just download the function already scripted

For a precursor mission you dont need to do a so close periapsis, so maybe it would not be trouble. My assumptions are based in all the thing I read about solar sail and my common sense. I am not saying that is impossible, but if there is a method to deploy a sail under those circustances I never read it and is not easy to imagine either. If you have some ideas how it could be share it. with a 0,007 Au periapsys, the peek acceleration that the sail would had is about 50000 Gee, the sail can survive that if it has a total flat area and thin structure with all their instruments imprinted in the sail it self, but if you try to deploy under those pressures, it would break for sure.

you can do it with only a sail, You would use jupiter to lower at max your periapsis and fall from there, It will take time, but how much time would take an interstellar mission? But it has one inconvenient, if the sail is too light, even if you place it parallel to the sun light, you get some counter push when you are falling toward sun because light does not come from a infinitesimal point (sun diameter). The ion option it would not work either in case you wanna a very close encouter, becouse you can not deploy the sail at those light pressures. If you dock something heavy to the sail it might work, then undock at periapsis.

That is the total with the payload. I dont know what is the weight of the boombs/structure, but I guess that the payload was close to 20 kg. Now I can not find that info. But what can you do with 15 kg for your ion engine plus the same payload? As christok said, you need to count the ion engine weight, the tanks weight, propellent and solar cells. ´Plus the solar cells... Or where you get your energy for the ion thruster? As I said, 32 Kg is the total weight of sunjammer, payload(several instruments, ashes, solar cells, etc) + structure-servo controls + sail. The sail is 8kg (is not 6, I was wrong.), the structure is the same as the sail 8kg extra. Then the payload is 15 kg. Here explain than you need to take the double for the structure, For example if you have a sail dencity of 5g/m2, then with the support structure it will be 10g/m2. http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/18379/1/99-1857.pdf About how to calculate the deltaV of a solar sail, we cant, it will be infinite in theory. Of course a small solar sail would had low acceleration, but you solve that just with scale. Ion thrusters are cheaper for now. And they always will be a good choice depending your mission. But solar sails are very usefull for many applications. mmm I am not so sure. Thanks to solar sails it will be possible to sent a interstellar solar probe maybe in 50 years (if they take the compromise serious as when we go to the moon) to centauri system with 5% to 10% the speed of light just using the sun as energy source, and it can brake using a similar manuver when it arrives. it will be by far the most cheap way to do it. But you can do it all the time. You ever tried solar sails in ksp with the interstellar mod? I remember that the average density of that sail was really bad and even with those numbers was too easy to fall toward sun. The trajectory calculations for solar sails takes time (even using the 2d formule), I need to see if I can find an addom for the matlab. Yeah, you still believe that the 32 kg represent only the sail and the structure, but is also the payload. But maybe the word that you are looking for is "could have been done with a cheaper ion thruster". And I have to disagree, becouse one of the sunjammer mission is stay in a virtual lagrange position to provide extra warning system of solar anomalies. How much time you can burn with a ion thruster to keep that position?

The true is that I dint see any serious estimate mentioned by Nibb31 that it would change or disprove spaceX values. The cubesat market is already growing, almost anyone can made this satellites, you buy the mainly parts from a commerce that already sell all that you need for this cubesats. You can use cellphones as main processors and it is very easy make the software for them. The only that keeps slowing this market is the launch cost. Even now nasa is planning some missions to mars using cubesats. Out of the way just for 2 or 3 high school problems? The kids are smarted than that. So for you testing is equal to maintenance?? I would not even bother to explain the difference. You dont need to build a new booster becouse you can use the same. I cross out many of your launch cost list with only that. If you already are the number 1 space company you dont need marketing. All the news of your achievements are right there to read them. Then your launch price speaks for itself. Tell me how much cost integrating and stacking. http://singularityhub.com/2014/04/30/can-elon-musk-and-spacex-take-space-travel-from-evolutionary-to-revolutionary/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2014/04/25/spacex-falcon-9-reusable-stage-landed-safely-in-the-atlantic/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/25/spacex-just-made-a-big-step-towards-cheaper-more-sustainable-space-flight/ http://qz.com/203349/spacex-is-suing-the-us-government-for-a-free-market-in-satellite-launches/ http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/35562spacex-chief-says-reusable-first-stage-will-slash-launch-costs In reality, we don't have the actual numbers of how much an individual SpaceX launch currently costs (hint: it is way higher than the "projected" price of $50 million) because private contracts are confidential or launch slots are purchased in bulk. The actors in this market only distill incomplete information as they seem fit. When Musk talks about reducing by X%, does he mean compared to current ULA prices? current SpaceX prices? Future SpaceX prices? Does he mean with just one reuse? 10 reuses? First stage only? Manned or unmanned? We simply don't know, so we can't take anything for granted. The only that I see from you was a list of things which you believe represent huge values. But you dint give any detail of how much cost each, and you dint post any source of that. -------------------------------------------------- I will no answer more now, I am sick (no of this discuccion, virus sick)

