Search found 267 matches
- Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:35 pm
- Forum: General
- Topic: A good Post On the Deepwater Horizon Accident
- Replies: 111
- Views: 62166
In that case, I would say the contrary is the case. If you can shatter the pipe with explosives so that the silt collapses back onto the pipe, then (a) it will return to as it was before the pipe was there, (b) it is impossible to shatter silt! But the silt is insufficient to contain the blowout, a...
- Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:21 am
- Forum: General
- Topic: A good Post On the Deepwater Horizon Accident
- Replies: 111
- Views: 62166
Not exactly my specialty but from what I've gathered from the Oil Drum et al over the past month the sea floor ain't a floor... it's silt for a long way down gradually giving way to a friable rock that will someday become sedimentary rock... when it's had a few more aeons to set. And you have multip...
- Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:05 am
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
Anything one does to make a sweeper big enough to catch a useful amount of space junk is also going to generate so much drag that it will deorbit itself long before it enough material to be useful. First, anything impacting the sweeper at orbital velocities is going to become plasma and fragments.....
- Sat Jun 12, 2010 7:05 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
Problem with a cloth sheet for a sweeper is it may become a trampoline. We want to remove the debris, not knock it flying somewhere else. With an impact velocity often measured in kilometers per second that's not going to be a primary design driver. The design driver will be that the "sheet" sheds ...
- Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:48 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
One could maybe clear some defined orbits, like streets. You would probably still have debris coming in from other orbits though. In fact that's the primary collision geometry. But even a "glancing" blow takes place at orbital velocities... so imagining them as if they were like cars in merging lan...
- Sat Jun 12, 2010 9:22 am
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
Rearranged the order of your statements a bit... Actually, most LEO space junk is small. Quite true... but this part... Most LEO space junk is things like nuts and washers. ... not quite. Most OD is smaller than 1mm in diameter and consists of solidified metal droplets from explosions and solid rock...
- Fri Jun 11, 2010 8:34 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
Some fear an orbital debris chain reaction (sort of like fission). http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_5165772 Actually, a Kessler cascade is happening even as we type at each other. Kessler Syndrome does not necessarily posit a single collision that initiates a chain reaction that renders LEO u...
- Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:26 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
Space junk becomes a problem. If you have people putting up lots of cheap stuff that breaks down the whole time, you get to the point where you'll lose track of it, and where it interferes with most launch trajectories. Actually, doing that would be illegal in most countries. Yes, it's more of that...
- Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:06 pm
- Forum: Design
- Topic: Using atmosphere as propellant
- Replies: 151
- Views: 151877
Re: Using atmosphere as propellant
This is true for traditional chemical propulsion, where you have to get to orbit in a hurry before you run out of cryogenic or hydrocarbon propellants. This is not true for a winged Polywell-powered flying machine using relatively small amounts of H and B11 to heat atmosphere as propellant. Propuls...
- Tue Jun 08, 2010 5:30 am
- Forum: Implications
- Topic: Polywell, ITER and the Helium Supply
- Replies: 31
- Views: 56271
- Mon Jun 07, 2010 11:37 pm
- Forum: Implications
- Topic: Polywell, ITER and the Helium Supply
- Replies: 31
- Views: 56271
Is there any significant amount of helium available in things like Oil Shale, or the Oil Sands of Canada, where we might be able to recover large amounts of helium from such resources which are mostly un-exploited at present, simply because they are not as cheap as drilling for crude? Don't know of...
- Mon Jun 07, 2010 11:25 pm
- Forum: Implications
- Topic: Wiffle-Ball as a weapon of terror?
- Replies: 16
- Views: 28661
- Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:02 am
- Forum: General
- Topic: In Obama's America we don't Do hard
- Replies: 100
- Views: 26094
[[Aside: Did you know that there is , in fact, a spare solar array, as well as a spare radiator assembly? They don't have a ride up. If they're needed, and the Shuttle isn't flying, that's just too bad.]] I wondered if that 5th PVR Lockmart et al had listed was a spare ... (eyes radiator speculativ...
- Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:27 am
- Forum: Design
- Topic: Orbitec's VCCW thrust chamber and Polywell
- Replies: 6
- Views: 8898
If you're using air augmentation then, while you may use the vortex to keep the plasma from eating your nozzles, you are still going to be moving a lot of air that while hotter than jet exhaust won't be heated to anywhere near plasma temperatures... so could that cooler air be used to cool the nozzl...
- Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:21 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Elon got his rocket up ...
- Replies: 118
- Views: 45026
SpaceX is already in talks with NASA about super heavy! I read that, but at the time I assumed that it would be "just" the falcon 9 heavy version. Basically two identical booster stages mounted side by side with the core stage. Is the "super heavy" going to be even bigger? In the past Elon Musk has...