Talk-Polywell.org

I can't help but be extremely impressed by the 300 ms confinement time that PPPL achieved with their relatively tiny FRC, which is employing a rotating magnetic field to stabilize it. That is a lot longer than the 12 ms achieved by TAE. It was my understanding that the only thing limiting longer co...

Oh, guess I just needed to read Slipjack’s link: 50M. I have to say TAE’s plan for a net power machine by 2020 is the most tangible hope to date I’ve had for fusion. Almost enough to make me start thinking this is actually happening...

I know Norman is not supposed to get them to PB11, but are there any more specific goals for Norman besides “hotter”? I think I recall a couple years ago 100M being mentioned, but I don’t recall reading any specific number since then.

And twice as hot, so far (20 million C). Are they still aiming for about 100 million C on Norman?

My main concern is Woodward, Fearn, Boldrini, etc. are all academics. What we really need is an intrapreneur; a capitalist that see what is possible and WANT to get it done. Hmm, like Elon? Hey, he has a rocket too. And plenty of money. And plenty of ways to put a working MEGA drive to use. Elon, J...

Those are good points I didn't consider. From a scientific perspective, I think you are probably right. I was mainly reacting to the sentiment I've seen from some where they don't seem willing to accept positive results that come from the lab while an orbital test would have a "seeing is believing" ...

Yeah.. I may have watched that a few times

I’m pretty sure I recall reading that they abandoned cross feed— it was adding too much complication for not enough benefit in performance. Musk said they ran out of igniter for the engines and I don’t see a good reason not to believe him. https://i.imgur.com/y8eRL2M_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...

Update on SSI experiments from Heidi Fern: https://youtu.be/B1KfN7y4y4I http://ssi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ssiapw2017_12_fearn.pdf I continue to be hopeful about his, but when asked about doing an orbital experiment, she suggests they don’t have near enough money to do that. I find it hard to...

Two of three engines failed to light on the center core and it hit the ocean at more than 300mph.

On the other hand, how cool is this?:
https://youtu.be/4nx_Xh4WW2I

Musk: looks like development of BFR is moving quickly, and won’t be necessary to qualify Falcon Heavy for crewed spaceflight.

Interesting. All the rumblings about whether a successful FH launch spells the demise of SLS, but Elon has already moved on to BFR.

Yeah, I’m sure we all got the joke (was a good one). At this point, it’s anybody’s guess as to what, if anything, happened to Zuma. But I agree it now seems clear that if something did go wrong, SpaceX was not at fault. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an open question in the days immediately afterward, ...

The is pictures of stage 2 deorbiting over Sudan at its scheduled time 2 hrs after liftoff. It’s surprising to me that if there was failed separation, why did they deorbit so quickly?

According to a source familiar with discussions on Capitol Hill, both SpaceX and Northrop Grumman are blaming each other for the failure.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01 ... a-payload/

Now, for the similar launches of NROL-76 & OTV-5 (2nd stage de-orbited), the catalog shows 2 objects from each launch, one labelled as the payload and the other as Falcon 9 Rocket Body.....

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... =44175.240