Talk-Polywell.org

Would we still need Nimitz/Ford class size aircraft carriers? I think the tentative plan is to fly them off subs. The modern aircraft carrier would be replaced by a smaller drone carrier that is submersible. But that plan is contingent upon technological development as is currently expected, and th...

Heck, there are still believers in John Keeley, Bessler and Joe Papp. I had a guy contact me on LinkedIn trying to sell the Papp engine, and I told him that though it is interesting, it has been clearly demonstrated to be using a well understood and well-characterized supersonic plasma expansion/co...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ngElkyQ6Rhs [spoiler alert: watch the vid first before you read further!] I absolutely love the imagery Abrams is using in the first shot, with the dead X-wing and slow reveal on the Imperial Star Destroyer. Then the passing of the baton to the...

The PS at the end is funny! I should note that I do not personally flinch when I see 8 years of effort as if there is some sort of test one could have that requires best results in any time frame. BLP and Millis have been at it for about 3X as long. The fact people grow weary over years says somethi...

You let the lander free-fall until the last move before impact, and then burned most of the fuel in the last second or so. Perfect landing every time. Were they hitting a small target area? Seems to me adding the requirement to hit a barge or any small area means you'll need to do some active maneu...

Hey, I read the piece on "dynamical Casimir" at MIT and they don't make the claim that this is the ONLY explanation. And you need to understand, for Casimir to be evidence for crazy vacuum physics, it needs to be the only explanation. This is how science works. And despite that so many physicists ha...

Some analysis:

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/analysis-f ... =social_fb

"The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization's technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths—exactly the radiation that the WISE satellite was designed to detect for oth...

Almost!

Says who?

But vacuum energy has been proven to exist experimentally. Its called the Casimir effect. No. It has not been proven. Casimir effect is just as easily explained by van der Waals forces. While Casimir is consistent with and coherent with the vacuum energy conjecture, Casimir in no way requires vacuu...

IIRC, 93143 posted an analysis some months back in this thread of how wind affects rockets not only during launch but in the landing phase which is even more critical I think. It is non trivial, the forces that can be exerted both by cross winds, and also rain striking the launch vehicle supersonic....

Launch is scrubbed today for weather. Next launch opportunity is tomorrow 4/14 at 4:10pm EDT.

Predicting a super-symetric partner is not predicting how many there should be! You're comparing apples and oranges. The trouble with vacuum theory is it requires these outrageous things be true we know are not true! The universe is not collapsed! And take note, the standard response to this challen...