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Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?



 
 
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  #131  
Old December 28th 16, 08:59 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

William Mook wrote:

On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 at 6:44:41 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 2:46:34 PM UTC+13, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Have you factored in the cost of spending 20% of the
annual disposable income of the entire United States
federal budget times 20 years to build the Mars Colonies?

Clearly he has not.

Plainly you haven't read my analysis of the ability of markets like NASDAQ to organise the 172,850 people who hold $20.8 trillion in liquid assets, all of which have $30 million in liquid assets or more (excluding property). They invest $16 billion a year in NASDAQ IPOs. They invest $60 billion per year in mining and raw material exploration. They invest $650 billion per year in oil and gas exploration.


Plainly irrelevant.


Toally relevant. They're buying potential revenue streams discounted for risk. At present the world is paying 9.34% for new capacities and 41.41% to DEVELOP new capacities, with a five year development window. This means that a device that operates without cost for 50 years and generates $1 per year in saleable product or service, is worth $10.58 the day it switches on. To DEVELOP that machine over a five year period allocating 20% of the value per year, you can spend $4.20 over the period,


And when you discount for the risk of magic not working, the proper
amount to invest is zero dollars.

snip MookSpew




All this is "free":

1. The many nuclear reactors on Mars.

Nuclear material is free for a while certainly.


Not.


Please read the calculation of costs for taking delivery of the nuclear materials. For space applications of the type we're describing there are even subsidies, I have not included these.


Please kiss my ass, you lunatic. Nuclear material is not given away
free. End of story. Then you need to get the stuff to Mars (if all
the scaling factors for Musk's Interplanetary Transporter come
through, that's still half a million dollars per ton. More than that
until you hit a 'critical mass' of around a million people on Mars.
Then you need to transport all the stuff to make reactors and railguns
and railgun rounds (oh my). Then you need to process whatever the
**** you think you can ship back (at labor rates and capital costs
that recover the transportation fees to get stuff to Mars to work with
in the first place). Then ... is it starting to sink in yet?




Since 1987 the USA and Russia have signed a number of treaties that have reduced nuclear inventories by 80%. As a result a total of 800,000 kg of weapons grade fissile material sufficient to produce 27.2 trillion kWh of energy is available to qualified users. Highly-enriched uranium from weapons stockpiles has been displacing some 8,853,000 kg of U3O8 production from mines each year, and met about 13% to 19% of world reactor requirements.


There is no such isotope as U308.


Its not an isotope, its a molecule. Triuranium octoxide (U3O8) is a compound of uranium. It is present as an olive green to black, odorless solid. It is one of the more popular forms of yellowcake and is shipped between mills and refineries in this form.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informa...lear-fuel.aspx


Ah. You were unclear. I took the 'O' for a '0'. When in doubt,
write **** out, Mook. Nice that you take the ORE weight as what is
being replaced. Makes your number look nice and big.

Thanks for actually giving the source for your stolen quotes and
misunderstandings. Note the enrichment levels given for US HEU. This
is not 'fissile material'. It is used in weapons, but not in the
primaries because it is not 'fissile', but rather merely
'fissionable'. This material is used in secondary jackets of
thermonuclear weapons.


At the peak of the arms race there
were about 70,000 warheads between the US and Russia.


Weapons are only part of the total stockpile of weapons grade materials.


The major part. I didn't count jacket material because you said what
you were talking about was fissile material. Jacket material is
typically HEU that isn't enriched enough to be fissile, but just
fissionable.

There are
typically 3-4 kg of fissile material in a weapon pit; even old
composite pits from back in the late 1940's didn't use more than 8 kg.
So 800,000 kg of weapons grade fissile material would be enough to
make 200,000 warheads,


correct. The actual number of warheads is less than the amount materials on hand to build materials.


Not correct. You started this all with an incorrect statement about
this being fissile material. Very little fissile HEU is produced
because we don't use it in primaries anymore and haven't for half a
century. What you're talking about is fissionable material used in
second stage jackets.

which is almost three times as many as the
total weapon inventories of the US and USSR at their peaks.


Correct, the amount of weapons grade materials is about 3x amount of actual weapon cores.


You've failed to understand what you've read and in that failure you
have mischaracterized this material. Now you are trying to defend
conclusions derived from your error. The HEU being discussed is not
sufficiently concentrated to be 'weapons grade', which requires
enrichment above 90%. The material you're referring to is only
enriched to from 50% to 75% and is not 'weapons grade'. It is,
however, easily fissionable and is used in secondary jackets in two
stage fusion weapons.

We
haven't used HEU in weapons for half a century, so I doubt you're
seeing very much of it coming out of weapons programs.


Your understanding and knowledge of these matters is severely lacking.


Yet you're the one getting everything wrong. See the actual
explanation of the disconnect, above, starting with you
mischaracterizing this material as 'fissile' and 'bomb grade'. It is
neither.


Regulations have restricted their broader use on Earth, not so on Mars.

The use of MHD generators using fissile materials for space power and propulsion applications is well defined. Phoebus was built in 1950 and produced over 4 GW of power and massed 8,500 kg, producing 470 kW per kg with 60% weight fissile material. At full power this means the unit must be refuelled every 3.5 years.


Phoebus was designed to run for MINUTES, not years.


NERVA demonstrated that nuclear thermal rocket engines were a feasible and reliable tool for space exploration, and at the end of 1968 SNPO certified that the latest NERVA engine, the NRX/XE, met the requirements for a human mission to Mars. This meant that it was capable of operating for years both as primary propulsive power and as a bimodal power source to provide continuous power for the mission.


Wrong.


Brookhaven National Labs, who also build compact high efficiency, nuclear reactors for submarines, aircraft carriers, and other vehicles, also produces similar reactors that operate reliably for years.


Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Naval_reactors

That 4GW is not
electrical power, but thermal power.


Correct.

These are two quite different
things.


Heat energy may be turned to many purposes.