Ok, thank you for recapitulate your skylon discussion, that save me a lot of time. But it seems so negative that I wonder how we pass the stone age if all works as you think. You have some good concern, but are similar to any new technology development. This means that nothing is developed? nothing new appear? You need 20 years of development after you solve all main problems? About funds, Skylon is the only card that the Europe comunity may had. You think ESA would let escape that oportunity? When the ESA report about skylon of 1 year of duration finish, they would be sure if it worth fund it or not. Lol, and you think that normal rockets dont use LH2 to cool either? Or that they dont have complex systems? Of course that it would had complex systems, but are not complex enoght to said that it would be a problem. The main problem is already solve. Now they had 10 years to solve the baby problem which even I can imagine several ways to solve them being almost failures proffs. So what we do? Nothing? I can not imagine any technological advance with that way to think. ESA is doing its research, if they found that it can be done and they calculate the investment cost, they would do it even if it is a lot. You think that the only thing that Europe win with this is sale cheap tickets to space? Think again. Once you own the technology, then money fall from everywhere. This kind of engine or colling system has many applications, not only for space.. It can be used for a thermal power plant, or who knows what else. ??? they just need to follow instructtions and quality regulations. They had experience making things, that is the only thing that you need. Subcontractors are always producing new stuffs. They are already seaching location for the airport. Well, if you think that produce and storage LH2 is a challenge, then I dont know how you survive your average day Yeah, this is the part where you are out of arguments and you need to said something more because is not enoght.The same for the next comments that you do from here. I think that skylon info about development cost is not real (never is), but your estimation is also not real. But even if it is, you are wrong about the real profits that it can have.

Also Laser. One test that Nasa have done with a 2,5w laser to transmit a video from the ISS to one observatory at earth OPALS transmitted the video in 3.5 seconds instead of the 10 minutes that conventional radio would have required. http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/hello-world-hdtv-sent-laser-beam-space-n124956

A LED sign to bright as star?? Why not use Laser instead?? That is the possibility that scientist are studying. The big problem of comunication at those distances is bandwidth and error corection algoritms.

Yeah I dont really think that the average shaman, ruler, or religious man have done those things thinking in the common good of their society. I guess the reason is a bit more selfish, power and position.

You dont need retract a solar sail. You use inflatable boomb as solar sail structure. The tanks and mechanism to inflate booms and deploy the sail are detached after used as it show in this video: Yeah, 9 micro newton by square meter at 1Au. But the thickness of kapton foil (5g/m2) which is used in Solar sails is 0,0005 mm. For example SunJammer the solar sail that it will be launched at January 2015, has 1200m2 of sail surface; that surface weights 6kg. What do you do with 6kg of xenon gas in a ion thruster? Is not fair to compare, because ion engines has many years of development. Solar Sails just started and they had a lot of ground to improve their efficiency. For example you can have a quarter-wave CNT sail, this would be several orders of magnitude lighter than kapton. This can skyrocket your weight/thrust ratio. If you close to the sun the acceleration that you get from solar sails increase by the square rule. 1360w/m2 at earth; 2700w/m2 Venus; 9700w/m2 Mercury; 0,1Au 136000w/m2; 0,01AU 13600000w/m2=0,1N/m2 Eh? can you elaborate that? WIth a solar sail you brake free in your sun dive, then in your periapsis with the obber effect and the high w/m2 (which ion with normal PV can not take advantage of) you get max acceleration, then you can still use your sail to keep accelerating or maneuver. About the uses of Solar sails are many. Even in their current develpment stage. SunJammer will act as an early sun warning system, in addiction it would carry several instruments to do other things (becoz other missions are planned after that), it also carry ashes from the star trek creator and his wife Solar sails are the best option to debris dispossal and satellite decommission. There is one called Gossamer, this solar will use a test to reduce the orbit of the old satellites (using solar pressure and the same sails as drag), it would be launched this year and another test for the 2015. These test use small solar sails 5m X 5m packaged in 15cm3, is enoght to decommision a 700kg satellite. The main goal of this, it would be had 10 or 20 a reusable solar sails as orbit garbage collector lowering the orbit of objects to a certain altitude when after that they would fall alone by drag in the next 10 years (instead 100 years as it can take) A 200m x 200m solar sail with a 0,1g/m2 (a weight ratio that we can achieve even today with ease) would weight no more than 10kg with instrument payload of 20 kg can reach 33km/s in one month at 1AU. With something like this you can explore the whole solar system in few years.

