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Re: flimsy UFOs

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On 5/17/2026 11:52 PM, john larkin wrote:
> 
> https://www.aol.com/news/4-alien-species-pulled-crashed-125055750.html
> 
> If they can fly around the galaxy, presumably faster than light, and
> are flown by an advanced life form, how come they crash so often?
> 
> 
> John Larkin
> Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
> Lunatic Fringe Electronics

The physics of (conventional) interstellar travel doesn't make sense for 
beings who're on the order of a meter tall. Among the major problems not 
commonly considered is interstellar space has one hydrogen atom per 
cubic meter; if you're doing 99% of the speed of light that's like the 
output of a 50 megawatt nuclear reactor/blast furnace focused on the 
front of your reactor.

The numbers would probably work out better for intelligent creatures the 
size of ants, whose entire "space ark", carrying a representative 
portion of their whole civilization, could be the size of a Chevy Tahoe.

AFAIK there's no law of physics that says beings like that couldn't 
exist, I think a lot of physics required for technological civilization 
would work more-or-less the same if you scaled the volumes involved down 
by a thousand, there's a lot of space down there.

Once you start talking about unknown physics like warping space (which 
AFAWK requires negative energy density, whatever that is) I wonder if it 
starts to become simpler just to send microscopic robots across the 
galaxy and beam instructions on how to re-assemble the source 
civilization from raw materials, vs. maybe harvesting the power output 
of entire solar systems to warp space or whatever's required to move 
macroscopic objects around, both seem rather technologically demanding 
tasks, seems like a toss-up to me.

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flimsy UFOs john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-05-17 20:52 -0700
  Re: flimsy UFOs "Edward Rawde" <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-18 00:05 -0400
    Re: flimsy UFOs "Edward Rawde" <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-18 00:23 -0400
      Re: flimsy UFOs brian <nospam@b-howie.co.uk> - 2026-05-18 06:14 +0100
        Re: flimsy UFOs "Edward Rawde" <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-18 11:13 -0400
          Re: flimsy UFOs brian <nospam@b-howie.co.uk> - 2026-05-18 16:31 +0100
    Re: flimsy UFOs Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> - 2026-05-18 12:32 +0000
  Re: flimsy UFOs Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> - 2026-05-18 08:47 +0200
    Re: flimsy UFOs Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-05-18 09:14 +0000
    Re: flimsy UFOs Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> - 2026-05-18 11:30 +0200
  Re: flimsy UFOs Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> - 2026-05-18 13:01 +0100
    Re: flimsy UFOs john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-05-18 08:51 -0700
  Re: flimsy UFOs Simon Simple <nothanks@nottoday.co.uk> - 2026-05-18 17:32 +0100
    Re: flimsy UFOs liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2026-05-19 09:03 +0100
      Re: flimsy UFOs Simon Simple <nothanks@nottoday.co.uk> - 2026-05-19 16:07 +0100
    Re: flimsy UFOs john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-05-19 08:16 -0700
      Re: flimsy UFOs Simon Simple <nothanks@nottoday.co.uk> - 2026-05-19 19:42 +0100
  Re: flimsy UFOs bitrex <user@example.net> - 2026-05-18 12:58 -0400
    Re: flimsy UFOs bitrex <user@example.net> - 2026-05-18 13:03 -0400
      Re: flimsy UFOs Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> - 2026-05-20 13:09 +0100
  Re: flimsy UFOs someone <2a59d59e3809f827ce709d3815e3950eef4a6a93af5557a93a7fdfba71460843@example.com> - 2026-05-22 03:45 +0000

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