The Phoebus was designed to produce thrust by heating hydrogen gas and expelling it. Thrust is a different thing than electricity or heat. However, the NRX design certified for Mars expeditions in 1968 was a bimodal system capable of generating both electricity and thrust as needed. The nuclear reactors on an aircraft carrier and nuclear submarine produce heat as well, but that is converted to mechanical power and electrical power. The MHD generator we would use on today's mars industrial infrastructure, turns vapor core fission process into electricity with 71% efficiency, and had high enough temperature output on the cold side to be industrially useful besides. Phoebus was limited to solid core nuclear thermal rocket operation, with the addition of a brayton cycle turbine. Modern MHD systems, designed by General Atomics, when used as designed, will triple the productivity of the Phoebus reactor and provide very low cost power at about 1% of the cost of power on Earth.


You don't get to keep switching reactor types back and forth to make
aggregate claims about some magical system that you've pulled out of
your ass. If you want to make power and weight claims based on
Phoebus, stay with that reactor for your other claims. If you want to
make claims about NRX then you can reduce the maximum power to 25% of
Phoebus and have different run times (full power for thirty minutes or
so and a maximum tested run time of 2 hours). If you want to talk
about experimental MHD designs, then get ALL your numbers from those.
You don't get to mix and match.


The longest that level of power was produced for was 12
minutes in a total run of around half an hour.


You're confusing and confabulating test runs with how the mars mission was designed to fly. In 1968 the SNPO certified NRX as flight ready for a Mars mission. This was a bimodal system that produced both power and thrust as needed for the duration of the mission.


I'm stating facts, you numpty. The FACT is that the reactor you were
talking about produced the power levels you claim for a maximum of
TWELF MINUTES and was never run for longer than THIRTY TWO MINUTES.
The NRX reactor had one quarter of the power of Phoebus, could
consequently run at full power longer (the largest A6 model could
produce a little over 1 GWt for around 10 hours). Note that these
reactors could NOT be run anywhere near full power for more than a few
hours. Then power had to be cycled way down for a while before they
could do it again (the requirement was to be able to run 60 full power
cycles of a few hours each over a three year period).


Your 'refuel time' is
bull****.


No it isn't. Refuel times on most reactors run between 18 and 42 months.


You're not talking about 'most reactors'.


Magical MookSpew Munched


Nothing magical about it. Just science.


Magic. You choose this number from this reactor, this other number
from a different reactor, handwave about a third reactor, and then act
as if all the numbers and handwaving apply to a single system.


Your cost numbers and calculations are 'magical' and not based on
anything in the real world.


They're based on papers I cited.


Papers which you routinely misunderstand and then make incorrect
statements from.


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine
  #132  
Old December 29th 16, 01:38 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,840
Default Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 at 8:59:51 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 at 6:44:41 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 2:46:34 PM UTC+13, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Have you factored in the cost of spending 20% of the
annual disposable income of the entire United States
federal budget times 20 years to build the Mars Colonies?

Clearly he has not.

Plainly you haven't read my analysis of the ability of markets like NASDAQ to organise the 172,850 people who hold $20.8 trillion in liquid assets, all of which have $30 million in liquid assets or more (excluding property). They invest $16 billion a year in NASDAQ IPOs. They invest $60 billion per year in mining and raw material exploration. They invest $650 billion per year in oil and gas exploration.


Plainly irrelevant.


Toally relevant. They're buying potential revenue streams discounted for risk. At present the world is paying 9.34% for new capacities and 41.41% to DEVELOP new capacities, with a five year development window. This means that a device that operates without cost for 50 years and generates $1 per year in saleable product or service, is worth $10.58 the day it switches on. To DEVELOP that machine over a five year period allocating 20% of the value per year, you can spend $4.20 over the period,


And when you discount for the risk of magic not working, the proper
amount to invest is zero dollars.


A rich and complete literature exists detailing the capacities of mass drivers to support interplanetary trade. You seem to be unaware of that.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0110007073.pdf



All this is "free":

1. The many nuclear reactors on Mars.

Nuclear material is free for a while certainly.


Not.


Please read the calculation of costs for taking delivery of the nuclear materials. For space applications of the type we're describing there are even subsidies, I have not included these.


Please kiss my ass, you lunatic. Nuclear material is not given away
free. End of story.


Both the Russian and US government provides direct subsidies along with loan guarantees for innovative small reactor programmes. These are the facts. That's the end of the story.

Then you need to get the stuff to Mars (if all
the scaling factors for Musk's Interplanetary Transporter come
through, that's still half a million dollars per ton.


When enriched to the maximum degree possible, this is only 800 tons - or $800 million at the price you quoted. Each ton produces 24 billion kWh of power, so that's 19.2 trillion kWh worth of fuel. That's $0.000042 per kWh for initial transport from Earth. Of course, once on Mars, the energy will be used to refine more uranium on Mars - reducing costs further. 13.6 trillion kWh of electrical energy is produced using advanced MHD generators. Yielding 1.2 MW per kg and costing $20 million per tonne the cost per Watt of electrical power is $0.016667. To operate this for 30,681 hours an added $0.0012886 for fuel costs a total of $0.0179556 over the period per watt producing 30.681 kWh over 42 months (1 watt continuous over that period).

Assuming a complete rebuild after 42 months the capital cost is $0.00054 per kWh and with a $0.000042 per kWh fuel cost we have $0.000585235 per kWh total cost.

More than that
until you hit a 'critical mass' of around a million people on Mars.


Actual space colony studies indicate that 10,000 is more reasonable, using 1970s technology. Using modern technologies such as self replicating machines described here;

http://reprap.org

artificial intelligence described here;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontil.../#7bbcf4034cfe

and robotics described here

https://singularityhub.com/2013/12/2...e-exploration/

numbers are even less, somewhere in the 100 range. So, this can be put together during the first expedition.


Then you need to transport all the stuff to make reactors and railguns
and railgun rounds (oh my).


