Lockheed

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

wizz33
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:43 pm

Lockheed

Post by wizz33 »


zapkitty
Posts: 267
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 8:13 pm

Re: Lockheed

Post by zapkitty »

wizz33 wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6L5J7WcUpo

please check 0.35 0.41
Seems as if they're hiding the steam turbines on the next level down :)

... some interesting dichotomies in that ad. If you have fusion you don't need tidal turbines. If you can stick effective antiaircraft lasers on an infantry robot then the F-35 mission space is going to get very, very thin etc etc...

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Re: Lockheed

Post by Betruger »

The final lines sell that tentativeness: they won't say which projects will meet expectations, but they're working on all of them.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lockheed

Post by Skipjack »

This is very cool! If they get their fusion reactor to work, I will forgive them for all their expensive screw ups (F35, X33, etc).

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: Lockheed

Post by GIThruster »

The screw up with X-33 was really NASA's fault, not LockMart's. It was their call to put the aerospike on, to use an untested contractor for the composite tank and the systems engineering that was ignorant of the fact you can't filament wind a concave surface was theirs too. Was really NASA's screw up. The design could have flown with all convex surfaces and would have if they'd brought Scaled Composites in, and they never needed the aerospike to make it fly. SSME's would have worked just fine.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lockheed

Post by Skipjack »

GIThruster wrote:The screw up with X-33 was really NASA's fault, not LockMart's. It was their call to put the aerospike on, to use an untested contractor for the composite tank and the systems engineering that was ignorant of the fact you can't filament wind a concave surface was theirs too. Was really NASA's screw up. The design could have flown with all convex surfaces and would have if they'd brought Scaled Composites in, and they never needed the aerospike to make it fly. SSME's would have worked just fine.
Not trying to get into a debate here, since it is off topic, but:
Yes, I agree that much of it was NASAs fault. The insistence on insane requirements (for a first gen SSTO RLV) as an example (didn't learn anything from the shuttle, same idiots). Second, they chose Lockheeds design. That design was the most ambitious and most likely to fail of all of them. The design sucked ass in every aspect. The lifting body did not work. The thing got heavier and heavier. Final designs needed bigger wings than Rockwell's. The entire industry was laughing.
The Douglas concept would have been the better choice. Rockwells also seemed rather reasonable and would have worked at least better than Lockheeds. I think both were going to be cheaper too.

paperburn1
Posts: 2484
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:53 am
Location: Third rock from the sun.

Re: Lockheed

Post by paperburn1 »

Here are some facts to consider, if we started producing drop in replacement polywell (or LM) power-plant at the rate of 1 a month it would take 120 years to replace our coal power generation at current rates
About 32 percent of our power comes from coal
Even at one a week your talking 27 years.
Replace all of our generation capability and factor in growing usage your looking at making one new polywell plant a day for the next a day 20 years
We need to get on the stick
Disclaimer
These are all bootstrap figures +- 10 percent
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

choff
Posts: 2447
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:02 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: Lockheed

Post by choff »

I suspect Polywell production would be exponential.
CHoff

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lockheed

Post by Skipjack »

choff wrote:I suspect Polywell production would be exponential.
Plus, why would you build only one at a time? Plus, it is likely that we will run out of coal long before 120 years from now (which will suck for certain industries like steel).

Tom Ligon
Posts: 1871
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Re: Lockheed

Post by Tom Ligon »

Hah, that vacuum chamber on the fusion clip looks almost like the one I designed for EMC2 that housed WB4 and WB6! I wonder if they scored it off of SpaceDev?

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Lockheed

Post by MSimon »

Skipjack wrote:
choff wrote:I suspect Polywell production would be exponential.
Plus, why would you build only one at a time? Plus, it is likely that we will run out of coal long before 120 years from now (which will suck for certain industries like steel).
The US is thought to have 250 to 500 years of coal left.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

Re: Lockheed

Post by TDPerk »

"The US is thought to have 250 to 500 years of coal left."

Not with the para/anti-legal EPA mandates, we don't.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Lockheed

Post by MSimon »

TDPerk wrote:"The US is thought to have 250 to 500 years of coal left."

Not with the para/anti-legal EPA mandates, we don't.
True. I was referring to real coal as opposed to "lawful" coal.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Lockheed

Post by williatw »

MSimon wrote:The US is thought to have 250 to 500 years of coal left.
And of course if need be...coal can be converted to much more usefull oil by the

Fischer–Tropsch process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher-Tropsch_process

So between that and the Canadian tar-sands oil (and the fracking of oil shale) we should be sitting pretty energy wise for a good 100 years or so...plenty of time to develop polywell or some other type of fusion and scale it up. Failing that there is also high temperature molten salt Thorium fission reactors. And of course given enough time wind and solar should come into their own as well.

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Lockheed

Post by williatw »

williatw wrote:So between that and the Canadian tar-sands oil (and the fracking of oil shale) we should be sitting pretty energy wise for a good 100 years or so...plenty of time to develop polywell or some other type of fusion and scale it up. Failing that there is also high temperature molten salt Thorium fission reactors. And of course given enough time wind and solar should come into their own as well.

At least conservatively 100yrs of oil and gas, maybe more:

Hunt for oil and gas to begin off East Coast

The Obama administration opened up the Atlantic to oil and gas exploration for the first time in nearly four decades on Friday.

The announcement from Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) allows the use of air guns and sonic sensors to search off of the East Coast.

It is a major step toward allowing future drilling in the Atlantic, which has remained off-limits for over 30 years.

While the decision doesn't guarantee that lease sales for drilling in Atlantic waters will be included in the Interior Department's five-year plan for 2017-2022, it is a step in that direction.



http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... east-coast

Post Reply