Talk-Polywell.org

Ivy Matt wrote:Not to alarm anyone or start any conspiracy theories, but does anyone have an idea why NASA's NIAC site seems to have disappeared from the Web? All applicable links now seem to redirect to the Office of the Chief Technologist's page.

Rumor 1 Homeland security wanted the name
National Infrastructure Advisory Council

Never mind. I guess I was using old links. The following links should work:

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/niac/index.html

http://www.nasa.gov/niac/

There will be a LiveStream of the NIAC Fall Symposium:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/no ... osium.html

Darn, I will be right in the middle of work that day, when John Slough speaks. Any chance someone will be able to record it and put it on Youtube?

I will hopefully be asleep at that time, and also LiveStream is blocked where I am as well.

Managed to watch the live stream. Unfortunately Slough did not do the presentation himself.
Not that much new information compared to previous presentations.
There is a new graphic showing the design of the future engine, which is pretty cool.
They provided a timeline for future experiments. Currently building the experimental setup. IIRC, verification runs within 12 months, FRCs within 18.
They want to have everything finished within 2 years from now.
Managed to get a question about supplying the plasma liners answered through the feed. They plan to operate at one pulse every 10 seconds. Making and feeding in the plasma liners has been considered with various approaches and will require quite a large part of the propulsion system mass.
So cool stuff over all, but no ground breaking news from them.
Still was cool to hear more from them. Their presenter (forgot his name) was a really good speaker, btw. Wished all the presenters had been that eloquent and to the point.

Thanks for the report. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I thought they would have finished building the experiment by now. It's nice that they provided a timeline, though. Fusion is always two or so years away....

MSNW fixed a missing link:

Pulsed Plasmoid Propulsion: The ELF Thruster

4. Nitrogen and Air Results:

a. Demonstrated coherent FRC ejection from 450 to 6,000 s.
b. Measured low ionization energies. Determined from T/P scaling .
c. Demonstrated up to 1.0 mN-s per FRC @ 50 J (1 N @ 50 kW).
d. Preliminary efficiency measurements of 50+%
e. No detectable erosion or thruster damage has occurred.

The low-end Isp of 450 s is SSME-like. But this is pulsed, so SSME-like thrust does not follow.

The ELF is a really cool device. I particularly like that it could work with air. The thrust ist still rather low, but is AFAIK higher than any other electric thruster in its weight class. The other great thing is that it can scale very well with input power.

Here is a video of an interview at the fall symposium:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/03/fall-2 ... gh-on.html

I believe this is their youtube channel, but I am not sure. Certainly looks like the works of MSNW LLC:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FusionDrive ... ture=watch

Some updated info in this NBF article:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/04/compon ... clear.html
They tested all components of their system and hope to achieve fusion in a first test probably by summer.
Cant wait!

I thought this part was kind of cool.

The team had a sample of the collapsed, fist-sized aluminum ring resulting from one of those tests on hand for people to see and touch at the recent NASA symposium.

They just uploaded their poster for the spring symposium. Intersting pictures from their recent tests!
http://msnwllc.com/Papers/NIAC%20Spring ... -final.pdf

I've fallen and I can't get up trying to figure out how they're crushing the rings around the FRC plasmoid. In a Z-Pinch, you'd do this by running current axially through the cylinder, but the rings can't conduct current axially, since they're floating in a vacuum. Can somebody help me out here?

agh, having to explain such a simple device to these ignorant simpletons.

look, the rings crush around the plasmoid because... oh well, if you can´t figure out by yourself, I wont explain to you. Do your own homework!


Just kidding, I have absolutely no idea too, it has been puzzling me since I first read about it.