Search found 69 matches

by Jeff Peachman
Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:38 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Spaceship could fly faster than light
Replies: 69
Views: 41078

Not sure how that rebounds on causality. Duane Imagine you had a bazooka that could fire warp missles that used the heim FTL drive in question. Whether the missles experience time dilation effects themselves is moot. Now read this site: http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html Replace the term...
by Jeff Peachman
Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:18 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Ray Kurzweil, Cyberprophet or Crack-Pot?
Replies: 155
Views: 62795

If anyones interested, I'd like to recommend a pretty good sci-fi book that I read called The Golden Age by John Wright. Its set in a post-singularity solar system, which is why I felt it related to this thread.
by Jeff Peachman
Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:24 am
Forum: General
Topic: Economic Facts and Fallacies
Replies: 124
Views: 44247

[quote=ravingdave]Don't get me wrong, I think prisons are not a good solution to the problem. I don't favor prisons. The idea that you are going to fix anyone by boring them to death for months or years is just silly. I've been thinking for years that some sort of mandatory educational boot-camp lik...
by Jeff Peachman
Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:00 am
Forum: General
Topic: Spaceship could fly faster than light
Replies: 69
Views: 41078

"Causality, Relativity, and FTL travel: Choose any two."

(Credit where credit is due: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket ... #causality )

Edit: You can still have wormholes, assuming they can't be used as time machines.
by Jeff Peachman
Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:45 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Ray Kurzweil, Cyberprophet or Crack-Pot?
Replies: 155
Views: 62795

I'm not qualified to comment on whether Ray K is right or not. He's extremely intelligent, but that doesn't mean he's right. But if he is right about it being feasible, then I'm having trouble accepting that 'the masses' will allow the singularity to happen as he imagines it. If almost half the coun...
by Jeff Peachman
Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:06 pm
Forum: General
Topic: bussard thought gain was = to 40 in 1993?
Replies: 0
Views: 1846

bussard thought gain was = to 40 in 1993?

I'm here at work killing time and I felt like reading some articles off askmar. I just noticed something from the article "The QED Engine: Fusion-Electric Propulsion for Cis-Oort/Quasi-Interstellar Flight", written back in 1993. On page 5, he writes: "Typically, the DCS system here will convert abou...
by Jeff Peachman
Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:00 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Propulsion development
Replies: 27
Views: 14926

The cooling problem is trivial for a pBj BFR operationally.


A peanut butter and jelly fusion reactor....
by Jeff Peachman
Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:50 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Propulsion development
Replies: 27
Views: 14926

Re: Be swift!

Sorry for the double post but... I just thought back to the original Google video where bussard does his rough estimate based on something like a 2% royalty fee, whomever owns the patents, well once they get the Gigawat polywells they can actually start making money on royalties by getting the polyw...
by Jeff Peachman
Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:38 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Closed Loop Recycling
Replies: 38
Views: 25309

http://www.orionsarm.com/ It's a collaborative sci-fi worldbuilding project. Takes a lot of ideas from kurzweil (though over a larger timeframe), an idea of multiple singularities (defined as discrete levels of ai intelligence), and it expands nanotechnology into pico and femtotechnology. No FTL, ex...
by Jeff Peachman
Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:31 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: So... what if it didn't work?
Replies: 29
Views: 22604

And, if they do decide to continue funding beyond small scale WB-8, 9, possibly even 10, will the Navy fund the DD for $150 M?

Or will it get transfered to DOE? How will that get handled?
by Jeff Peachman
Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:17 pm
Forum: Design
Topic: >@< Polyart X >@<
Replies: 7
Views: 5453

Yeah I remember that movie. And whatever was in the forcefield bubble wouldn't feel inertia as the bubble accelerated into space =) As for the crop circles, I don't think "the aliens" are trying to tell us something. The hoaxers that make crop circles use ropes and wooden boards as they spiral outwa...
by Jeff Peachman
Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:04 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Propulsion development
Replies: 27
Views: 14926

Well, assuming someone does develop it (China, Nasa, ?), how cheap could we guess that a mass produced ARC QED might be? Could it someday be comparable to the cost of large turbofan engines on commercial airliners? Or is the complexity high enough that these engines will only be used on military or ...
by Jeff Peachman
Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:51 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Magbeam Propulsion
Replies: 13
Views: 10731

I should probably add, even though I said "simply increase the mass fraction" it isn't always so simple...
by Jeff Peachman
Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:49 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: Magbeam Propulsion
Replies: 13
Views: 10731

QED could get you to Mars in 3 weeks. IIRC Mars in 35 days, Saturn in 76 days That's more a design issue. If you want to make it in 3 weeks rather than 35 days, you simply have to increase the mass fraction of your spacecraft. IIRC, when bussard wrote about his concepts, the mass fractions of the s...
by Jeff Peachman
Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:37 pm
Forum: Implications
Topic: So... what if it didn't work?
Replies: 29
Views: 22604

Hahaha Mike, I appreciate your comment because I'm normally the one that says what you just said, and I realise I may have mistyped. I'd have to look at the evidence first and see the critiques of others, because I could be skeptical of some of the reviewers. I wouldn't blindy say that it has to wor...