Comments on: NASA’s plan to burn the world

By: Evil Midnight Lurker

Evil Midnight Lurker — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:54:21 +0000

Aside from those sources already mentioned, the closest fiction to this that I can recall is James P. Hogan’s “Cradle of Saturn.” Which was a great disappointment to me as it marked Hogan’s transition from skeptic to credulous crackpot — CoS is a paean to Velikovskiyan catastrophism, involving a new planet being ejected from Saturn and rearranging the Solar System’s orbital dynamics, apparently such that the survivors of Earth flee to a newly habitable moon of Saturn. Or something, you can see why I didn’t read more than a little way in.

Hogan’s early works taught me to be wary of crackpot science. Then, in his old age, he became everything he’d ever hated. A sad case.

By: Zenrage

Zenrage — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:39:09 +0000

The Imp: Uhh, no.. light would not be an issue.

Even assuming that the Saturn-Sun was burning as intensely as the real Sun with as much surface temperature (which couldn’t possibly happen because of Saturn’s lack of volume or mass as compared to the Sun, btw), Solar Luminosity is calculated by multiplying P(total)* by the surface area of the earth and then dividing by the surface area of a sphere with a radius the distance between the earth and the Solar body.

Since the formula for calculating the surface area of a sphere is 4*pi*radius^2 and the distance between Earth and Saturn is eight times greater than the distance between Earth and the Sun, the surface area for the latter sphere would be 64 times the surface area of the sphere used in determination of the Saturn-Sun’s luminosity. This means the solar luminosity for the Saturn-Sun would be at least 1/64th the brightness of the Sun based on distance alone.

The solar constant for the sun is approx. 1366 Watts per square meter. This means, based on distance alone, the Saturn-Sun would only add a maximum of 21 Watts of power at any given time during the year.

That’s not enough to bake a cupcake in an easy-bake oven.

*I have absolutely no fucking clue what P(total) is supposed to be. There is no website that will explain this in layman’s terms.

By: NASA’s gonna burn shit down! « Sifu Tweety’s Crap Stove

NASA’s gonna burn shit down! « Sifu Tweety’s Crap Stove — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:12:23 +0000

[...] attribution, even!), NASA is planning to use it’s ostensibly harmless Cassini satellite to ignite a huge fusion reaction and turn Saturn into a new sun, thus rendering some moon or other [...]

By: The Imp

The Imp — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:05:23 +0000

Zenrage: Heat aside, I think there would be an awful lot of *light* to contend with.

By: dan m

dan m — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:33:48 +0000

They didn’t get to this in the debunking yet, but if Jupiter and/or Saturn were able to become stars, they would have. And if you were able to turn them into fission factories, they would blow themselves apart because they’re too small to hold themselves together through gravity. I think this is stupid, and I’m a conspiracy nut.

By: Zenrage

Zenrage — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:19:20 +0000

Saturn is on average 9 AU away from the sun. That means that Saturn is about 8 AU from the earth at any given time. Even if Saturn was somehow to ignite into a new sun, it would have to be at least 9 times larger than the real sun in order to do any significant damage to our planet. As it is now, the Sun is only about 1,702 times bigger than Saturn is.

This conspiracy conjecture is extremely fucking doubtful.

By: Jim Smith

Jim Smith — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:50:05 +0000

I’ve been contemplating this for a while and I think the absolute dumbest part of this whole theory is that if it’s true there’s absolutely nothing “we” (that is, the free-thinking people who oppose the monolithic “them”) can do to stop it. I mean, even if I believe this stuff, there’s no time for me to evacuate Earth before it becomes a lifeless husk, and there’s certainly no time for me to get to Saturn to intercept Cassini. At best I could hope to go to NASA and stop them from pushing their “send Cassini commands to blow up Saturn” button in 2010, but if I were NASA (and more importantly, if I were the evil conspiracy-theory NASA that has the technology to create stars and terraform moons) I’d have preprogrammed those instructions to Cassini before it was launched.

This is the pattern I get from these things: whether it’s the world’s governments not wanting you to discover the Earth is flat or the world’s academics conspiring to suppress knowledge of Gene Ray’s Timecube, it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not because the believers have no way of applying their superior knowledge to accomplish anything, except to feel superior. The truth may be out there, but it doesn’t help Mulder find those aliens any faster than Scully can by not giving a shit.

By: The Imp

The Imp — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:27:20 +0000

The hilarious part of this is the idea that there is something to be gained by igniting a second sun. Some youtube videos and websites state that our evil overlords who planned this event will “evolve” to be real overlords.

Frankly, I have trouble imagining anything more absurd than these theories.

By: malakim2099

malakim2099 — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:59:02 +0000

Oh, for morbid entertainment... Exit Mundi is always fun, though it hasn't been updated in a while. It also has a fun article about the mythical "Tenth Planet" (as opposed to the real tenth dwarf planetoid or whatever).

By: Ken Lowery

Ken Lowery — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:40:25 +0000

These links sent me into a spiral of increasing “OMG WTF” for hours. Thank you.

By: Josh R

Josh R — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:08:31 +0000

Every time I think I’ve seen the most batshit insane conspiracy theory, I keep getting proved wrong.

All I have to say about this one is; That violates every law of everything.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:10:02 +0000

Coren: You’re right, I think the conspiracy theorists meant Jupiter’s moons rather than Saturn’s, on reflection. They’re crazy, but they’re not _that_ crazy.

Well, maybe some of them are.

By: Kyle W.

Kyle W. — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:21:47 +0000

Thanks, Bruce, I think I got the “current science” aspect from the blurb I read about the story, but you tied it all nicely together, including reassuring us that that particular doom comes from an anthropocentric worldview. If only similar arguments against global warming were convincing…

By: Evan Waters

Evan Waters — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:36:49 +0000

Saturn’s about 9 times as far from us as we are from the sun, though, right?

By: Wrath

Wrath — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:17:28 +0000

Coren:

If Saturn is turned into a sun, our solar system would suddenly have two suns. Earth works because we’re exactly the appropriate distance from the sun. Creating a second would make it too hot to live here, I believe is what they’re thinking. Presumably, since the moon in question is frozen as it is, turn Saturn into a sun would make it perfect.

But take all that with a grain of salt. The links were a bit tl;dr for me, and I don’t study science.