Talk-Polywell.org

I think it will do better than a normal fusor. In fact, I think Dr. Bussard already did that with his WB6 reactor. However, breakeven won't happen unless, as Dr. B predicts, it is scaled up enormously ($250 million). And his scaling rule won't be proven until WB7 and WB8 are built. So, I'm voting ha...

Interesting stuff. I followed your link and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System Seems they have lightning arrestor equipment, something similar to what is described here: http://www.harger.com/products/tvss/lak/lak.cfm I'm not an electrical engineer, but it looks ...

Collecting sufficient moisture from the atmosphere to electrolyze into hydrogen to maintain buoyancy indefinitely would be quite feasible. The Magenn website indicates that their 10kW inflatable turbine units contain 32,000 cubic feet of helium, and have a leak rate of 0.5% per month or 160 cu ft/mo...

Geez, it's just a concept. But ok, I'll try to rebutt.... 1. I guess it would have to have lightning rods or something. Most towers have lightning rods. Personally I don't know what the big deal is about lightning. 2. If an inflatable unit became detached, I imagine it would float away. The Magenn w...

Conducting the electricity to the ground is the whole idea. A small amount of hydrogen would be produced only for buoyancy. It would not be used for fuel. That would be an extremely inefficient use of energy IMO.

I was thinking Argon mistakenly, which is much more abundant. A condenser can obtain distilled water from the air, which can then be electrolyzed into hydrogen. The units can still be self-contained and low-maintenance. The question is, can this be done efficiently enough. I still have to do the mat...

Maybe. If Polywell works. But it would still be interesting to build a wind ladder just to test the limits of technology. - Far offshore, deep water. - One mile altitude - 20 inflatable turbine units in series. - Tether technology, a la space elevator. - Climber technology. Each inflatable unit migh...

A nuclear reactor isn't something that is mass produced on an assembly line. So I don't think you're going to get that 10-fold cost reduction that you want. Hundreds of fission reactors have been built and it didn't happen. You only get cost reduction when the same tools can be used over and over ag...

Cellular networks wouldn't benefit from a high altitude balloon relay because it would enlarge the coverage area too much. Cellular networks work because small area networks can re-use the same cell phone frequencies in multiple areas. The optimal size of the cellular area usually only requires a to...

The Magenn website says the helium would need to be topped up every 4 - 6 months. It could be reeled in, or a climber could deliver a compressed gas cylinder. Space elevator competitions are held every year where students design robotic climbers - an interesting fact. So it might be automated. I thi...

According to page 19 of Dr. Bussard's Google speech (pdf paper) his full scale version would need up to $250 million funding for a 40 Megawatt p-B11 fusion powerplant. That's $6.25 per watt, about the same price as the inflatable wind turbine, maybe more. The main difference is that this same reacto...

These guys have a cool idea. http://www.magenn.com Inflatable wind turbines. Use Helium for buoyancy, which is abundant and environmentally friendly (in fact it is completely inert). These turbines can reach wind at much higher altitudes than a windmill on the ground. No radioactivity. And some sugg...

Isn't that just a little too obvious?

The main issue for me is that designing something is graphics-intensive, whether we're just talking about artistic renderings, or fully dimensioned blueprints. Right now only Nasa Spaceflight really supports images embedded in posted messages, and only Yahoo supports a repository of images/files. On...

Yeah, but I can't upload my own images unless I have a link to another website where they are already displayed. There is another thread on this forum asking for people to submit an image to replace the phpbb banner logo at the top. How can I do that if I can't upload images? Nasa Spaceflight forum ...