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Space Science

Beaming into Space 124

Posted by michael from the do-not-look-into-beam-with-remaining-eye dept.
HobbySpacer writes "At this week's 1st Int. Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion in Huntsville a wide range of laser and microwave propulsion schemes are being presented. The big news so far is the announcement by Gregory Benford of plans for a test of microwave propulsion with the Cosmos Sail, due to fly early next year. The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion."
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Beaming into Space More

Beaming into Space

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  • They should get in contact with Junis (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I hear he has the latest technology in Afghanistan. He has hooked up his recently-dug-up Commodore-64 to a laser emitter and gotten it to accelerate objects to near light speeds.

  • Not creative enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by cscx ( 541332 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:25PM (#4613822) Homepage
    I'm waiting for when they can do this using one of those medieval catapults.

  • Microwave propulsion systems? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:26PM (#4613827)
    10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

    Ding!

  • Why deflect Asteroids? (Score:4, Funny)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:29PM (#4613833) Homepage Journal
    We should land on Asteroids, dig deep into their core, and use Nuclear weapons to blow the things up. Don't the article writers know any sciece what-so-ever?

  • Most immediate space challenge? Riiight.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by andymac ( 82298 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:33PM (#4613864) Homepage
    From the article on Space.com:
    "Preventing collisions with the Earth by hypervelocity asteroids, meteoroids, and comets is the most important immediate space challenge facing human civilization. This is the Impact Imperative," Campbell and several research associates suggest.

    Wow. I always thought that the likelihood of an asteroid hitting Earth was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing... say, hunger, AIDS, yadda yadda yadda.

    A larger problem is how to lower the cost of missions to allow for an increase their frequency. If this kind of technology c(w)ould be used to allow humans or unmanned craft more time in space to collect data, I think that would be far more useful.

    The quote smacks of FUDing. Oooh, look out! A big bad asteroid could it us! You all saw "Deep Impact", right? Well, better fund us so we can make sure that never happens...

    • Wow, I always thought that the likelihood of an iceberg hitting this ship was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing...

    • Give them a break..... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vvikram ( 260064 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @11:05PM (#4614013)

      I think you are being way to skeptical here .

      Look, you can say all you want but you are talking about something which can basically wipe us. Not to be a controversialist but wherein AIDS and hunger if you aren't there in the first place. Yes, I agree maybe its not top priority as much as the folks quote but its bloody well important. You think even if we spot an asteroid we can do anything about it.....throw a few nukes doesnt solve it. Want us to be sitting ducks and pray ? Maybe you should take a look again about Schu-Levy?

      Also how many times will the AIDS+hunger thing come up ? If your view is right then we should stop all technological innovation and start feeding everyone. It doesn't work that way - we should try to fight AIDS, hunger but at the same time its _very_ important to look forward

      No offence. Thanks,
      vv

      • Yeah, what are the odds that during the thousands of years that man was been walking around, that a big rock would strike just right when get just enough technology to save ourselves?! What luck!!
        Wouldnt happen 400 years from now when we have uber-laser blaster hyper 500-k warp missle blaster thingies, would it!

    • Re:Most immediate space challenge? Riiight.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @11:15PM (#4614054)
      "... at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing... say, hunger, AIDS, yadda yadda yadda."

      You're talking about different areas of science here. Scientists aren't exactly being pulled off AIDS research to work on this problem. However, a tragic asteroid impact would mean that AIDS and world hunger wouldn't be on everybody's top lists.
    • From the article on Space.com:

      Everytime I see Lou Dobbs on Cnn, I think of space.com. It always gives me a good chuckle..