You make all you can on Mars and transport the minimum needed to achieve your mission.

Then you need to process whatever the
**** you think you can ship back (at labor rates and capital costs
that recover the transportation fees to get stuff to Mars to work with
in the first place).


Correct.

Then ... is it starting to sink in yet?


Yes, I know it far better than you which is why you're saying so many unfortunate (wrong) things.




Since 1987 the USA and Russia have signed a number of treaties that have reduced nuclear inventories by 80%. As a result a total of 800,000 kg of weapons grade fissile material sufficient to produce 27.2 trillion kWh of energy is available to qualified users. Highly-enriched uranium from weapons stockpiles has been displacing some 8,853,000 kg of U3O8 production from mines each year, and met about 13% to 19% of world reactor requirements.


There is no such isotope as U308.


Its not an isotope, its a molecule. Triuranium octoxide (U3O8) is a compound of uranium. It is present as an olive green to black, odorless solid. It is one of the more popular forms of yellowcake and is shipped between mills and refineries in this form.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informa...lear-fuel.aspx


Ah. You were unclear.


No, you misunderstood.

I took the 'O' for a '0'.


Only because you are profoundly ignorant of the topic.

When in doubt,
write **** out, Mook.


I did. You didn't recognise it because you are profoundly ignorant of the subject.

Nice that you take the ORE weight as what is
being replaced. Makes your number look nice and big.


They're not my numbers. I actually reduced the figure to the fissile number (800 tonnes) from the number given (1900 tonnes). So, as not to overstate the energy content of the available fuel.

Thanks for actually giving the source for your stolen quotes


They're references not stolen. Unlike you who says so many unfortunate (wrong) things due to your profound ignorance of the subjects you have such strong (and wrong) opinions about.

and
misunderstandings.


You frequently misunderstand those things you know absolutely nothing about.. This isn't a problem for a sane person, but for you, its a major difficulty. Major. You attack people who try to help you expand your understanding and appreciation of things you claim to care a lot about.

Note the enrichment levels given for US HEU. This
is not 'fissile material'. It is used in weapons, but not in the
primaries because it is not 'fissile', but rather merely
'fissionable'. This material is used in secondary jackets of
thermonuclear weapons.


Again, you know nothing at all about how breeder reactors work, and how the energy is extracted from this material in practice.



At the peak of the arms race there
were about 70,000 warheads between the US and Russia.


Weapons are only part of the total stockpile of weapons grade materials.


The major part. I didn't count jacket material because you said what
you were talking about was fissile material. Jacket material is
typically HEU that isn't enriched enough to be fissile, but just
fissionable.


Yes, more misunderstanding on your part due to your profound ignorance. You seem to be unaware that these materials are easily converted to plutonium within a nuclear reactor as well as an atomic explosion due to neutron flux capture in both cases. A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. These devices achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to breed more fissile fuel than they use from fertile material, such as uranium-238 or thorium-232. Once established on Mars breeder reactors will expand the capacity of the Martian power industry by making use of these common fertile materials directly, dispensing with the costly and laborious refining methods used to control scarcity of nuclear materials at present.


There are
typically 3-4 kg of fissile material in a weapon pit; even old
composite pits from back in the late 1940's didn't use more than 8 kg.
So 800,000 kg of weapons grade fissile material would be enough to
make 200,000 warheads,


correct. The actual number of warheads is less than the amount materials on hand to build materials.


Not correct.


You just stated that you understood why I quoted the number I did. Now you're saying I'm wrong rather than accept the fact that all the available material is useful to Martian colonists who use breeder reactors.

You started this all with an incorrect statement about
this being fissile material.


Fertile materials become fissile when bombarded with a neutron flux. You're not getting that apparently. That's why they're used as jackets around nuclear weapons, its why breeder reactors make more fuel than they consume. Its how Mars will produce power too cheap to meter.

Very little fissile HEU is produced
because we don't use it in primaries anymore and haven't for half a
century.


Breeder reactors use fertile material to make more fuel than they consume and make use of common forms of Thorium and Uranium the very types that Russia and the USA have in abundance.

What you're talking about is fissionable material used in
second stage jackets.


I'm talking about it all. The fissile material produces adequate neutrons to turn the fertile materials into fissile plutonium. This was proven in 1951 in experiments and reduced to practice in the years following.

which is almost three times as many as the
total weapon inventories of the US and USSR at their peaks.


Correct, the amount of weapons grade materials is about 3x amount of actual weapon cores.


You've failed to understand what you've read


Hahaha - its interesting that you are NEVER wrong (merely misunderstand) and the ONLY reason you EVER misunderstand is someoone ELSE is wrong! lol. Fact is, if you want to make your life easy on Mars and achieve prices for fissile materials that make the energy the produce TOO CHEAP TO METER - you will use a BREEDER REACTOR THAT CONVERTS FERTILE MATERIALS INTO FISSILE MATERIALS IN BULK. This technology was first proven in 1951 and was perfected in the 1950s.

and in that failure you
have mischaracterized this material.


No, I accurately calculated the amount of material available today and accurately calculated the amount of thermal energy this represented. You are the one who misunderstood what I was saying, and misunderstood the reason I was saying it. The fact remains, all the material is a fuel source in a breeder reactor. 71% of it is available as electrical power in an MHD generator. The cost even at $1 million per ton transport is 1/20th the cost of power on Earth, and once a number of breeder reactors are built on Mars from local resources, local uranium and thorium supplies will keep them fueled at 1/100th the cost of power on Earth.

Now you are trying to defend
conclusions derived from your error.


No I'm trying to sort through your erroroneous belief that somehow fertile material cannot become fissionable material.

The HEU being discussed is not
sufficiently concentrated to be 'weapons grade', which requires
enrichment above 90%.


Fertile material surrounds many warheads because it adds to the yield by converting the neutron flux, which is otherwise lost, into additional power. In a breeder reactor, the reactor neutron flux is efficiently used to convert fertile material to fissionable fuels in a controlled way while also adding to power output.

