Talk-Polywell.org

I thought he'd already observed reproducible thrusts well in excess of photon rocket performance... He's not losing kilowatts into his test articles, is he?

I'm afraid your post comes across to me as a compound reading comprehension fail. Not counting the fact that you apparently didn't read past the first sentence of my post.

Another similar space venture is still using fuel-inefficient surplus Russian rocket engines built in the 1960's that cost more to run and maintain over time. No, he's definitely talking about Orbital's Antares and "AJ-26", unless there's another new venture using '60s-vintage Russian engines that ...

The problem is that NASA keeps getting jerked around by a fickle government and hobbled by dysfunctional management. Fastrac was roughly the same era as SLI, and for roughly the same reasons. SLI was part of a sustained (and repeatedly frustrated) effort by NASA to lower the cost of launch to orbit ...

The size of the whole rocket and its manufacturing, transportation, and launch infrastructure are proportional the mass of propellant required, which is proportional to exp(1/efficiency). The costs associated with the hardware and infrastructure tend to correlate fairly well with their size. It's on...

fuel-inefficient surplus Russian rocket engines

[*facepalm*]

Doesn't the "rest of the universe" change with the vehicle's light cone (in connection with velocity)? That would mean no priviledged frame. Re: lightcone - the speed of light is the same in all frames, and relativistic foreshortening is symmetric (and small). I don't see a mechanism there, though ...

The sequestration budget amounts are being compared with the President's 2013 Budget Request, which doubles Commercial Crew and cuts SLS/Orion. Of course it looks uneven. And SLS/Orion does take an additional hit in the ground infrastructure department, which will hurt. The year-over-year cut to CC ...

This is (probably) a thermal reactor. Bremsstrahlung suppression tends to be difficult or impossible in a thermal plasma. Focus Fusion is hoping for quantum magnetic suppression, but even they have to use layers of lead foil as photovoltaic panels. On the other hand, the Skunk Works presentation did...

I don't believe it has, if I recall correctly. The experiment is apparently fairly difficult to set up that way, considering the power supply and instrumentation and so on. Vacuum, yes, and with the thruster in a Faraday cage, but not totally self-contained. The equipment is supposed to be well shie...

I wish people would stop quoting that grossly misleading thought-stopper. Why should the standard of evidence be different for claims people don't find "extraordinary"? Evidence is evidence. It's not like Woodward is challenging well-established physics here; he's simply exploring a neglected implic...

Re: lightcone - the speed of light is the same in all frames, and relativistic foreshortening is symmetric (and small). I don't see a mechanism there, though as I said I'm not an expert on relativity...

I wasn't all that impressed by chrismb's M-E thruster vs. rest of universe scenario. I thought it was intuitively obvious - it's certainly the first thing that occured to me ... The thing is, I had the impression that these devices were supposed to have velocity- and orientation-independent behaviou...

It is, though. The power exerted by a rocket engine does not depend on its velocity or acceleration. Propellant flow and thermal efficiency are basically constant. Heat of combustion is constant. Thrust is basically constant. That constrains the problem. Or take an electric thruster. Power input, pr...

When I appeal to myself as an authority, I am speaking specifically of the question of energy accounting in a rocket engine. I make no claims to understand exactly how a Mach-effect thruster is supposed to work. But I do know how a rocket engine works, and in that context you are the one talking gib...