Talk-Polywell.org

I don't know about em drive, but as I recall, Mach effect has a couple of orders of magnitude of improvement available from better materials, drivers, etc. That can be had.

Building a commercial device is engineering, an we've done similar engineering before. Piezo electric stuff an capacitors are known, and it will simply be a matter of time to get reliable systems.

I had a thought when I first heard of the Polywell, I'd had the thought that a civilization using it for power might use more advanced reactions as they exhaust fuels for the easier reactions. This would take larger reactors to get the well depth needed, but it would work. It sounds like there would...

We know a a lot more about medicine these days, most of the issues they had back then were hygiene or sanitation issues. Complex organics organics can be be either synthesized by by the by the same processes used now, the same engineered bacteria we use now, or the "3d printing" processes being deve...

Probably no coal on Mars to refine iron the normal way, wonder if you can get it direct with an arc furnace. Aluminum shouldn't be difficult as long as you have electricity. There is a similar process that promises other such difficult metals, I'll have to look up if they've got their pilot vanadium...

I was addressing Tom's current terrestrial needs mostly. Being able to make something like an Atmel would be awesome. If a few Kg will last decades fine, but there are plenty of reasons to want native ability quickly. I for example would be inclined to join a more libertarian colony, which would hav...

As Tom said, while an on site programmer migbt be nice, he mostly would be auditing code written on earth. Not sure how much power the Atmel chips the Arduino uses, but they can be done solar powered. Probably wouldn't need batteries- -use the drop during the night to register your day cycle, unless...

Honestly something like an 8088 can probably do everything except play the latest games, not even sure you'd need much for browsing the internet, especially once multi core and multi threading have been taken into account.

Speed is not the driving force behind computer power anymore, last I heard. You could probably get plenty of power with a simpler architecture utilizing some of the newer techniques. Smt resistors and capacitors are thin film devices, I'm pretty sure they could be fabbed with a roll of carbon or Myl...

You'll need power transistors too then. Fpgas are not the only silicon based parts you'll need. One or two shipments could work but it won't take long for even chips to hit the point of diminishing returns. A colony company that starts now will have twenty years to invest money and part of that mone...

Lithography is a box. Think outside of the box. Even if it takes 100 times as long for a chip a fraction as complex, it might be worth it. A fdm printer takes hours to make what can be molded in seconds at an inferior quality but are practical for lots of stuff. Finishing out the suite of 3D printer...

A nuclear rocket if properly optimized could get into orbit safely. The big problem is that a "safe" ntr barely has the isp and raw thrust. The higher thrust and isp rockets get hot enough the core degrades, leaving fallout in the exhaust stream. Some of the combined ideas with "afterburning" hydrog...

I posted late and apparently didn't get all the details in there I needed. I'm looking at an inflatable bigelow style habitat. Diameter and volume aren't as important there as long as you can pack it under a shroud. This would be a single wheel at a time. If you want a larger single colony they coul...

How big of a torus style space station could you launch for the 350 ton payload plus whatever you get for scrapping this ship and just using it as a giant booster? If you can just start putting people in space, never mind on Mars, plenty of people will pay plenty less. Then all we need is Gundanium ...

With Musk’s recent releases we are ending up in some interesting circumstances. The development of the infrastructure is coming to the point where it's not a matter if, it's a matter of when. That when is becoming more accurate too, with the 2040s dates looking likely short of nuclear war or some su...