Talk-Polywell.org

Polywell-powered lift fans could generate an awful lot of thrust, if powered by the highly mass-efficient multi-GW cores. An airship could carry a lot more armor if it didn't have to be able to hover unpowered... Reality check: does the blimp aspect provide any benefit, then? No! It just makes it b...

Anthropogenic Global Warming.

A global balloon system would protect itself through preemptive strikes as well. Call it preventative medicine. World police state? The other first world nations might not agree. Maybe in the NWO scenario. I think I prefer to break the space weapons ban instead. It's just easier. Inside the atmosph...

The only thing is who owns General Polywell. I think it will be big oil, and they will become big polywell. Because if you dont they will fight it tooth and nail. Fine by me. If they're prosperous and have the power to make gas from biofuels (or batteries from asteroids), they'll stop spilling stuf...

Plus the only people who would be capable of blowing it up would be 1st world nations. I'm not so sure about that. Yes, we could mostly shield it from missiles. But what shielding system can stop incoming bullet sized projectiles? Or a laser? Lasers that can shoot down missiles in a fraction of a s...

To be a careful thinker, you need to think carefully. You can't take a general attitude of optimism or pessimism and apply it to every specific situation you encounter. That's a thinking error of generalization that will generally make one foolish. Instead, we have to recognize that when judging a ...

You can't keep it a secret or maintain it within borders for 10-20 years if you start plucking them down for the power grid, and we'd derive the biggest benefit by having it power our grid. I don't think the US strategy is to dominate militarily (well, we do have a very strong military, but not so m...

If space were more accessable and we could pack satellites with a stronger means of maneuvering, we'd pack the weapons into an orbital platform instead. Harder for unsophisticated enemies to shoot down, and if you cloaked it with enough radar absorbing materials and moved it around regularly, maybe ...

The advantage is the ability to provide exactly the ideal EM frequencey, minimizing wasted fertilizer, increasing CO2 levels, almost zero net water usage and all but eliminating pesticides. I remember reading a compelling essay to this effect, describing how automation and greenhouses were going to...

Another thing to consider is that price shocks (as I understand it) don't represent actual, immediate scarcity. Even if a country halts exports or something, a fair amount of oil is in storage/transit, available to prevent scarcity for weeks or months. It wouldn't necessarily take a large infrastruc...

What he meant was, what's the going rate for universities to get time on a space telescope? Do universities currently pay for time on space telescopes? How is that rationed out? But let's see, Hubble is 24,500 lbs. So, that would be $24.5 just to launch it with SpaceX. That's about the range for a u...

Sort of a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. Precisely. We are on the same page. Even so, if "it's hard to make a good case that the evolving religious forms of the west are greatly responsible for this success", what is it easy to make a case for? Is there a simpler explanation? Occam wants to kn...

Furthermore, it will probably shatter the public's confidence in tokamak-based fusion systems, and strengthen the search for 'alternative' options, which could mean more Polywell support. Realistically, it would be a blow to public confidence for fusion systems. Any and all of them. Every now and t...

I understand that most of the arguments against tokamak fusion is that, if/when we can get it to grid, the device will be monstrously huge, and the heavy radiation load will be a pain in the ass (necessitating common shut downs for maintenance and whatnot). Also tritium breeding doesn't sound too ho...

But who would the new clients be? What would their payloads be? Regards, M.R.F. PG&E makes deal for space solar power: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30198977/ A few hundred megawatts of powersat could take up a lot of launches. Actually it probably wouldn't be too profitable at $1000/lb, but close en...