Talk-Polywell.org

Long, thin blades are difficult to stow cleanly for high speed ascent/reentry. While the blades are stowing, are you planning to freefall or accelerate under rocket thrust? Freefall? Accelerate? Neither, use the rocket to maintain altitude while the rotor blades decelerate and stow (alongside the b...

First of all, DeltaV has a point when he claims that a hovering pyramid is just going to look plain hideous. Not very beneficial when you want the craft to be commercially viable, and customers will want to park it in their back yard. I take your point, but please look at the Rotary Rocket wiki ent...

kunkmiester wrote: "Mass is the important part in countering torque. A proper set of counterweights can be held inside the vehicle, and will do just as much, though with a higher mass penalty." Yes, since we must counter torque, I'd like to get some lift out of in the bargain and avoid higher mass. ...

Not trying to solve a problem.

Trying to honor (at least some of) the people who got us off the planet.

edit.

Everyone will know these reactors fuse nuclei.

Stoney3K: I should have written counter-rotating _coaxial_ rotors at the top of the vehicle. The modified tilt-rotors shown in "Avatar" have their place in a primarily atmospheric vehicle. Note the size of those rotors relative to the size of the remainder of the vehicle. For interacting with the su...

I think the polywell reactors should be called either: "Bussards" or "Bussard/Nebels". If the reactors really work out, there won't be any need to remind people they fuse or react things.

What a great thread! I'm pretty sure this thread's posters know the design of SSTO vehicles is a long-time goal of the aerospace industry which has failed for lack of a good power source (and other things, e.g. money and good light-weight materials are also high on the list). Aside from the over-con...

Okay, so the USN says it's all right to tell the world and EMC2 says "No." Yeah, I sort of remember that. What we have now is an argument on this thread that will keep us busy until the data are released or EMC2 admits Polywell won't work. I agreed with ladajo to wait and it's still a good decision....

icarus, you wrote to me: "Did you not read the above posts, or read and not comprehend?" I have come late to the Polywell, and do not remember a clear schedule of what work has been completed. So, I guess I read and did not comprehend. I'm not defending the USN or EMC2. It's kind of funny... those t...

You are right about the tendency to not critically examine one's own assumptions, and other things, as time goes by. I cannot think of a poster on this forum who is not frustrated by the lack of information coming from E=mc2. So... I should have written: "Let them work. Wait patiently, through the S...

Thin-walled pressurized structure needed to resist longitudinal loads? One need look no further than the Atlas rocket.

Thanks everyone. For Polywell, I'm mostly interested in non-boiling water heat exchange to protect the superconducting loops. I'm hoping we will not need to use boiling water for power production, but hoping doesn't get us much...

Let them work. Wait patiently.

This Might be Useful: Nanotech Yields Major Advance in Heat Transfer, Cooling Technologies [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100609122844.htm] Quote: In these experiments, water was used, but other liquids with different or even better cooling characteristics could be used as well, the r...