You are trying to hide your abject ignorance of these topics by ignoring the fact that fertile materials have every bit as much energy content as fissile materials, once they are exposed to an adequate neutron flux.

The material you're referring to is only
enriched to from 50% to 75% and is not 'weapons grade'. It is,
however, easily fissionable and is used in secondary jackets in two
stage fusion weapons.


That's what it means to be fertile material. It is also why the energy content of that fertile material is accurately calculated, providing a breeder reactor is used on Mars. Breeder reactors are how you get power too cheap to meter. Since it costs about as much to dig up and refine a ton of uranium ore as it does iron ore, and you get 24 billion kWh of heat energy per ton, the cost per kWh of heat energy particularly at high power densities possible with enriched materials, is very cheap indeed.

We
haven't used HEU in weapons for half a century, so I doubt you're
seeing very much of it coming out of weapons programs.


Your understanding and knowledge of these matters is severely lacking.


Yet you're the one getting everything wrong.


No, you admittedly were confused, and its your inability to accept reality and understand it that is in question. Fertile materials are placed around bombs to increase their yeild. That's because they have every bit as much energy as the fissile materials that drive the explosion at the outset. In the same way fertile materials placed in a breeder reactor add to the reactor's power AND produce more fissile material besides.

See the actual
explanation of the disconnect, above,


You are the one who doesn't seem to understand that fertile materials are every bit as energetic and beneficial as fissile materials using a breeder reactor.

starting with you
mischaracterizing this material as 'fissile' and 'bomb grade'. It is
neither.


I characterised it as available from bomb inventory and gave the correct energy content and mass. You got both wrong so far.


Regulations have restricted their broader use on Earth, not so on Mars.

The use of MHD generators using fissile materials for space power and propulsion applications is well defined. Phoebus was built in 1950 and produced over 4 GW of power and massed 8,500 kg, producing 470 kW per kg with 60% weight fissile material. At full power this means the unit must be refuelled every 3.5 years.

Phoebus was designed to run for MINUTES, not years.


NERVA demonstrated that nuclear thermal rocket engines were a feasible and reliable tool for space exploration, and at the end of 1968 SNPO certified that the latest NERVA engine, the NRX/XE, met the requirements for a human mission to Mars. This meant that it was capable of operating for years both as primary propulsive power and as a bimodal power source to provide continuous power for the mission.


Wrong.


You are certainly since you are profoundly ignorant of the reality that in 1968 SNPO certified that NRX/XE for manned Mars missions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZSt9DjAyM8
http://history.nasa.gov/presrep1968.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/End-Solar-Sys.../dp/189495968X
http://www.astronautix.com/n/nerva-1.html




Brookhaven National Labs, who also build compact high efficiency, nuclear reactors for submarines, aircraft carriers, and other vehicles, also produces similar reactors that operate reliably for years.


Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Naval_reactors


The United States Navy began research in nuclear fission propulsion from 1942 to 1946, during Manhattan Project.

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II and serves as the basis of all subsequent reactors.

The first U.S. nuclear powered submarine was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571). General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut began shipbuilding in June 1952. Two reactors were built. One by Navy, in Idaho, under BNL guidance, to test qualify and validate the design another by Westinghouse Electric Corporation who was to use BNL experience and data to develop its nuclear energy business.

Both were pressurised water reactors called STR-1. These produced 13,000 horsepower turning two shafts producing a top speed of 23 knots. STR-1 used highly enriched U-235, which maximized the amount fissile fuel in the core, createing a very compact reactor. HEU also increases core life. The STR reactor on the USS Nautilus was started on January 17, 1955.

https://www.bnl.gov/stakeholder/docs...0_14_Horak.pdf


That 4GW is not
electrical power, but thermal power.


Correct.

These are two quite different
things.


Heat energy may be turned to many purposes.

The Phoebus was designed to produce thrust by heating hydrogen gas and expelling it. Thrust is a different thing than electricity or heat. However, the NRX design certified for Mars expeditions in 1968 was a bimodal system capable of generating both electricity and thrust as needed. The nuclear reactors on an aircraft carrier and nuclear submarine produce heat as well, but that is converted to mechanical power and electrical power. The MHD generator we would use on today's mars industrial infrastructure, turns vapor core fission process into electricity with 71% efficiency, and had high enough temperature output on the cold side to be industrially useful besides. Phoebus was limited to solid core nuclear thermal rocket operation, with the addition of a brayton cycle turbine. Modern MHD systems, designed by General Atomics, when used as designed, will triple the productivity of the Phoebus reactor and provide very low cost power at about 1% of the cost of power on Earth.


You don't get to keep switching reactor types back and forth to make
aggregate claims about some magical system


You've obviously never heard of bimodal reactors or combined heat and power generation.

that you've pulled out of
your ass.


The only thing that is out of anyone's ass around here are your clueless responses.

If you want to make power and weight claims based on
Phoebus, stay with that reactor for your other claims.


Clearly, you've never read the SNPO report on the NRX.

If you want to
make claims about NRX then you can reduce the maximum power to 25% of
Phoebus and have different run times (full power for thirty minutes or
so and a maximum tested run time of 2 hours). If you want to talk
about experimental MHD designs, then get ALL your numbers from those.
You don't get to mix and match.


Obviously you have never heard of combined heat and power systems, or bimodal nuclear space propulsion.


The longest that level of power was produced for was 12
minutes in a total run of around half an hour.


You're confusing and confabulating test runs with how the mars mission was designed to fly. In 1968 the SNPO certified NRX as flight ready for a Mars mission. This was a bimodal system that produced both power and thrust as needed for the duration of the mission.


I'm stating facts, you numpty.


No you're not.

The FACT is that the reactor you were
talking about produced the power levels you claim for a maximum of
TWELF MINUTES


twelve minutes. Yes, this was in the SNPO report when they said the TEST PROGRAM met all the requirements for a manned mission to Mars. ALL OF THEM.

and was never run for longer than THIRTY TWO MINUTES.


