Search found 267 matches

by zapkitty
Fri Apr 23, 2010 11:12 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

CaptainBeowulf wrote:For a moonbase I would be inclined to dig out a hole in the regolith and put the base mostly "underground".
Digging the hole at the bottom of a deep crater will increase your protection by putting kilometers of regolith between the base and stuff coming in from the horizon.
by zapkitty
Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:59 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

How long do solar storms last? And how long a storm would you design for? One sigma, two sigma, three sigma length? Or six sigma? It could make a difference in the size and resources needed within the shelter. They are short-term events. Exceptional flares can last 3 hours or more although the geom...
by zapkitty
Fri Apr 23, 2010 12:55 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

So practical manned space exploration is going to favor power density. Yep, power or ultra-clever materials technology. And fusion gives us that power. But there's a caveat with powered shields... power failure. Power plant or shield projector failures would normally not be a big deal re: exposure ...
by zapkitty
Fri Apr 23, 2010 5:18 am
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

Thanx, zapkitty. I never was too clear about which types of radiation NASA thought necessary for longer voyages than the moon. Both types are important to deep space travel but only the solar particle stuff can even be partially handled by any shielding that current spacecraft can carry. A classic ...
by zapkitty
Thu Apr 22, 2010 10:25 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

Did anybody ever come up with a description of how it's shielded from cosmic radiation? The wiki editors are dieing to know, also. That's easy.... almost nothing protects you from cosmic rays once you're above the exosphere. Beyond the last traces of atmosphere it takes a couple of metric tons of w...
by zapkitty
Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:23 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

Thinking big, those modules must have well over 800 square meters of aluminum surface that could make up for lost radiative efficiency while reducing capital expense and launch weights by eliminating the dedicated radiators. Errr.... these are the inflatable Bigelow Aerospace modules I've been goin...
by zapkitty
Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:31 am
Forum: News
Topic: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter
Replies: 880
Views: 527190

The PW is well positioned for high power density applications, although I'm reading a gigantic heat dissipation challenge... Yep... I just ran the numbers for an orbital installation assuming that the PW doesn't vent waste products overboard for cooling help (if that would even help). Dealing with ...
by zapkitty
Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:56 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Project FOOF - Declassified!
Replies: 30
Views: 50378

I've never looked for actual documentation, but IIRC the Bigelow modules have a load bearing structure down their middle. There is a lattice work truss down the middle, but Bigelows are supposed to retain their structure sans the truss once inflated so I said "... and the latticework core of the mo...
by zapkitty
Tue Apr 20, 2010 1:37 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Project FOOF - Declassified!
Replies: 30
Views: 50378

Re: Skylon by modules, or Heavy Lift.

Uh, as I see it, you must arrange to assemble eg Skylon-shipped Polywell modules in shirt-sleeve environment, vent, bake then retreat to safe distance and light up. Skylon would work wonders for shipping PW parts... when it's flying ;) But I was aiming at using existing LVs so as to get a test unit...
by zapkitty
Tue Apr 20, 2010 6:09 am
Forum: Implications
Topic: Project FOOF - Declassified!
Replies: 30
Views: 50378

Tempting... A possible way to speed deployment... but is it cutting things too close? Needs a sanity check here... While PW doesn't scale small very well it is a fact that current spacecraft power regimes deal in kilowatts, not megawatts. Even pulse generation of a few MW a couple of times per day w...
by zapkitty
Fri Apr 16, 2010 9:44 pm
Forum: General
Topic: In Obama's America we don't Do hard
Replies: 100
Views: 26094

I think that Bigelow wants to do his own station with his modules. The ISS would probably be unneeded balast for him. From what I understand his modules would make for a much larger station than the ISS (in regards to volume). Not quite. Bigelow would be perfectly happy to sell a module or three to...
by zapkitty
Mon Apr 12, 2010 4:23 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Project FOOF - Declassified!
Replies: 30
Views: 50378

Project FOOF - Declassified!

"Fusion On Orbit Fastest" - Project FOOF :) If polywell and pB11 pan out I've been considering the best methods to implement a polywell-powered spacecraft as quickly and as economically as is feasible. I believe that research enabling the quick application of such systems in space is important to ov...