Talk-Polywell.org

DeltaV: Sorry, my mistake. Because of the principle I am about to write, I assumed the diameters would be different and fan stages would stop when not being used: In general , one likes to disturb airflow the least. If one stage of blades will get the job done, then that's all one uses. I note from ...

Why is a hubless design desirable, especially for marine applications? Mostly anti-fouling. The original application was for bow thrusters which are used at low vehicle speeds in port where there is a lot of debris in the water. These hubless designs are more resistant to catching and keeping debris...

D Tibbets wrote:Then the question becomes - what powered the Big Bang, and what powerd that, and what powered that, and .................
Dan Tibbets

Do you not know? It's elephants all the way down.

GIThruster wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if he had the entire craft fold in half to expose a docking ring.

Yes, the Origami Orbiter. Much cooler sounding than Space Ship 3.

... but there are two troubles I see. First is, as a private industry (even if cottage) Virgin needs to pay for what they fly. All the entrepreneurs wonder that same question, "If I build it, will they come?" The people we read about in the aerospace press are the ones who answer "Yes, they will" a...

Did Rutan express an interest in a Black Horse launch system? I wasn't aware he'd so dabbled. If one reads the acknowledgements of the report one finds Mr. Rutan contributed to the "Black Colt", so one must assume he knows about Black Horse, too. The trouble I see is that such a system will be much...

Scaled Composites to orbit? ...but I just don't see how they're going to reach orbit. Not on rubber tire rocket engines, I can tell you that... ISS moves at almost 10X that. Not getting there on rubber tire engines. . .nosiree. I'm sure Mr. Rutan and co. know Black Horse requires more energetic prop...

GIThruster: I admire and appreciate your restraint for not ranting. Thank you. That which makes you groan and wish to spew a thirty-page rant is why I haven't been working for space access for the last ten years. All (okay, maybe most of them) of the good ideas have been thought, studied, debated, c...

ladajo: As usual you have hit the nail on the head. "We are dumb." But it's worse than we think. We are also cowards. TMI-2 should be seen as a triumph, but see my signature line.

Diogenes:

Must something which is immoral also be illegal?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have been arguing laser array-powered launch over in:

The Next Generation of Human Spaceflight

viewtopic.php?t=2590

GIThruster: I saved the anti-nuclear feeling argument for last because I knew it would be the toughtest. If you really think you can use the existing TRITON or some such for launching much cheaper than SpaceX, then you have to make the case to the public. Certainly OBama could do this if he so wishe...

...then there is no raison d'etre for a launch system, especially one that can't launch whenever there's cloud cover over many different laser sites. They all have to be clear at once! GIThruster: One of the advantages of the laser launch array is modularity and geographical distribution (I know, y...

As for my argument, it consists of this. Alcohol and Tobacco are horrible, and kill thousands (many innocents) every year. Why would we want another one of these, let alone a dozen more beyond? Diogenes: We do not want the evils of alcohol and tobacco to be visited on anyone, and yet those are visi...

I think you misunderstood the report. 2 things: first is this is not an accounting report. This is a NIAC report. It doesn't do any hard number crunching. They made a guess. Second thing is the $1 billion figure is not for a laser projector. It's what they guessed would be necessary to develop a 10...