Talk-Polywell.org

The Starship hopper was destroyed last night by a storm
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index ... msg1904371

Elon Musk: Why I'm Building the Starship out of Stainless Steel I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction. But now I believe they are convinced—well, they are convinced. So that certainl...

New Forbes article on TAE including 44 minute video discussion of TAE status. Predicting breakeven in two years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/01/14/private-firm-will-bring-fusion-reactor-to-market-within-five-years-ceo-says/?fbclid=IwAR1BZo_xN8GHLQVGTZArtYwdb1-kCRlpVfnzvwXYVp6dxfcJ...

The scale of the TAE Technologies devices is becoming impressive. Norman is about 30 m long, Copernicus is planned to be more than 45 m long and the power plant plan is for a device almost 110 m long. These are linear devices and that gives of course a lot ot benefits, but they will still be rather...

I trust cost analysis these days as far as I can throw my trailer because of green power advocate lying. That is not to say I distrust you, it is just the people that write these analysis reports. Green power is a crooked business and heavily subsidized. Coal is dependent on the location of the pla...

Well, if your goal is to be competitive with coal, you are in trouble because coal power is dead. I’d have to go back and hear their numbers again, but they implied that with current gas prices, they’d have a hard time competing in the US with their initial plants. I think solar + battery is going t...

New Forbes article on TAE including 44 minute video discussion of TAE status. Predicting breakeven in two years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/01/14/private-firm-will-bring-fusion-reactor-to-market-within-five-years-ceo-says/?fbclid=IwAR1BZo_xN8GHLQVGTZArtYwdb1-kCRlpVfnzvwXYVp6dxfcJ...

A new Ars Technica article backs the idea that Musk is excited about the Starship design changes: But above all these things, Musk is a geek at heart, in the sense that geek means a "knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast." He is knowledgeable about rockets and obsessed with their details...

I dunno— Musk seemed pretty excited about this when he first tweeted about the “delightfully counterintuitive” design change they had in store. Musk seems pretty transparent in expressing his feelings; I’m betting this came from SpaceX, not a NASA compromise.

Yes steel. AFAIK, the reason he’s tweeted about isre-entry heating, not radiation— but the radiation seems like a fair point too. Steel holds strength in high temps unlike carbon fiber. Rather than use an ablative heat shield, active cooling using fuel as the heat sink. Also, he claims to have a new...

The demonstrator may end up waiting on a pad, though: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/crude-spacex-starhopper-is-70-to-120-days-from-first-test-flight.html?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation&spot_im_comment_id=sp_APwizggX_153130_c_kjcWPF...

Spoke a little too soon skipjack... EDIT: Made original comment as the booster was spiraling out of control and was picturing a fireball on impact (was hoping not in a bad place). Pretty phenomenal that it apparently actually kept enough control to make a controlled water landing-- can't wait to see...

Per tweet today from Musk, there are new radical changes to BFR; BFR is being accelerated in place of Falcon 9 stage 2 reusability.

Guesses anybody? (Hint: Musk says the changes are “counter intuitive”)

National Geographic has an episode of their Mars series out where they go behind the scenes for the Falcon Heavy launch. Definitely worth watching: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/watch/12e413e68c538ba79a298f709efc1607/ Haven't watched that series...any discussion of how said hypothetical fut...

National Geographic has an episode of their Mars series out where they go behind the scenes for the Falcon Heavy launch. Definitely worth watching: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/w ... 09efc1607/