Talk-Polywell.org

9000x more effective than C02? I am having trouble accepting that. If there are such gases, it would seem to me they must be some sort of synthesis. To my knowledge, water vapor seems to have the best spectral absorption characteristics, but the planet would have to be warmed up a bit just to get w...

then again, why would anyone in theoir right mind climb out af a deep well only to jump down another? Once you are in space, colonize SPACE. Can you say "O'Neill"? Or do both....know one says they are mutually exclusive certaintly there is room/resources in the solar system for a colonied moon, mar...

I am very much a supporter of the idea that humanity should make Mars habitable, but I have been dismayed by recent speculation that the lack of a powerful magnetic field surrounding Mars will allow life destroying radiation to hit the surface, thereby rendering it unfeasible to survive there. Now ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228433.000-ill-put-millions-of-people-on-mars-says-elon-musk.html?full=true http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/elon-musk-says-he-will-put-millions-of.html He does not say how he will pay for it...but low billions sound like private would work. sounds like "Bank ...

... in a given block of time I would make more profit than you would because of greater cargo volume. No. You mean revenue. In a given block of time you would have more revenue because of the greater cargo volume. Then if your costs are the same as his, you would be left with more profit, but costs...

RL-10s are reliable workhorses that have been in use for awhile. It's thought they could do multiple burns. ULA proposes reuse of these engines in their depot architecture . "Thought" they can be re-used isn't the same as data. But consider this: lets assume for the sake of argument that a Triton N...

Given that reaction mass is super heated, reactive chemicals, the rocket engine and nozzle materials are vulnerable to burning and melting. ...What is the life span of your nuclear rocket engine? Unknown what the lifespan of a Triton or smiliar NTR would turn out to be since they haven't been devel...

Relevant to financing a colony: http://www.economist.com/node/21540395 Seasteading Cities on the ocean Seasteading: Libertarians dream of creating self-ruling floating cities. But can the many obstacles, not least the engineering ones, be overcome? [/b] Thx, from your link: The long arm of the law ...

Given that reaction mass is super heated, reactive chemicals, the rocket engine and nozzle materials are vulnerable to burning and melting. What is the temperature of the this nuclear heated hydrogen and oxygen? What is the life span of your nuclear rocket engine? If delta V budget is under 5 km/s,...

No NTR don't but I think a variant called "Timberwind" Quoting a post from nasaspaceflight's NTR/BNTR/NEP thread: "You may have heard of another NTR design looked at in the early 90s under a program called Timberwind--this was a "particle-bed" design, where instead of having fuel elements in channe...

I suspect the math is beyond your reach. No offense...but perhaps you could explain to us mathematically why you think chemical rocket plus your propellant depots would win out over say NTR like Triton. A Triton launched from earth by a chemical rocket gets fueled in orbit (either/or earth orbit or...

Well, yes. Each time you have access to a propellant source you get to start over at 1 grain of rice. Given propellant depots, the chessboard above looks like this: http://clowder.net/hop/TMI/RiceDepots.jpg But sadly the propellants depots pictured above don't exist. And if they did exist nuclear t...

That 16 includes 9 or 10 to rise from earth's surface and achieve orbit. NTR doesn't have the thrust to weight ratio needed to make the ascent. And, as I mentioned, given propellant sources high on the slopes of earth's gravity well, you no longer have 16 km/s delta V budgets. With lunar volatiles,...

First thing would simply be colonists. The profit comes off sending them there with all their equipment. If you can send them, everything they need to get going, etc., then you have a product/service to sell. If the $500,000 includes the corporate profit, then just start sending people, they'll fig...

I'd be curious to see this $500k to the Moon estimate of Musks. You're sure that's not urban legend? Right now he's hoping to get $50M/ 7-man flight to LEO, or $700k @, just to go round trip to ISS or Bigelow's Space Bed 'n Breakfast. err..hate to correct someone else's math but, $50M/7= about 7mil...