    • ...the most important immediate space challenge facing human civilization

      Wow you're right,hunger AIDS "yadda, yadda", are more important space challenges
    • There are very few things that can actually wipe out humanity(as it did to the dinosaurs). Hunger will not wipe out mankind. Nor will disease. HIV/AIDS is slow acting, but we lie with it. If smallpox is released, maybe as high as 1/2 of humanity, but not likely. Each area has their own set of problems. Here in the USA, we will shortly be fighting hard against CWD/Mad Cow/CJD (thanks W for not spending the 18 million on it).
      But, a good size asteroid can wipe out the planet. Literally.
      And the larger the asteroid, the further out that we have to act.
    • I always thought that the likelihood of an asteroid hitting Earth was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing

      Yes, it is rare. Yes, we should worry about other, more common problems. The only thing is that with our other problems, even if they become epidemic, they are not likely to ever wipe out the entire human race. One big collision with an asteroid, however unlikely, can easily end the human race (along with many other types of life on this planet).

      Even though a calamity such as a large impact is extremely unlikely on the scale of our lifetimes it is almost inevitable over the course of thousands or millions of years. Another big collision could happen tomorrow and there would be nothing we could do to stop it. I for one won't feel totally safe until we have a decent amount of our planet's life on another planet or space station.

      Sure let's keep improving as a race and continue our efforts to make life better on Earth, but let's not forget the fact that we really are living on borrowed time until we can deflect those threats from space which could destroy us in a flash.
    • to completely exterminate the human population;

      (given its current trend)
      and
      (assuming
      ((the absence of a 'miracle cure')
      and
      (that the number of humans with natural immunity would put us at the very pinnacle of the endangered species list at the very end)))

      Might it be possible to calculate roughly how long we have as a species?

      And I also don't want any lisp jokes I was just trying to be clear and its not syntactically correct anyway.

      • The spreading of AIDs is dependent on behavior, so the answer to your question varies with the predicted behavior of the population. Plus, as AIDs spreads, it will change the behavior of people who are impacted by it, altering the rates of infection. So, using the current trend to predict the extermination of the entire human race is extremely unrealistic. If AIDs infection reached the unlikely level of, let's say, 20% of the worlds population, most of the rest of the population would be very motivated to avoid activities that would get them infected.

        • You have more faith in human intelligence than I do.

          Look at the impending ecological disasters; people *only* change their behavior when things get so bad that either they change or they sink into cognitive dissonance and start hallucinating.

          At that point, its usually past the point of no return.

          I'd still like to know what the projection would be, assuming that people *don't* modify their behavior.

          I'm sort of gesticulating at the 'we should research stopping AIDS before researching stopping asteroid impacts' thread; which is genuinely the greater threat?

          Which of them, if left unchecked, will likely exterminate us sooner?

    • Probabilities (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XNormal ( 8617 )
      Your chances of dying as a result of an asteroid hit are similar to your chances of dying from an earthquake or flood. And yet people have flood insurance but no asteroid hit insurance.

      The reason for that is that floods and earthquares are local and therefore you can hear about them happining somewhere else and perceive them as a threat. When an asteroids hits Earth there will be no "somewhere else".
    • Wow. I always thought that the likelihood of an asteroid hitting Earth was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing... say, hunger, AIDS, yadda yadda yadda.

      That very well may be, but as you yourself have pointed out in the subject, asteroids are the most immediate space threat. As opposed to AIDS, hunger and yadda yaddas (although yaddas may turn out to be of extraterrestrial origin :-)).

      Besides, it is low probability, but as we will surely get hit by an asteroid sooner or later, the more time passes, the more probable it becomes. And the consequences of an asteroid hit (immediate devastation and secondary fallout, not excluding a new ice age) definitely warrant at least devising a game plan, if not immediately acting on it.

      Remember, it's not a question of 'if', it's a question of 'when'.

  • One thing to not worry about. (Score:5, Funny)

    by karmavore ( 618727 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:35PM (#4613874)

    The inflight meal will not be cold.

  • A simple proposal (Score:5, Funny)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 ) <samuel...handelman@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:37PM (#4613881) Journal
    1) Lock all the air and space engineers and astrophysicists together in a big building (with lab equipment, and access to journals and suchnot.) That building at MIT with the mile long hallways would do nicely.
    2) Don't let them out until they have a prototype design for FTL.

