Talk-Polywell.org

For propulsion applications, the trouble is that a laser beam doesn't get absorbed that easily by air; a fair chunk of it will keep on going and hit something solid, with tragic results. That's why I said the FEL beam should be focused. High (or even medium) power lasers are known to form a plasma ...

Metamaterials are known to have wave shielding applications. Less well known is the possibility of particle shielding: "Cloaking of Matter Waves" http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.2223.pdf Quote: "This work might be potentially important for the controlling of electrons in inhomogeneous cr...

If no heat exchanger material could withstand the REB, would heating the air/propellant with a REB-based free-electron laser generate excessive ozone at low altitudes? A FEL beam could be focused to form a plasma blob on the centerline of air/propellant flow in a duct, which would reduce thermal loa...

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... line=China Close To Testing Next-Gen Fighter

If Polywell is ready before Mach-effect, then: Superconducting electric lift fans (VTVL) from ground to low atmosphere, transitioning to superconducting electric turbines from low to medium atmosphere, transitioning to ram-air arc-jet from medium to high atmosphere, transitioning to onboard propell...

If you need to run the superconducter equipmet for longer times (deorbit and landing after up to several weeks in orbit) the increased storability and density and heat capacity (?) of liquid helium or especially liquid nitrogen might serve better. cryonitro is cheaper. Provided you can get the same...

The superconducting electric lift and electric turbine modes might be based on the same engine "core", similar to the STOVL F-35B, and the ram-air and onboard-propellant arc-jet modes might also share a core, connected to a variable-geometry intake and variable-geometry outlet. Ozone production woul...

If Polywell is ready before Mach-effect, then: Superconducting electric lift fans (VTVL) from ground to low atmosphere, transitioning to superconducting electric turbines from low to medium atmosphere, transitioning to ram-air arc-jet from medium to high atmosphere, transitioning to onboard propella...

To quote Don Lancaster:

"nearly any involvement whatsoever with the patent system in any way, shape, or form, is virtually guaranteed to cause you a monumental long term loss of time, money, and sanity"

http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp

Aero wrote:Unexplained heat will bring SWAT, too.

Sounds like a job for one of MSimon's Polywell cooling systems, modified to distribute the waste heat over as large an area as possible, or maybe into a nearby river, while prototype vehicle development progresses.

In addition to Genetic Algorithms, Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic, the new kid on the block of nonlinear optimization techniques is called Particle Swarm Optimization. Don't know enough about it to say if there's any obvious application to Polywell, but apparently it's loosely based on emulating th...

High-thrust Mach-effect drives could do that, possibly within a normal person's budget Hopefully, cheap HT superconductors would make building a Polywell+Mach-Effect vehicle affordable for the ambitious, slightly crazy hobbyist/enthusiast, as long as nothing more complicated than coils, capacitors,...

While Inductrack and flyback boosters (what the Shuttle should have used) probably (for now) make a lot of sense from economics and engineering perspectives, my independent streak demands zero reliance on any ground-based infrastructure, apart from fueling and required maintenance, repair and overha...

If it's not FULLY reusable SSTO and return with NO staging, throw-away mass, solid rocket boosters, etc., then it's not worth doing. Might as well stick with the current roman candle nonsense otherwise.

"...the conducting links between the end rings are insulated to avoid plasma shorts and comprise a separate "helicon antenna"..." For clarity: The "helicon" circuit(s) generally assumed to be completely separate from the coil circuits and the conductive coil casings. A somewhat challenging design p...