Briefs: LLC video; Student Launch Initiative; Fusion propulsion

When steamships came around, the travel time across the Atlantic went from 3 months to twenty two days. Fusion will do something better for flights to Mars. The real question will be what, if anything, can be made on Mars and brought back to Earth at a profit. Dr. Nebel has taken over Bussard's work, and has taken a 1 year entrepreneurial leave from Los Alamos National Laboratory to see if he can repeat Bussard's claimed breakthrough. I hope these finance games that the Democrats in Congress are playing with the war in Iraq don't shut down the program again. But that may be exactly what the Power Elite want.

Posted by tony rusi at 11/22/07 00:47:06

Manned VASIMR will become practical long before fusion, and will reduce transit time to Mars by a large factor.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/22/07 01:23:57

Tony, that is as much from Bush's attitude of refusing to negotiate as it is the Dems. In fact, I would argue its much more from Bush, than the Dems, since Bush's attitude has always been "compromise means agreeing with me 100%"

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 11/22/07 01:41:29

Ferris,

I think you will find that Hillary, Kerry, Bush, and Rudi are ALL in the Power Elite. Ron Paul is the only guy not owned by the puppet masters. Check it out. Any machinations in DC today are pure theater.

Posted by tony rusi at 11/22/07 03:07:37

Brian,

VASIMIR is great but it still requires a power source and the Dems will never OK a nuke in space.

Posted by tony rusi at 11/22/07 03:11:46

Ok, even though I am somewhat interested in US politics, I am far from getting all the details on my side of the pont. Can someone care to elaborate to me (and maybe some other readers too) who, from what party will support this research and who wont and why. I am very interested, having a family friend who works for the ITER and I am curious whether these claims by Bussard can really be fullfilled. However without sufficient funding for this project we will probably never know. So I am curious as to who will support this. In the light of the upcoming presidential election it might be interesting to know.

Posted by Elmar Moelzer at 11/22/07 07:56:09

tony,

Oh good grief. First of all, I don't totally agree with the idea that Hillary and Rudy are in the power elite. 2nd of all, Despite the claims, Hillary and Rudy and Ron Paul are not the end al of this election - I know that it goes against everything R's believe in (and it might cause their head to explode), but Hillary is not the party nominee - you have Obama, Richardson, Biden, Kucinich - no matter how hard you may try to convince me, Kucinich is not owned by the puppet masters. Third, Ron Paul isn't a libertarian (see http://www.dailykos.com/sto... - note in particular his opposition to abortion and gay rights) - he's a Republican who is opposed to Iraq. 4th, Libertarian isn't the end all of politics - despite what some people have said in earlier threads, funding the Department of Education is not like putting money in a shredder (of course, you need competent leadership, something this president lacks), and while we are at it, Libertarianism isn't just about not paying taxes. 6th, contrary to your claim, it wasn't the Dems who have hurt Project Prometheus - it took a funding hit because of ESAS (like everything else in Nasa).

Elmar - The problem is, its hard to say which presidential candidate will support a specific program, because it is so far off their radar. The best you can hope for is something related to space policy. We all know Hillary's space policy announcements, and Kucinich has a history of supporting spaceflight. Whats harder to saw is someone like Obama, who, despite cutting into Nasa to fund his education inititative, has not presented any sort of space policy.

So the short answer is, we don't know

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 11/22/07 10:54:40

I'd really like to see some Refereed papers that
support IEF as a fundamental approach.

There are lots of bright guys with PhD's in this
field, they should be able to solve the
confinement equations, solve the energy balance,
solve the schrodinger equations and show if
the system is positive or negative.

Posted by anonymous at 11/22/07 11:40:32

Re: anonymous

It is not that easy. There are various physics problems that can not be "solved" in a mathematical sense even with an unlimited supply of PHDs.

I think the best way to find out if IEF works is to invest some money in some actual experiments. Even 0.1% of the tokamak fusion budget would work just fine.

Even if IEF does not work, there are various fusion concepts that are much more promising than tokamak fusion. For example levitated dipole confinement.