Lets follow the Cost/Demand and reusable programs discussion here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84583-Space-economies-and-economics?p=1241094#post1241094 So we dont derailed this topic even more. But I guess we already comment or mention all the possible energy alternatives. Or there is another one with future that we dint mention?

Economic consequences of technological advancements in the space market How cost and demand are related in the space market? How the new technologies would affect this relation? This discussion continuous from the "Best Energy Alternatives to stop global warming" topic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, first lets clarify how this discussion started. You said that even if skylon arrives to the market and reduce the launch cost by a lot. It would be pointless becouse there is no market for it. The demand is not there. And I said, if the launch cost is reduced as skylon project it or less (lets said 1/10) it would increase the demand and new markets would emerge. You denied this saying that the space industry is already very competitive and that the price elasticity would reject any benefic in cost that we might had from any new launching technology. I said, that if SpaceX achieve its full reusable program, they would reduce their launch cost to their actual cost even if their competence are far to achieve its prices and even if they can not deal with all initial demand. And they would do it just to send a message out there and wake up a new market consolidating themselves as the most important space agency. Elon Musk will do this in part as its business strategy to ensure his position before new (or better) technologies arrive, he will do this also by pride. Because many people (and hero astronauts) said to him that he could not do it. If you have a reusable rocket, you dont need to test it so much, becouse you know that it works. Is not like a new engine or part that you make and never was tested. So you save transportation and recovery of parts, also transportation of new raw material to build this this parts. Cost as payload integration, administration and HR, stacking, propellant, sales and marketing (seriously??) are <<<<< than the others costs. And you dont need them in a reusable program. For example SpaceX said than even if recovery efforts are only successful with the first stage, they could reduce launch costs up to 70%!! Only 1 recovery! So a reusable program can reduce launch cost in a 90%. Just with spaceX arguments I prove you how cheap they can be. So if we take the skylon example and how cheap it might be, is from 2 to 3 times more cheap than the spaceX reusable program. It is realistic, it has 100% sense, and those estimations were done by all the new agencies which are developing reusable programs. About the demand, if we talk of a 1/10 cost reduction its silly to think that new markets would not emerge. Not only that, this kind of cost reduction reduce the cost of spacecraft construction and operation too. By a lot!. PD: why you ignore magnemoe´s comment? They are completly different. And your problem still remains that you can not imagine the new markets for rockets. I dont remember that being the case, I would search other sources later.

it depends on the context! That is what I try to explain since begining. You can not compare rockets with cars or a phone service with fishing trips. If SpaceX reduce too much the cost (if they complete the reusable program) they would not gain too much money (maybe), but with a reusable program they can launch rockets to much often, so they would become in the most used agency, their competence profits would decrease and they will achieve what they desire... establish itself as the most important company on space business. I would not answer you all these questions here. If you like, make another topic about Space Economy, we can follow this discussion there. All those numbers represent the same satellite? Because I can find many examples where the spacecraft cost is lower and the launch cost is higher. But it does not matter, the ground systems and spacecraf cost depend on the launch cost. If you reduce this last, you reduce the others in similar proportion. Here explain: http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/34807reinventing-space-dramatically-reducing-space-mission-cost-%E2%80%94-reducing-launch Why you mean? You have a parabolic dish of 100 (diam - radius?) with the maser pointing toward the dish (as any antenna) and with this you accomplish what amount of divergence in ground from geo? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, we need more energy alternatives, additionally it would be great if we can absorb the already existing Co2 in the atmosphere... Perhaps adding more trees? yeah, I guess that would never happen :S