theltemes

Re: Earth's core As a nuclear engineer, my favorite part was when they needed to increase the yield of the last bomb. The solution? Take out the core of the power reactor and chuck it into the compartment with the last bomb... for those of you unfamiliar with bomb or reactor physics, that whole scene was just wrong on sooooo many levels!

Re: Earth's core According to NASA: Recession rate from Earth (cm/yr): 3.8

Re: 2 more questions Water and parafin wax are neutron moderators - they slow down the energetic neutrons to room temperature velocities ~2200m/s. To absorb these slow neutrons, you want a material with a high neutron absorption cross-section. Boron has a great absorption cross section at thermal energies and nuclear reactors use a form of borated concrete to increase shielding capability. So a layer of water in front of boron-carbide ceramic should remove most of the neutrons. Keep in mind though, that whenever one deals with free neutrons, whatever you are shielding with will eventually become activated because of the neurtron captures going on in the material. This is a big problem for fission reactors and schemes using Gen. I (D-T, D-D)and Gen. II (D-3He) fusion reactions.

Re: 2 more questions Getting my MS in Nuclear Engineering this spring, thought I'd chime in. You can use pretty much any material you want to for shielding. For gamma rays (from the nucleus) and x-rays (from the electrons of the atom) you want a "High Z" material - basically Tungsten or some other dense material. For neutrons and charged particles you want to use hydrogen for shielding - which one reason most power reactors use either light or heavy water. Thick shielding is better than thin shielding because of "build-up" flux, basically cascade reactions that happen at the surface being irradiated (thick shields attenuate out the build-up flux). For shielding bases on other planets 2-3 meters of regolith over the habitat should suffice for all but the most intense solar flares (assuming you are basing on the moon or mars). For D-3He reactions, keep in mind that you are making some tritium and neutrons in the D-D side reactions at about 1%-0.1% of the total fusion reaction rate, so there is radiation present. A sufficiently advanced society would probably use 3He-3He fusion exclusively. It produces 2 protons and an atom of regular Helium-4. Proton cycle fusion wouldn't be feasible because it requires a carbon catalyst and produces a lot of gamma radiation, and requires a lot more energy to get going. Another advantage is that 3He from the solar wind is relatively abundant in the first 3 meters of rocky bodies that have no atmosphere. It is also present in Jupiter and Saturn because their gravitational fields are strong enough to retain helium in the atmosphere.

Um.... I am Jack's utter lack of amazement.

If you create the singularity which isn't in a vacuum, you are going to get a burst of X-rays as air molecules get trapped by the singularity. Even if it's only around for a fraction of a second, it would probably put out a considerable radiation dose.

Another Good Resource You should also check out: SWRPG Network It has a lot of Star Wars info. It's designed for the WEG d6 and WotC d20 Star Wars, but is very useful nonetheless.