Talk-Polywell.org

Musk hasn't developed any oogie boogie science that enables us to circumvent the rocket equation. True, but Tethers Unlimited has. A tether loses momentum each time it makes a suborbital catch. How is momentum maintained? If the tether was making catches from higher orbits as well as suborbital, mo...

But I entered the conversation when someone said Mars is a better near term goal than the moon. If the moon is skipped for Mars, lunar propellant wouldn't be avaiable. If the program is government funded, a long term project is difficult to sustain through many election cycles. If the program is pr...

KitemanSA wrote: I said energy, not fuel. Get the rate up and more energy efficient ways will be found (or maybe it will be the reverse).

Merlin engines are basically old school kerosene rocket engines. Musk hasn't developed any oogie boogie science that enables us to circumvent the rocket equation.

KitemanSA wrote:Try figuring the cost/rate via THERMAL cracking using a light weight mirror in VERY strong/steady sunlight. The values aren't so bad after all.

How would I know if the values aren't so bad? You've provided no numbers and no cites.

We have CNC machines that can be left over a weekend I thought we were talking about time between launch windows. Try years, not a weekend. without trouble, Manufacturing on factory floors is a very controlled environment and the machines do predictable repetitive, tasks. Civil engineering in a wil...

Just how quickly would boil off of propellant O2 & H2 occur? Store it as solid water and I'd say "not quickly at all"! :) How many joules does it take to crack a tonne of water into H2 and O2? What are the watts per kilogram of plausible orbital power sources? Given a LEO power source of plausible ...

Tens of dollars per pound is exceedingly optimistic even if Musk does achieve reusable rockets to LEO. . The energy used to get to Sydney from the States is greater than that needed to get to orbit. And most anyone can fly to Sydney for less than $10 per pound. Get the flight rate up and the same w...

These are mostly propellant, which doesn't store well in LEO. There are several studies that say otherwise. Are they online? Could you give a url? I'm interested in that sort of stuff. Also, there are propellants that are not cryogenic. Hydrogen is one of the best chemical fuels. If you use other f...

Also I seem to recall you championing the idea of propellant depots from lunar resources in low earth orbit and/or Lagrangian points. I assume they would have to deal with the issue of boil off as well. Would think there would likely be propellant depots in earth orbit launched from earth probably ...

I see no reason why the plan of launching numerous rockets into earth orbit, and then firing them all off into a Mars Transfer Orbit during the launch window wouldn't work. Money's a finite resource. Yes it is which is why I prefaced it by saying if Musk succeeds in developing reusable rockets . Th...

krenshala wrote:I see no reason why the plan of launching numerous rockets into earth orbit, and then firing them all off into a Mars Transfer Orbit during the launch window wouldn't work.

Money's a finite resource.

It would take numerous missions to send the equipment to build infrastructure. 30 missions to the moon would be accomplished in a few years. Since Mars launch windows are each 2.14 years, 30 missions could take six decades. Yes assuming one launch per launch window. If Musk succeeds in producing re...

I think a moon base would be feasible for less than a couple of billion, including a fair amount of habitation. A lot of robotic construction, and sending machines to build machines to build machines and things though. Since the cost for getting to LEO dominates, especially for slower robotic/unman...

And the initial reply that Hop snipped above was in the context of the original discussion: millennial timeframe colonization/terraforming scenarios. Um... no. Here is the original post in it's entirety: We aren't going to sit around on Earth surface doing nothing for millenia, waiting to reach thi...

The moon is close and we should be able to colonize it in the near term. Or Mars. It's a toss up Launch windows Mars each 2.14 years Moon each 2 weeks (from a given low earth orbit) Trip time Mars 8.5 months Moon 5 days In these respects they're not remotely comparable, much less a toss up. The big...