    Physics has become boring and I think we, as a species, have to put our collective foot down as regards this whole no FTL business. You can worry about whether or not black holes emit radiation later, I want a warp drive and I want one yesterday!

    • Re:A simple proposal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheOnlyCoolTim ( 264997 ) <tim.bolbrockNO@SPAMverizon.net> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:43PM (#4613909)
      What we really need to do is convince some multi-billionare (like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or one of those Middle East Oil Sheiks) to jumpstart humanity's expansion into space out of their own pockets.

      Start with a space elevator, price tag 10 - 40 Billion dollars. Then maybe build a *NICE* space station on top of it, which should cost much less. Use the space station to build a spaceship for the purpose of bringing an insanely mineral rich asteroid back to Earth orbit. Establish a mining base on the asteroid.

      3. Profit.

      Tim

      • Re:A simple proposal (Score:4, Informative)

        by descentr ( 296258 ) <descentr4&yahoo,com> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @11:29PM (#4614095) Homepage
        Well there's a slight problem with the space elevator idea. That requires you to have a large mass at the end of the cable for a counterbalance, like an asteroid. So using a space station attached to a a space elevator to build a ship capable of bringing an asteroid back to balance the elevator is kind of a chicken and the egg problem =)

        More info here:
        http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast 07sep_1 .htm
        • While you need a large mass, it doesn't need to be an asteroid.. the elevator itself would have to extend far enough to counterbalance itself. The tricky part is getting the construction process started... you'd need to send up a very long, thin strand of the stuff in a space shuttle (several trips I'd imagine, it has to be thick enough not to break under its own force) and extend it at equal speeds in both directions until it goes far enough to be teathered to the earth and stay there- then your construction vehicle that crawls up and down to add to the shaft needs to be incredibly light so as to not pull it down. I suppose you could put the ISS in a higher orbit and use it as a temporary counterbalance, but that's pretty dangerous- if the shaft fails the ISS would fly away. :)

          Really, we don't have the technology yet and won't for at least 10 years. Carbon nanotube technology is still in its infancy.
      • It would be simpler to launch a rocket to a asteroid that was mineral rich, and then push it back to earth, and have it impact in a deserted area and mine it there.

        A skyhook/space elevator is a good idea for science and space travel etc. However, if you had one of these, the best way to make money off of it would not be by importing asteroids, remember, conservation of angular momentum would mean that getting asteroids to earth probably requires more energy than mining minerals on earth and sending them up the elevator...

        No, if you wanted to make money or, at least get closer to breaking even, you would need space tourism. Having a hotel in space would generate revenue, and you have a large body of people who would want to stay in the hotel for a week or so. Look how many millionaires try to get to the space station.

        The other way you could "profit" from this would, again be bringing asteroids in from a large distance, but not slowing them down, rather using them as weapons in a war. Not nice, and not exactly "profit" but it would be a non-nuclear weapon that could certanly turn the tide in a war. And, if you are the victor in a war, you generally profit. (Generally...)
      • by which I mean extraterrestrial,
        in their RIGHT FLAMING MIND would
        let us pull something like that off.

        Next thing we'd be among the stars
        destroying ecosystems left right and
        center.

        I mean, look how we treat this one,
        and its the only frikking one we've got!

        In fact if I were an alien, which to the best of my knowledge I'm not, I'd put a flaming FENCE up!

      • Re:A simple proposal (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Saeger ( 456549 )
        Just for kicks, I've got an even crazier plan:

        1. Wait a few decades for exponential progress to give birth to nanotech.
        2. Cheaply launch my very own tiny "seed" factory towards a suitable asteroid, where it sets up shop awaiting my specific matter transformation instructions, and defends against "molecular thieves" who might want to jump MY asteroid claim. :)
        3. Wait a few more years along the exponential tech curve for "mind uploading" to evolve.
        4. Broadcast my "neural blueprint" (with ECC!) off the eggbasket (Earth) to my new asteroid-sized brain; grow and reconfigure to fill available space.
        5. Join up with the rest of posthumanity in the newly forming Matrioshka Brain [aeiveos.com]
        6. Ponder 42.
        7. Simulate new universes for fun... like this one. :)
        8. Profit doesn't matter here.

