Ah yes, the discovery network (TLC THC DISC, ect). They like to do extensive stories on the most obscure theories. There was a Project Orion in the fifties that dealt with nuclear propulsion, but they didn't use a sail (more on that after my search results on Project Morpheus). I did and advanced search on google to see if I could find anything to do with Project Morpheus that didn't have the word "software" in it. Except for a bunch of weird occult gaming societies hard rock who knows what, I found a time line for Arthur C. Clarke's book "The Lost Worlds of 2001". Here is an excerpt: "1994: Two years after meeting Isaac Asimov, Representative McBurney and his delegation tour the General Robotics Division of Adaptive Machines, where the experimental Autonomous Mobile Explorer 5, known as Socrates, takes part in Project Morpheus, designed to test long term hibernation. Its two test subjects are Whitehead and Kaminski, in hibernation 142 days at the time of this visit. It is hoped that this work will help get Project Jupiter off the ground. (Lost Worlds, pgs. 82 & 85)" That is all that is mentioned about Project Morpheus in the time line, and the wrong Project Morpheus to boot. Next, I'll try Project Orpheus, just in case you heard them wrong, which I doubt... Besides reference to the mythological Orpheus, there is a bunch of stuff about some super computer and some other irrelevant hud. Must be Morpheus after all. I tried Morpheus again with even more exclusions (it must not have the words: Software Faust Windows Microsoft Occult Apple Gaming Game). The only thing that I could find was some hard rock stuff from Australia and references to some sci-fi and fantasy stories about who knows what. All of the pages except the 2001 page were so strange that I didn't want to open them (waco's love porn). In conclusion, this Project Morpheus is clearly someone's pipe dream based loosely on research that happened in the fifties. More info on Project Orion: http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html and http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/books/library_projectorion_020709.html I saw this book about a year ago, they had a few pictures of some unmanned capsule being propelled into the upper atmosphere by detonating atomic bombs that it dropped behind it. This is also interesting: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/ideaknow.htm Greg --- cyanics@xmission.com wrote:
All,
First off.... First submission (ye ha).
Secondly, I realize that this is an avenue for astronomy, and not necessarily astrophysics (which this question pertains to)
Does anyone know anything about a "project morpheus"? I ask, because I was watching the Learning Channel a few nights ago, in which the discussion was interstellar or intrastellar travel. One of the possibilities that they discussed was this project morpheus. It used a solar-sail type array, which in its envelope a low-yield nuclear weapon is detonated. The force of the explosion is caught in the sail, and accelerates the spacecraft to speeds (as they said) of "several hundred thousand miles per hour"
While I accept that this velocity is achieveable, I found the technology laughable. So I ask the question. Does anyone know of an avenue which I can follow that might have more information (beyond a basic google search) regarding this project?
Thanks in advance
James Helsby. cyanics@xmission.com
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com