Because that's all the TEST PROGRAM needed to generate the DATA required to demonstrate the technology was ready to build a bimodal reactor that was suitable for a Mars mission in 1971.

The NRX reactor had one quarter of the power of Phoebus, could
consequently run at full power longer


Obviously you believe power level is related somehow to length of runs. It is not. The length of run was done at a lower power level because it saved money and other resources as the programme was under intense pressure at that time.

(the largest A6 model could
produce a little over 1 GWt for around 10 hours).


The TESTS done with it lasted that long each time. The A6 was shut down after the test and examined. It was also restarted. Again, the fact you IMAGINE some sort of restriction based on lengths of test is laughable.

Note that these
reactors could NOT be run anywhere near full power for more than a few
hours.


These test reactors were designed to produce data that was to be used on flight reactors to come later, possibly as soon as 1971 starting in 1968.

Then power had to be cycled way down for a while before they
could do it again (the requirement was to be able to run 60 full power
cycles of a few hours each over a three year period).


That's right. Yet, to maintain core conditions suitable for quick restart, the FLIGHT REACTOR in power down mode still produced 100,000 kW in a Brayton cycle. Further, data developed from these tests went directly into the Nuclear Electric Program (NEP) of the SNPO.

Your 'refuel time' is
bull****.


No it isn't. Refuel times on most reactors run between 18 and 42 months..


You're not talking about 'most reactors'. I'm talking about how fissile materials age in the reactor environment which is the science behind refuel times. In a vapor core reactor you have much more flexibility than in a solid core reactor.


Magical MookSpew Munched


Nothing magical about it. Just science.


Magic.


Science moron.

You choose this number from this reactor, this other number
from a different reactor,


No, I read with understanding the relevant research and apply sound engineering principles to determine reasonable performance goals and from that reasonable costs.

handwave about a third reactor, and then act
as if all the numbers and handwaving apply to a single system.


You act as if the limits of a test program were indicative of an operating flight reactor in a real mission and then wrongly conclude things that have no bearing whatever on what is being discussed.


Your cost numbers and calculations are 'magical' and not based on
anything in the real world.


They're based on papers I cited.


Papers which you routinely misunderstand and then make incorrect
statements from.


Its clear you are the one who doesn't understand and misreads things, and then blames people who know more than you for your failings.
  #133  
Old December 29th 16, 05:02 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

William Mook wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 6:03:19 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Monday, December 26, 2016 at 1:47:53 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:


General Atomics markets a rail gun that shoots 30 rounds per second 25 pounds each at Mach 7.


No, it doesn't. Try 10 rounds per minute and even that isn't working
yet at those kinds of rates for long because of heat issues and rail
erosion and ablation.

Already publicly GA is reporting 60 rounds per minute, FROM A SINGLE RAIL. By stacking rounds in the barrel, over 14,000 rounds per minute is achieved. That's 233 rounds per second - well above the 30 rounds per second I've quoted.

http://www.defensetech.org/2010/05/0...c-rail-cannon/


Note: "working on" vice "reporting".


Its well above my figure and no mention of the limitations you made up.


Only in MookieMath is 1 round per second "well above" 30 rounds per
second. Only in MookieWorld is "working on" the same as reporting it
as accomplished. Only up Mookie's Ass does the MetalStorm approach
work with railguns.

Reality is TEN ROUNDS PER MINUTE for the first operational system. But
reality has no place in Magical MookieWorld.




Using multiple rounds per rail, and multiple rails with high current switching between them, its fairly easy to see that millions of rounds per minute can be achieved, as has been achieved with more traditional methods of propelling rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEu9LLQpOF8


MetalStorm ain't the same thing as a railgun, you nitwit. Trying to
fire 'multiple rounds per rail' is a particularly spectacular way to
blow up your launcher.


So, why did I quote 1,800 rounds per minute (30 rounds per second)?


Because that was the first number you found when you reached into your
ass.


No, I leave that modus operandi to you.


I note you fail to give a source for the number you pulled out of your
ass. I further note that the system you keep pointing to will manage
a rate of fire that is 1/180th of the number you pulled out of your
ass. I will even further note that the 'stretch goal' being worked on
by that system for the second generation is still only 1/30th of the
figure you pulled out of your posterior.

The conclusion is obvious...




Because you have to reload and resurface the rails, and recharge the capacitor bank.


Neither of those occurred to you until I mentioned them.


Nonsense.

You were
shooting every second of every day of every year. Magic.


Over the course of a synodic period I said there would only by 92 days of firing - and that the average rate of fire would be 30 rounds per second. This necessarily involves reload and routine maintenance.


This necessarily involves pixie dust and magic.




Teledyne and Cubic already market a self guided 50 cal round. These impart up to 150 m/s delta ver to bullets ising MEMs solid rockets.


Yes, it's a little tiny lightweight projectile.

Haha. You have no idea how things scale do you? Fact is, the 25 pound Blitzer fired projectile already has a guidance system on it. A 50 cal round weighs 1.73 ounces actually shows just how small lightweight and low cost these guidance systems can be. The EXACTO round masses 1.73 ounces - the Blitzer round weighs 25 pounds and a B61-12 weighs 700 pounds! All have guidance systems on them and use a combination of aerodynamic and rocket forces to guide them to their targets.


Haha. It's you who has no idea how things scale.


No, based on your statement you're the moron. Not me.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!!!!!

The fact that you
can multiply doesn't mean you can just scale up.


You obviously do not understand how scaling works with arrays of MEMS engines.


You obviously do not understand, well, much of anything.

snip MookSpew


This is why I label
so many of your 'calculations' as "MookieMath".


No, you use derogatory terms because it makes you feel superior and is a way to compensate when you clearly don't understand a topic you apparently don't care about.


And Mookie adds mindreading to his resume...


