Talk-Polywell.org

3. Transportation by air, sea, land, and space will be revolutionized.

a. Ionocraft will finnally have a realistic powerplant that could facilitate a real lifter craft.

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

b. Multi-use Super sonic underwater submarines will be possible as well. Right now the navy is developing torpedoes that use rockets to propel themselves through a bubble of their own exhaust gases. Polywell submarines could do the same thing with a giant microwave oven filled with water to create a nuclear waterjet engine...this could be in weapons section...

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

c. VASMIR would have a substantial powersource and thus provide an engine to explore at least our solar system, if not scaled to a generation ship size for interstellar exploration/exploitation.

Loved your posts but Ionocraft are never going to be a viable form of transportation. The only reason anyone bothered with them was that some posed there was an electro-gravitic coupling. Once it was shown they are just ion wind generators, there became no reason to ever look at them as a viable alternative because they are too fantastically inefficient compared to anything that would compete with them, like a propellor.

IMHO, the revolution in micro-distributed clean water generation was inspired. . .great stuff!

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"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Kind of funny where I got that idea, my office has a view of the AC unit and the condenser water drips into our desert of a landscape and is the only green spot. Combined that with an unhealthy amount of scifi and there you have it.

Per vaccum ionocraft, I didn't realize someone finally did a vacuum test, bummer. You could still use it for the atmospheric portion of a space elevator, using multiple lifter sections, with the only the final section using tension.

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"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Seems like a better long term solution than Polywell/vasmir Combo, but P/V combo is closer to reality. Bussards polywell jet idea is much more elegant , but would probably take billions and require NASA to manage it, thus it will never make it past each new election. On the other hand, VASMIR is privatized and well along the development schedule. It could be hooked up to a stock polywell design.

I see polywell vasmir in the 5-20 year range, where Bussards solution would be 20-100000000000000000 years away. So if I had the purse strings I would build a polywell vasmir now and mine an asteroid, make trillions and bankroll the development of and entire suite of bussard craft, like a polywell bussard ramjet, SSTO polywell craft, Polywell linear accelerator.

Well, I know folks pursuing the Poly/VASIMR option. I think they'll be ready and waiting if the Poly works.

On the other hand, I know USAF has done several studies of a fusion driven MHD (read "air breather"). If the Poly works, DOD will put it in flight in no time. It would probably be at least another decade before anyone would see it in civilian flight.

Big picture though, it all depends upon POTUS. If the Poly works, and POTUS has a civilian appeal (and I'm sure the right people WILL step forward), I'd guess we'd be on the crazy semi-socialist nonsense NASA road to having interplanetary vehicles that are Poly driven in just a few years. A few years that is, to grab the vision, and a decade of R&D bugled by every engineer in USG employ, fighting with each other to have a say so about where to put the toilet.

So hey, might happen in our lifetime. Given a Poly, this planetary system is open for real investigation. Of course, given a 1N/W M-E thruster, the system is open for colonization.

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"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Speaking of utopia...

So poly/vasmir is to apollo as 1N/W M-E thruster is to space shuttle and Obama is to asteroids as Kennedy was to the moon.



So that means that poly/vasmir would be here by the end of the decade . While 1N/W M-E thruster will cost too much, take too long, but be super cool and get retired without a replacement.

How do we preserve the project past Obama's term/s without him dying and LBJ saving the day? International Project, ie space station, making it a foreign relations issue.



can you get me a job? lol

"While 1N/W M-E thruster will cost too much, take too long, but be super cool and get retired without a replacement."

Nah. All indications are that M-E thrusters will be cheap. IMHO, the reason research has been bogged down for a decade is that we don't have the engineering support to build the proper power systems.

If M-E works, it's gonna work wildly beyond our dreams. Same as when we first took mastery over electromagnetism.

Send your resume if you like. I'll forward it.

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"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

I could dust the coils, and wax the floors, maybe fix some leaky faucets in the bathroom etc. lol

I was in direct contact with a USAF technical think tank (haven't heard from them in a couple of years) in the early days of this board. I was told that the sidebar at my blog, IEC Fusion Technology, was where they sent newbies to get up to speed.

If nothing else Polywell promises a quick independent power supply for new bases. Ship in a 100 ton (more or less) reactor and 300 lbs of fuel and you are good to go for a year (assuming 100 MWf).

If they could mount one on an aircraft - instant mobile power supply. Ground based FEL lasers maybe? Or.......

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Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

I mentioned this in my weapons post I should have made 1 big post.

Anyway add a polywell to a larger version of Lockheed's new fancy blimp. Add dozens of plane based chemical lasers they just built for missile defense, Imaging for recon. Various missiles for precision strike ops and rail gun launched scramjet fast response missiles. Metal Storm batteries with explosive rounds for carpet bombing. Think flying aircraft carrier that never lands. You could even make the giant blimp a UAV its self. It would effectively act just like a satellite based super weapon would but without violating non-proliferation of space weapons treaties and it would be easier to maneuver and keep steady. All of this would fit wit preexisting programs, you just have to tie it all together with a few 100 billion dollars and argue about were the toilet will go.

And we have finally found a use for all that helium exhaust...


I guess the global shortage will have to wait.

Sorry but I don't think anyone would put weapons on a blimp. That would make them even more a target than they are for recon. Mobile weapons systems need to be able to move quickly and hide for all the reasons we no longer build main battle tanks. Blimps are an almost useless throwback.

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"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

If space were more accessable and we could pack satellites with a stronger means of maneuvering, we'd pack the weapons into an orbital platform instead. Harder for unsophisticated enemies to shoot down, and if you cloaked it with enough radar absorbing materials and moved it around regularly, maybe even developed enemies would have trouble.

The purpose of a few dozen high power lasers with polywell power is that it could effectively create a "shield of defense". Also metal storm batteries could provide a defense if used as a wall of metal in the path of enemy munitions. Like the missile shield for ground, but why not make it shield a section of sky. In fact we should put them in every spot on the globe to provide global ordinance control. If we don't launch it or approve you to launch it we blow it up; extreme air traffic control. Hopefully an ET does not stop by one day for a casual visit...boom.

Also the main target of such a device would be field commander support. Ideally every op would have its own platform with an entire suite of ordinance and recon options available right above your head in real time.

Plus the only people who would be capable of blowing it up would be 1st world nations. The whole purpose it to provide a weapons support platform for 2nd and 3rd world ops that are so common today. As a commander would you not love to have instant tactical support remote controlled direct by you.

I know most older people don't play many video games, but they provide a blueprint for how war should be conducted. Every first person shooter has a map in the top corner of your view that denotes the enemy and friendly locations and you can place tactical support in you field of view. This is my generations experience of war. To us taking verbal orders with nothing but a gun in your wits is CRAZY. Yet thats exactly what my buddies in Iraq are told to do. There is an extremely low level of situational awareness for our ground pounders, and that is unacceptable.

PS cheap swarming kamikaze drones from the size of a large bird for anti tank, but also insect size for anti personnel.

@MirariNefas space weapons are technically illegal.