Philosophy 101 – out of this world.

Nice thinking.

Since gravity is mostly related to mass, we need to do something about the unfortunately large mass of the earth. One solution would be to reduce the mass of the earth using a few nukes. Maybe the whole situation in the middle east/africa is actually going to wind up benefiting us hikers.

Another solution would be to move to the moon. Gravity is only 1/6th on the moon, so a heavy 30 lbs earthly load would become a sweet SUL load on the moon. Recall how the astronauts had so much bounce in their step, even with their huge backpacks. With a SUL load, you'd spend more time in the air than on the trail.

I like the discussion so far. A buddy of mine has the same distain for gravity and made a cool video of his solution.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/775431/the_fug_f_u_gravity/

This solves the problem without messy nuclear holocausts or intergalactic moves(Plus I've asked my friends to help me move one too many times already…)

backpacking on the moon is a great idea (re: 1/6 gravity)

that would also take care of 2 other issues: crowds on the trails, trash on the trail, at first…

it would also create a new problem: the oxygen dependency.

Either we figure out an alternate compatible air intake source, or we have to farm oxygen in a bio dome, and bottle it like scuba divers… or astronauts

but first things first, MYOG anti-gravity boots.

I'm still thinking about this negative gravity concept. I also scuba dive, the gear is often measured by positive or negative buoyancy, basically stuff that float versus sinks.

I also remembered an episode of Mythbusters where they tested how many HELIUM balloons it would take to lift a person's body weight. the amount/weight of the container (rubber balloons) offset the lift benefits of helium, but what if we did it with existing gear, See where I'm going with this?

I'm not expecting to helium fly, but how about a concept of helium filled gear that would create a slight hint of negative weight. Think about all the gear that has air cavities.
hiking poles shaft. fill it with helium (airtight), is it a hint lighter ?
how about if you took a backpack that's 75L max capacity, used 30L for gear, and leveraged the remaining 45L with helium, would that make a difference?

Multi-use gear, those helium airbags can be re-purposed as sleep padding and pillows.

I suppose there are other lighter than air gasses, by they could be flammable.

Your thoughts?

When I go heliumpacking, there's always at least one clown who takes a few puffs and then tells a story around the fire. At least it's safer than the ol' fireball days when we used hydrogen.

So if you refuse to buy into the mass delusion you won't be affected by it.

agreed.
since the world, in so far as we can know it, is merely idea, all we need to do is posit a world without gravity to solve the perceived problem.

I want an application that would map gravity sinks so I can avoid them. Gravity sinks,
the ones most noticed around tree wells when skiing.

The astronauts only bounded around like that because they were on cables strung from a boom in the Arizona soundstage used to defraud us and intimidate the Russians. Oh, and those packs were empty, except for Tang.

The Tang part is all true. That stuff's awesome.

Wait for a 20 mph tailwind and deploy a large kite or small parachute.

Gravity is a karmic manifestation. Too many cling to the notion of the human interpretation of the five senses to override gravity. We need a mass psychedelic experience…..perhaps a worldwide stimulation of the pineal gland releasing endegeonous dimethyltryptamine into our brain chemistry to transcend our limited perception of the universe, bridging this world with other simultanious dimensions. That's how we beat gravity :-)

… and here I thought all you had to do was throw yourself at the ground, and miss.

I'm all for using hydrogen- not only does it have greater lift but I'm SURE I could rig a stove to run off of it. Actually the lift isn't that different: the bouyant mass of a cubic meter of hydrogen is 1.20kg, whereas helium is 1.11kg, only about an 8% difference. And it is a lot easier to seal a gas bag for helium than for hydrogen- hydrogen can leak out of almost anything.

But if you brought along a solar cell you could make more by cracking water.

Imagine a 100L pack that is half gas bag: a cubic meter is a kiloliter, so the bouyant mass of 50L of H2 is, what, around 60g? That doesn't seem worth it. But the idea is so beautifully impractical that I find myself strangely drawn to it.

Not a good option for smokers, though. They should stick to helium.

"And it is a lot easier to seal a gas bag for helium than for hydrogen- hydrogen can leak out of almost anything."

Remember the Hindenburg…..

There's actually some potentially big news for gravity next week. The staff at the LHC will be holding a special seminar on Dec 13. It's possible this could include information about the discovery of the higgs.

I thought it might be cool to have a material that "reflects" gravity, but this unfortunately doesn't work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_shielding

While gravity is indeed related to mass, decreasing the Earths (and your own) would help. However it's also inversely proportional to the square of the radius between the two centers of mass. If that sounds complicated to you, it basically means the farther from the center of the earth you are, the less gravity you feel, and that being farther is more effective than being lighter.

So I guess the solution is to go climb a mountain!

Rodney: 45 liters of helium weighs 1.7 ounces (48 grams) less than the air it would displace. But come on! Go whole hog! Hydrogen is half the mass of helium, saving you an additional 3.8 grams.

More importantly, you can multi-task with that hydrogen. There's 437 BTUs in that much H2 and that's enough to boil one liter of water. But much, much better would to run it through a fuel cell and generate 120 watt-hours. That's as much as 80 alkaline AAAs! Two pounds of batteries saved!!!

So we invent something to make gravity weaker and backpacking easier and soon the entire wilderness will look like Half Dome on a busy day…

…only complete with dirty diapers in the bushes, cases of beer on backs, shredded red and white checkered disposable tablecloths stuck in trees, and half-eaten watermelons strewn about.

Nope. I say keep it hard to get in deep; unless you're also inventing an Imbecile Death-Ray.