"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4adc9b91@news.povray.org...

> > Huh? Is the payload supposed to be *manually* detonated "inside" the
sun?
> > It's then sillier than I thought. If you drop a bomb into the sun and if
it
> > doesn't detonate, I'm sorry,

>   Would it really be so hard to actually *cooperate* with the person you
are
> having a discussion with, rather than trying to constantly and
meticulously
> find flaws, just for the sake of argument and to try to prove other wrong?

No, but isn't it more fun this way?

>   Imagine the following situation: One day before the final detonation
> sequence is started, an electrical failure happens (something which could
> be fixable by a crew of people), which makes the ship inoperable and the
> computer unable to start the countdown sequence. Communication with Earth
> might also get compromised.
>
>   A crew on board could fix the problem in a few hours, and the operation
> is again good to go. An unmanned ship would just continue its journey,
> plummet into the Sun and fail to detonate at the critical point. There's
> no way you could set up and send a repair crew in time before that
happens.

First, I'm not sure if you need to detonate something you drop into the sun.
If it doesn't detonate by itself at some point on its way in, it's not
detonatable. The key to success is to design a "dumb" system that will
detonate at the temperature, pressure or particle flux at its target point,
due to its physical properties, without going into any fancy electronic
timers or triggers.

Second, if for some reason, fancy electronics is needed, building massively
redundant systems is still likely much easier, cheaper and more reliable
than dealing with complexities of manned travel.

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