Adapted to use the water and energy resources of the moon and Mars using cryogenic ZBO lox/lh2 MEMs rockets these easily provide sufficient guidance to deliver products anywhere required cheaply.


Handwavium.

Nonsense. Saying we're going to use abundant water resources and energy resources found in place on either the moon or Mars to produce cryogenic zero boil off lox/lh2 propellants to cheaply guide rounds to customers on Earth is the exact opposite of hand waving. Its very precise and gives a clear indication exactly how things work.


Except things don't work that way.


They do work the way I describe. They don't work the way you imagine. You don't see that its your problem, no one elses.


I'm hardly the only one here who thinks you're a havering loon, Mook.
In fact, pretty much everyone here with any sort of engineering
background seems to think you're an ignorant loony.

Hence "handwavium".


Of course, this is how you dismiss anything you don't understand. Given your general lack of intelligence, there are a great deal of things you don't understand.


Poor Mookie. It's always the other person who's stupid because he
doesn't understand things.

MEMS rockets deliver only small amounts of thrust (hence
'MEMS').

Liquid bipropellant rockets have been made that produce 50 psi using 300 psi pressure fed propellants. A square inch of these cost less than $1 in quanitity on Earth, and vastly less on Mars given the lower energy resource and labour costs.


So why don't you past a couple square feet of the things to your ass
and fly to the Moon?


I gave you a paper that describes just that.


No you didn't. Do you really hallucinate so heavily that you think
that?


You can't just paste a zillion of them on something and
multiply.

I just bought a 4K, Ultra HD, TV. This has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels four colour pixels. That's four times the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels found in your full HD TV. That's 33.17 million plasma points that are switched at 120 times per second through a dynamic range of 12,000 to 1 across a 65" diagonal screen. This is a screen that's 31.87 inches tall and 56.65 inches wide and has an area of 1805.3 square inches. Retail this is $5 per square inch. On Mars this would cost $0.05 per square inch to produce given the lower labour, energy, taxes, regulatory and resource costs. At 50 psi exit plane pressure a MEMS array the size of this screen using very much the same control methodology, would produce 90,267 pounds of force under highly controlled conditions.


I'm happy you have a nice TV, but the rest of that is bull****.


None of it is. That's what you don't get.


I frequently "don't get" lunatics' delusions. And that's what you
post.

You have now also added heavy insulated tanks to your
'cheap carrier'.

Advanced tanks,

http://www.compositesworld.com/artic...s-for-cryogens
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index...iquid-h2-fuel/

Advanced cryocoolers,

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10....19-2_25#page-1
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...16/10/002/meta
http://www.colorado.edu/MCEN/mems/research_simon1.htm

Built at very low cost, in quantities of billions rather than dozens, are easily achieved.


'Easily achieved' means "because Mook says so". Handwavium


No easily achieved means that its been done and you can call up any competent supplier and get one made.


Nonsense.

You can't go solid fuel because you need to be able
to turn them on and off.

When you have millions of engines across your thrust surface and several surfaces stacked in layers, you can produced controlled thrust across that surface.


And if you have magic pixie dust you can do whatever you want.


Its not magic and it has nothing to do with pixie dust. You don't get that.


You're posting nonsense. You don't get that.

The only liquid fuel MEMS rockets I've seen
anyone talking about use hydrogen peroxide, not deeply cryogenic fuels

Why doesn't that surprise me.


Because there aren't any?


No, because you're clueless.


I note you still haven't posted a single cite pointing to the
existence of liquid fuel MEMS rockets using deeply cryogenic fuels.
There's a reason for that...

(although feel free to cite such an engine) and they only manage tiny
amounts of thrust. Their thrust/weight ratios are high, but that
rapidly goes to **** once you start adding plumbing, tanks, multiple
engines, etc.

The Shuttle External Tank achieves a tank mass fraction of 3.71% of the propellant it carries at 22 psi for the LOX and 29 psi for the LH2. With advanced construction techniques this same level of performance (4%) is achieved at 300 psi.

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/382034main_...k_Masses. pdf

Thrust to weight ratios of 1000 to 1 are achieved with MEMS based engines as you point out. So, a 4.9 lb propellant tank will weigh less than 0.2 lbs and a 90 lb MEMS thrust array will weigh less than 0.1 lbs.


I note you don't cite any such cryogenic MEMS rockets.


http://cap.ee.imperial.ac.uk/~pdm97/...53_Epstein.pdf

On page 155 this twelve year old paper talks about cryogenic operation of rocket propulsion systems.


Well, actually, no it doesn't. Did you read it or just search for the
word 'cryogenic'? What the page does is talk about the potential
operating range for a particular type of valve actuator. That's all.
And it doesn't even give a real bottom range. It merely says
'cryogenic'. I will note that LNG is 'cryogenic' but only mildly.
You're blathering on about LH2, which is a whole different kettle of
fish.

I also note
your arithmetic above is, well, full of logical flaws. The thrust to
weight ratio of AN ENGINE has nothing to do with tank weights.


That's why I quoted tank weights separately and gave you a pointer to it.


Yes, and it was funny how you did it, turning five pounds into less
than a quarter point with no effort at all.

I find
it interesting how you magically make 4.9 lbs weight 0.2 lbs and so
on. Magic.


4% is achievable in flight systems the size I'm describing and built at very low cost. Consider a soda can that masses 0.46 ounces carries 12 ounces of fluid and can withstand 200 psig pressure and when made in the billions cost $0.02 each - including the inert lining, the pop top opening mechanism, and the colourful printing on the outside. A 3 litre system made in comparable quantities massing about the same mass, coated with foam insulation and thermal protection layers impressed with propellant flow lines and headers - will cost about the same when made of Earth sourced materials, and cost substantially less when made of Mars sourced materials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUhisi2FBuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=7dK1VVtja5c


We're not talking soda cans here, Mookie.



30 rounds per second x 25 pounds per round x 3600 seconds per hour x 8766 hours per year =
23.66 billion pounds per year per launcher to nearly a billion location each year.