Posted by anonymous at 11/22/07 13:52:27

The SSTO looks interesting. I can't help but wonder what type of contamination would occur if one failed to reach orbit and scattered debris around for square miles. Will the anti-nuke crowd be able to make a reasonable case for shutting down such a technology?

Posted by anon at 11/22/07 18:50:37

"I can't help but wonder what type of contamination would occur if one failed to reach orbit and scattered debris around for square miles. Will the anti-nuke crowd be able to make a reasonable case for shutting down such a technology?"

The debris would be no more hazardous than a standard rocket and less so than many.

Once the engine shuts off, no radation. There is no residual radioactivity.

This is not a fission reactor.

It would be no more radioactive than a microwave oven.

Posted by Mike Puckett at 11/22/07 20:40:45

if we can't solve theequations for IEF,
we can't design solutions.

We couldn't do steam engines until we had
a theoretical understanding of the carnot
equation

we can't do IEF without the schrodinger equations

Posted by anonymous at 11/22/07 22:37:05

"This is not a fission reactor.

It would be no more radioactive than a microwave oven."

I agree. My problem is that I don't think those who object will necessairily try to make a *reasonable* case against it. Just proper application of the word 'nuclear' will, sadly, be enough.

Posted by Frank Glover at 11/22/07 22:44:48

Re: anonymous

Just because we know the fundamental equations for a physical system does not mean that we understand it. For example we have known the navier-stokes equations for a long time. That does not mean that we can design the perfect wing profile for an airplane from first principles.

Posted by anonymous at 11/23/07 08:17:31

""This is not a fission reactor.

It would be no more radioactive than a microwave oven."

I agree. My problem is that I don't think those who object will necessairily try to make a *reasonable* case against it. Just proper application of the word 'nuclear' will, sadly, be enough."
They way around that fight is to get ahead of it and call it the ZPE or Zero Pollution Engine.

Then let the luddites try and explain how it's not.

Not to mention, it Polywelll pans out, these tings will be sprouting up Earthside like mushrooms so it will be real hard to demonize at that point.

Posted by Mike Puckett at 11/23/07 16:23:40

I would really love to see this happen. I wished I was more versed in physics so I could actually understand, or better even see possible flaws in Bussards concept. One thing that makes me sceptical is the sad experience that if something is too good to be true, it probably is...
This reactor does create some radiation, but nothing to hard. A coal power plant produces more radiation (yes they actually do) in normal operation that this...

Posted by Elmar Moelzer at 11/25/07 07:30:13

There have been refereed papers about IEF. The papers say that it <i>doesn't work</i> with hydrogen-boron fuel, for at least two separate fundamental physical reasons.

This whole thing is a poster child for internet-induced wishful psychosis. Get some skepticism and reality grips.

Posted by Paul Dietz at 11/26/07 07:58:00

Oh, and the claim

<i>It would be no more radioactive than a microwave oven.</i>

is wrong, even assuming it could work. The p-11B reaction has an inevitable side reaction producing very energetic gammas (and 12C). These gammas, absent shielding, will be lethal to any bystanders within less than an hour, and will also (by photonuclear reactions) induce persistent radioactivity in the reactor structure. Much less than neutron-induced radioactivity in other kinds of reactors, but still much more than in a microwave oven.

Posted by Paul Dietz at 11/26/07 13:43:17

Paul,

I think Bussard mentioned in the Google talk, available on the web, that the shielding required for his reactor would be as thick as a piece of paper. If there is nothing to it why would the NAVY fund it for more than a decade? Why does the NAVY still want to keep it quiet? Why would a dying man with bone cancer, with nothing to gain, travel in pain to tell people at Google about it? Why would he tell us that the Tokamak program was a Russian plot to keep us from getting Fusion? The simple answer to all these questions is money. We have been in a war that wasn't supposed to be about oil. What is really is about isn't oil, but money. Our money is under attack. We are in an economic war now. The rulers of Europe want us to pay 5 dollars a gallon for gas, like they do. And they will do whatever they can to keep it that way. If you buy foreign goods, if you buy foreign oil, you are just helping them out.

Posted by Tony Rusi at 11/29/07 07:14:19

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