        --

    • I want a warp drive and I want one yesterday!

      Be careful what you wish for. Thanks to fun things such as String Theory [superstringtheory.com], Time [a-city.de] Dilation [aci.mta.ca], and Quantum Time [colorado.edu] Travel [susx.ac.uk] you just might get that warp drive... yesterday!

  • "The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion"

    Exactly how many Nuclear power plants would it take to deflect a meteor that's of any real global harm?

    I think I'll take the meteor myself...
  • Now we just need to find some tachyon eddies and we will be off to Cardassia in no time!
    • Now we just need to find some tachyon eddies and we will be off to Cardassia in no time!

      That, or a chesterfield will keep appearing, zipping around, and disappearing on my front lawn driving me nuts - before finally appearing in the middle of Lord's Stadium just as the cricket match is getting, err, "interesting"! Bloody eddies in the timespace continuum.

  • Great a propulsion system that flashes 12:00 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sagarian ( 519668 ) <smillerNO@SPAMalum.mit.edu> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:44PM (#4613916)
    but if it has a "Popcorn" button, it's gold!
  • TO deflect any sizable asteroid (>1km diameter) will take years even with relatively large levels of thrust.

    I cant see lasers helping all that much.
    • Yeah, how would that even work in space? I thought lasers could push things on Earth because it heats the projectile, and the heat difference causes some reaction with the atmosphere, but there is no air in space to interact with. What gives?
      • Vapourising asteroid mass causes thrust by virtue of the gaseous ex-rock moving away from the body of the asteroid.
      • Yeah, how would that even work in space? I thought lasers could push things on Earth because it heats the projectile, and the heat difference causes some reaction with the atmosphere, but there is no air in space to interact with. What gives?

        Simple. The "reaction with the atmosphere" is that the air is so strongly heated by the beam that it ionizes, expands, and shoots out the bottom of the projectile. Turn off the beam. Wait for the ionized air to get out of the way. Repeat tens or hundreds of times per second.

        The asteroid deflection plan would work much the same way. Very high energy pulsed beams would vaporize some of the asteroid material from one side of the rock. That jets off into space, creating a small amount of thrust. Keep the beam on the asteroid until it has enough velocity to miss us.

        (Delivering that much energy accurately to the target over astronomical distances is left as an exercise for the student. ;^)

    • Re:Asteroid Deflection (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pdp11e ( 555723 )
      The site seems to be /.-ted and no karma-whore posted a reprint yet.
      So i did not RTFA. However to "deflect incoming asteroids & comets" with
      photons is ridiculous idea. Photons carry momentum h*nu/c and
      energy h*nu. One way to treat the problem is to consider a simple mechanical
      collision of photon and target (asteroid). I did a "back of an envelope calculation"
      and derived a following results:
      For the visible photons of 550 nm, a beam of 1 GW produces a force of 6.7 N (~ 1.5 lb).
      Now that is really going to take care of that 1 000 000 t asteroid.

      Now let's try another approach. Let's assume that the said 1 GW beam vaporizes surface of
      the asteroid and that "rocket effect" has 100% efficiency. 1 GW applied on the
      1 000 000 t body for the duration of say 86400 s (1 day), changes the body's velocity
      for 415 m/s. This is much better, particularly if the target is irradiated far away from the
      Earth. However, with the current technology it is feasible as much as the "tractor beam".
      • Also keep in mind though that any sizable asteroid is going to be several orders of magnitude more massive than 1000000 t
      • quoth the poster:
        However, with the current technology it is feasible as much as the "tractor beam".

        Silly Human!

        Tractor beams would only help if we could get behind the asteroid and "tug" on it. This application clearly calls for a Repulsor beam!

  • Just how much? (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:49PM (#4613947) Journal
    Just how much momentum do the photons in a 1.21 Gigawatt laser have anyway? Didn't the flux capacitor get destroyed when the train plowed through the time machine?