Now divide your numbers by 180 for a realistic firing rate,

General Atomics already reports 14,000 rounds per minute from their Blitzer. This is 233 rounds per second. I'm proposing 30 rounds per second - largely due to reloading concerns.


Horse****. Cite or admit you're lying.


I gave the link elsewhere. Here's one;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=7dK1VVtja5c


That's making a soda can, you idiot. The only link for a firing rate
anything like you're talking about is for MetalStorm, which is neither
Blitzer nor any other sort of railgun.


Multiple rounds launched per firing. A firing rate here of 6 to 12 per minute and up to 14,000 projectiles per minute - which is more than the 1800 projectiles per minute I cited.


Which is pure fantasy, doesn't exist, and doesn't work. Do you know
ANYTHING about magnetic fields, Mook?


deduct the
weight of all the extra **** you have to put on the round for
midcourse corrections and surviving reentry, and adopt a realistic
maintenance cycle for your equipment.

The round is 33.1 pounds to carry a 25 pound useful cargo. If you wish to limit the entire system to 25 pounds then the cargo is reduced to 19 ponds.


Mookery of the facts. Your number are whacked, no matter how you
scale them.


No they're not. You are the one whacked.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!!!



This is on par with a fleet of bulk ocean carriers or railroads with the added capacity to deliver r directly to consumers.


Yeah, because I WANT projectiles doing interplanetary speeds slamming
into my house.

They won't, any more than oil tankers will slam into your house, or any more than your house will be covered with crude oil.


So *NOT* "delivering directly to consumers", then.


Delivering directly to consumers means they're NOT slamming into your house any more than a delivery truck arriving at your drive is not running into your house.


So how are they 'delivering directly' to me, Mookie? Transporters?




So there is no reason to believe off world colonies cannot trade with Earth as easily as power or information can be delivered to Earth by off world assets.


No reason unless you live in the real world and aren't allowed to use
magic.


The world you live in is certainly different than mine. That makes your world less real in many respects because the real world has inertially guided 50 calibre rounds using MEMS rockets, the real world has magnetically launched rounds also inertially guided capable of achieving planetary escape velocities firing at rates well in excess of 1800 rounds per minute, the real world has planets with vastly more resources than exist on Earth free of many of the constraints that we face here.


Do you know what the phrase "inertially guided" means?


Yes. You obviously do not.


Of course not. I only worked in the field for 30+ years. The .50
caliber rounds you're talking about are OPTICALLY guided (where's the
IMU?). Blitzer is RADAR guided. Inertial guidance can only get you
approximately to a specific point. It can't track a target to hit it.


It appears
not, since EXACTO is NOT 'inertially guided', which is sort of the
point of the thing.


EXACTO, and similar systems developed by Sandia are 'fire and forget' systems that are built into rounds, including smart bullets.


That doesn't make them 'inertially guided' and EXACTO is *NOT* 'fire
and forget'. You can't just throw phrases out, Mookie. Words have
meanings. EXACTO requires the gunner to hold on the target until the
bullet arrives. That is *NOT* 'fire and forget'.


As for the rest of your Mookery of reality,
'magical'.



snip MagicalMookieMalarky



How's that Lunar XPrize going for you, Mookie? 'Magical'...


Thanks for asking!


snip MookSpew

What you avoid relating is that you are NOT part of an existing team
and insist you are somehow magically going to win anyway.


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine
  #134  
Old December 31st 16, 01:58 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,840
Default Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 5:02:33 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 6:03:19 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Monday, December 26, 2016 at 1:47:53 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:


General Atomics markets a rail gun that shoots 30 rounds per second 25 pounds each at Mach 7.


No, it doesn't. Try 10 rounds per minute and even that isn't working
yet at those kinds of rates for long because of heat issues and rail
erosion and ablation.

Already publicly GA is reporting 60 rounds per minute, FROM A SINGLE RAIL. By stacking rounds in the barrel, over 14,000 rounds per minute is achieved. That's 233 rounds per second - well above the 30 rounds per second I've quoted.

http://www.defensetech.org/2010/05/0...c-rail-cannon/


Note: "working on" vice "reporting".


Its well above my figure and no mention of the limitations you made up.


Only in MookieMath is 1 round per second "well above" 30 rounds per
second.


30 rounds per second is 1800 rounds per minute. General Atomics said they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute with this technology. I gave you a link to that.

Only in MookieWorld is "working on" the same as reporting it
as accomplished.


You obviously have no understanding of how technology development works to create new products. You are making the assertion that there's no way that magnetic launchers can ever achieve 30 rounds per second by the time we send them to Mars. That's what you're saying. You give NO indication NONE whatever to support your contention that whatever limit you imagine this week is the absolute limit that will never be exceeded prior to our sending this technology to Mars. None.

I on the other hand point to report after report from the builders of this technology that says they believe they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute and long life barrels and so forth, for about $100 million. Understand, the USN has spent $10 million in this technology as a research program. GA and other vendors are clear in what they can do. You don't seem to want to see that because it flies in the face of the artificial limits you want to place around the technology.

Only up Mookie's Ass does the MetalStorm approach
work with railguns.


If you read the 14,000 round remark, you will see that they were stacking the rounds in the rail system very much like Metal Storm. Metal Storm rounds are chemically propelled, but the electronic signals through the rails of Metal Storm can work with magnetic rail launchers as well. This is in the technical literature if you would care to google it up and read it.

Reality is TEN ROUNDS PER MINUTE for the first operational system. But
reality has no place in Magical MookieWorld.


The $10 million R&D program results suggest, according to GA that a $100 million system could achieve 14,000 rounds per minute, well in excess of the 1800 rounds per minute I'm postulating.




Using multiple rounds per rail, and multiple rails with high current switching between them, its fairly easy to see that millions of rounds per minute can be achieved, as has been achieved with more traditional methods of propelling rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEu9LLQpOF8


MetalStorm ain't the same thing as a railgun, you nitwit. Trying to
fire 'multiple rounds per rail' is a particularly spectacular way to
blow up your launcher.


