Talk-Polywell.org

Yeah, so I was right ;) Now what is the difference between this and back then? Back then it did not work and now they are building another one for 2 billion USD and it is not even meant to generate net power, but to barely make break even and that if (and thats a big if) it works. In addition it, as...

Hmm, just use some old salt mines. Problem solved. We have some here in Austria and I visited them once. They are very deep in the mountains. I think one could savely store anything in those. In addition, it is not like we have THAT much waste to deal with, especially if we use nuclear waste refinem...

Ok, I never quite followed up on it (I simply assumed that it ended up in a dead end, which seems kinda plausible), but I swear I have seen and read about something simillar in the 80ies. They were using gold covered pellets back then with several very strong lasers focused at them. I have no idea w...

To get back on topic though... I think that Carl Sagan was referring to the huge interstellar designs, not the one taking off from the ground. I remember him referring to this like this "it is certainly the best use for nuclear bombs I can imagine". I wholeheartedly agree with him on this. I cant th...

You know, if you consider Haider fascist, then what is any US politician? Not that I particularily like him or his party(he is a populistic hypocrit that would do and say everything to get himself some votes), but me and many other Austrians dont quite enjoy the way things are made to appear by cert...

I think he wanted "the big version". Way OT: This is very difficult to explain. Let me just say the following: Austria has issues. The leading parties kept ignoring them. Austria has an immigration problem. At least one leading party admitted that during the last election also. The leading parties k...

Yeah, one has to make sure to never mention the word nuclear and polywell in one sentence, or presentation. I dont know about government officials in the US, but in Austria the ones making the decision would never get the difference between fission an fusion. Dont even mention anything about Orion a...

In any case, NERVA could be much improved uppon with todays tech, I am sure. The problem for me has always been more a political one than a technical one. With a polywell based propulsion system, the political implications would be a matter of the past as well and door to space will finally open rea...

Yeah, why be shy about it anyway?
Even Carl Sagan was a proponent of it.

I am still not sure whether you actually agree or disagree with me

I do know what the thrust to weight ratio is, but I do not quite know where you get your information Duane. According to Astronautix at least one of the various configurations that were designed and or tested had a Thrust to Weight ratio of 7.46. http://www.astronautix.com/engines/nerva.htm Further ...

Duane I am not entirely sure what you are referring to. Do you mean the higher weight of NERVA rocket engines? They do weight more, but they do have a higher ISP as well. Less fuel means lower system weight. I do not know what you mean with ugly. Most of the proposed rockets are big though thats tru...

Maybe they meant "start construction of " with build?

Hey, I mean I am for anything that helps, I am just sceptical as to how much it really does help. One problem is that you can not control when the wind blows. No wind, no power. You can not store the power from when the wind was blowing heavily either. So it does not seem like a very stable thing. W...

Torulf, thanks for the reply. Do you have a link? I am kinda interested in the "convert radiation into electricity" technology. I mean there is plenty of places with all kinds of radiation (that is sometimes unwanted), so I am wondering how this stuff works and whether it could not be used for deali...

Hehe, yes, I found that a little premature as well. I think that proposal was born during the first euphoria of their recent achievement. Sure the euphoria was deserved, the proposal is a tad over the top though