    Is there enough momentum in that laser to actually change the velocity of a flying windows license appreciably enough to make it miss (assuming it's on a collision course - after all - it might blue-screen before it hits Earth and stop say, 62 miles from impact).

    The only thing this laser deflection system might buy us is instead of being annihilated by a really fast, frozen rock from outer space, we're annihilated by a piping hot rock from outer space that turns the Atlantic Ocean into a giant thingie of Jiffy-Pop before we all are vaporized, or have our guts ripped out.

    Funny how energy expended always seems to come back and bite us in the proverbial arse... How many more movie references can I cram into this post?

    • Re:Just how much? (Score:2, Informative)

      by saskboy ( 600063 )
      [slashdot.org]
      Look just above your post. It shows that the vapourized asteroid is the factor, not the "momentum" of photons from a laser.

  • We need ChiaEarth! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Maul ( 83993 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:50PM (#4613951) Journal
    The solution to asteroid collisions was presented several years ago by Pinky and the Brain.

    We just build another Earth out of paper mache and move to it before the asteroid hits.
    • Hmmm, I fail to see any problems with this as well. It does seem like a well thought-out, fool-proof plan. Lets get those 3rd graders started on building "Earth2: mostly (gooey) paper".

  • "Beam me up...." (Score:3, Funny)

    by jdkincad ( 576359 ) <insane.cellist@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @10:51PM (#4613957)
    What? The articles about propulsion and not some type of transporter-like thing. Damn misleading headlines.
    • Damn misleading headlines.

      My thought exactly.

      Actually, the headline conjured up an image of two Kazons floating dead in space in one of the early ST: Voyager episodes.

  • Mmmm asteroid (Score:4, Funny)

    by jokerghost ( 467848 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @11:07PM (#4614022)
    Scrambled egg: 5 minutes
    Bacon: 20 minutes
    Asteriod: 5 hours on high, serves 10-15

    -jokerghost
  • I thought you weren't supposed to put aluminum in the microwave...
  • Hmmm, the /. effect is already blasting those sites out cyberspace...
    </cheeseypun>

    They're talking about solar-sails, but...is there
    any mention of how big their proposed solar-sails
    will be? I seem to remember that those things have to be frikkin' huge...and I never knew you could propel them with microwave radiation...I though you needed a huge frikkin' laser-cannon for that.
    (Yes, I've been reading too much -old- SF ;)

    Oh wait...should've read more carefully...they WILL use laser-cannons. Neat, another excuse for the American Government to spend millions on huge orbital laser cannons.

    How fast can/will a solar-sail propelled space-ship go? Can I start booking a trip to Mars anytime soon? How long will the trip take?
    I'll bring my cell-phone, with all the radiation
    that thing puts out we'll be there in half time :P

    Best quote:
    --
    "Because 'concentrated' energy is hard to come by in space," said Jordin Kare of Kare Technical Consulting in San Ramon, California.
    --
    Uh...hello? Solar panels? Solar power? Near unlimited power? What am I missing here?

  • Beaming into Space

    Oh yes, Scotty Beamed me Twice last night... it was wonderful..

  • No wonder the Russians lost the Cold War, their submarine fleet has no sense of perspective. [space.com]
  • I wonder if they can deflect Planet X [cyberspaceorbit.com] (do a page search for "Planet X" or "Nibiru")?

  • Microwave Beams: Phased Array Antenna (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spiro_killglance ( 121572 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @12:46AM (#4614468) Homepage
    One of the nice advantages of Microwaves over
    lasers, is that is really easy to make a stearable
    beam of Microwaves using the phased array technique. I you make a dipole antenna and feed a
    microwave single into it, the signal goes pretty much everywhere, if you put another dipole antenna, next to the first, the two signal interfere results in a more direction beam. If you
    have a square grid of antennas, you get a narrow
    beam which becomes more focused as the density of
    the grid increases.

    If all the signals are in phase then the beam goes straight ahead (also straight behind, so you put a microwave mirror, a metal plate behind the antennas at a (half) integer number of wavelength in distances.

    To stear the beam, you just put a slight phase difference between each dipole antenna and the ones next to it, so that the phase difference increases with the distance between the each dipole antenna and the first one, thus the beam is stearable electronically. Because there a lots a seperate dipole antenna, the power in each does need to be to large, so you can use fairly ordinary electronic components to produce the beam.

    Imagine, building a simple block of antenna, consisting of a 100 by 100 dipole antenna, each
    feed by its own 100W oscillator, and with its own
    control and stearing computer inside. That should
    be fairly cheap to build. Now mass produce these.

    Now lets put a hundred of these side by side in a square, you
    get a stearable 100 MegaWatt beam and its only 10meter by 10meters big.
    You can use this idea to build with conventional
    technology a microwave beam as powerful as you like.

    Now you don't get much thrust from just reflecting
    the energy, 6.7 Newtons per gigawatt. But a constant accelation over time can quickly build up speed in space. You can get a lot more thrust out of the system by using the microwaves to heat a reaction mass, say water in the target craft. I haven't done the calculations, put a powerful enough beam could be used to launch a steam rocket from the earths surface at very little cost.

    • Not a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XNormal ( 8617 )
      For propulsion purposes you would need an extremely powerful beam with megawatts of power. Phased array antennas still have pretty strong side lobes. Even if they are attenuated by as much as 40db it would still have enough energy to cook everything in their vicinity. The main lobe of a phased array antenna will still have divergence that will make it ineffective for distances in space.

      Masers are coherent and therefore capable of creating an extremely narrow beam with virtually no side lobes. New technologies for masers bring their efficiency from the low single digits to around 50%.
    • That's lovely and all, but you'll get far greater efficiency by using that microwave energy to heat a plasma. Check NASA's site for details, but the next generation of engines will use microwaves to heat material rather than using the microwaves directly to provide propulsion.

  • Asteroids (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john.jmaug@com> on Thursday November 07, 2002 @01:30AM (#4614693)
    The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion

    Scientist: Ok *pointing to a screen* here is a little demonstation of our ship, and if you notice the propulsion system here the ship will accelerate very quickly. And here's a shot of it shooting asteroids with the high powered laser, we are guessing the asteroids will break up when shot so we will make sure the laser can quickly destroy any little asteroids as you can see here. Any questions? Ah you in the back *pointing to a reporter*
    Reporter: Yes, well I have one question, isn't that just the game asteroids for atari?
    Scientist: NO FURTHER QUESTIONS *storms out quickly*
  • Was pondering microwave propulsion for a week now, without ever hearing about the symposium. It must be the way to go. More specifically, microwave propulsion from ground level to 150 miles and a velocity of 27000 miles per second. Then transition to chemical propulsion for maneuvering in space.

    • Re:Microwave propulsion (Score:4, Insightful)

      by heroine ( 1220 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @09:46AM (#4616004) Homepage
      That should be slightly under 27000 miles per hour. Furthermore, once it's several thousand miles in altitude it would slowly decelerate and fall back to a circular earth orbit. Thus you achieve earth orbit without the need to propell it horizontally very far. The idea of using the force of photons to push a sail is still out there. It would be more effective to transmit a magnetic dipole of equal phase and polarity from the spacecraft into the microwave and use the repulsion to transmit force through a vacuum.

    • Then transition to chemical propulsion for maneuvering in space.

      Or, transition the crew's diet to Microwaveable Bean Burritos...err, sorry, maybe that's what you meant.

  • Asteroids (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If they destroy enough asteroids, their initials will be remembered forever in the Hall of Fame, but they'll probably just put ASS or SEX or something like that.
  • Meteor to Earth:

    Aaaaahhh, STOP doing that, I hate kids who play with LaserPens!!!!!!
  • Preparations A through G were complete failures. But ladies and gentlemen, I give you...
    Preparation H!

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