Metal Storm rounds are chemically propelled and electronically activated via rails. This same geometry is present in GA's rail gun. GA itself has proposed stacking rounds and firing them using a similar technology to achieve 14,000 rounds per minute.


So, why did I quote 1,800 rounds per minute (30 rounds per second)?

Because that was the first number you found when you reached into your
ass.


No, I leave that modus operandi to you.


I note you fail to give a source for the number you pulled out of your
ass.


I gave you pointers to literature already that shows that GA intends to achieve 14,000 rounds per minute 7.77 times faster than the 1800 rounds per minute I'm quoting.

I further note that the system you keep pointing to will manage
a rate of fire that is 1/180th of the number you pulled out of your
ass.


Just because you like pulling things out of your ass doesn't mean others do..

I will even further note that the 'stretch goal' being worked on
by that system for the second generation is still only 1/30th of the
figure you pulled out of your posterior.


You conveniently ignore that GA is telling the USN that they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute and long life barrels, and a number of other things if the USN funds the program for more than $10 million.

Here's another article that states GA's intent to improve performance in the near term.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/...er-minute.html

The question any thinking person should ask is what makes you think that 30 rounds per second (1800 rounds per minute) cannot be achieved? The fact is, you are the one pulling positions out of your ass with no other purpose but to create basically bogus arguments against the central thesis that magnetic launchers will be used to deliver low cost commodities between worlds.. Everyone can see this. Except you.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0110007073.pdf

Clearly any commercial enterprise operating on Mars will use the technology to access markets across the solar system. You can bitch and cry all you want, just like you bitched and moaned about a TSTO-RLV back in the 1990s saying what I proposed two VTOVL rocket stages was impossible impractical and proof I was insante! lol. Until SpaceX acquired TRW's pintle fed engine technology and hired Tom Mueller and built a TSTO-RLV with two VTOVL stages (Falcon Heavy).

It will be the same here.

The conclusion is obvious...


Yeah, you will be proven an arrogant clueless fool yet again.



Because you have to reload and resurface the rails, and recharge the capacitor bank.


Neither of those occurred to you until I mentioned them.


Nonsense.

You were
shooting every second of every day of every year. Magic.


Over the course of a synodic period I said there would only by 92 days of firing - and that the average rate of fire would be 30 rounds per second. This necessarily involves reload and routine maintenance.


This necessarily involves pixie dust and magic.


No it doesn't. It involves engineering.

If you look at Metal Storm rail technology, you can see that multiple rounds are placed in a stack and individual rounds addressed for firing a primer electronically with signals being transmitted through rails.



This same signal sequence can be applied to a high current switch in a stack of rounds for a rail gun. This allows firing the rounds in quick succession - up to 14,000 rounds per minute - which takes advantage of certain features of rail geometry to adjust for erosion as the stack is fired. Now one design I've seen have the rails come in two parts. One is in the gun. Another is part of the round stack. Just as bullets today consist of a bullet, a casing, propellant,a rim that engages the chamber held securely by the bolt, and a primer that detonates the propellant when struck with a firing poin.

So too do these rail gun round stacks come equipped with thin surface layer that erodes in controlled ways. Basically you have a thin soda can thin extrusion, the length of the rails, forming 900 pairs of rail head surfaces. Each round in the stack is positioned in such a way that each round follows a slightly different path down the extrusion, so that each round erodes its extruded head, but not those of its neighbours. The extruded can is magnetically attached to a pair of current lines. 900 rounds together with their extruded rail head layer, are placed in a barrel at a rate of 2 per minute while the capacitor bank is charged. This could easily rise to 10 per minute if certain signalling details could be worked out and an adequate power supply were available.

The bank is then discharged over 3.85 seconds - and the spent rail surfaces ejected, the same way casings are ejected in a machine gun. Another rail head extrusion is brought into place as the gun tracks its target, with another 900 rounds fitted in the chamber - this all done 2x per minute and could rise to 10x per minute achieving 9,000 rounds per minute far above the 1800 rounds per minute I've proposed earlier.

In a commercial application the spent extruded rail heads are recycled. Melted down and new extrusions created.




Teledyne and Cubic already market a self guided 50 cal round. These impart up to 150 m/s delta ver to bullets ising MEMs solid rockets.


Yes, it's a little tiny lightweight projectile.

Haha. You have no idea how things scale do you? Fact is, the 25 pound Blitzer fired projectile already has a guidance system on it. A 50 cal round weighs 1.73 ounces actually shows just how small lightweight and low cost these guidance systems can be. The EXACTO round masses 1.73 ounces - the Blitzer round weighs 25 pounds and a B61-12 weighs 700 pounds! All have guidance systems on them and use a combination of aerodynamic and rocket forces to guide them to their targets.


Haha. It's you who has no idea how things scale.


No, based on your statement you're the moron. Not me.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!!!!!


Yet, I have given significant reasoning and rationale for the figures I've quoted. You have given no sensible reason for your position. You don't seem to realise that. So, any sensible person reading this would understand you have the problem. No one else.


The fact that you
can multiply doesn't mean you can just scale up.


You obviously do not understand how scaling works with arrays of MEMS engines.


You obviously do not understand, well, much of anything.

snip MookSpew


This is why I label
so many of your 'calculations' as "MookieMath".


No, you use derogatory terms because it makes you feel superior and is a way to compensate when you clearly don't understand a topic you apparently don't care about.


And Mookie adds mindreading to his resume...


No, I am reading your intentions based on your statements. Every sane person does it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4563880/



Adapted to use the water and energy resources of the moon and Mars using cryogenic ZBO lox/lh2 MEMs rockets these easily provide sufficient guidance to deliver products anywhere required cheaply.


Handwavium.

Nonsense. Saying we're going to use abundant water resources and energy resources found in place on either the moon or Mars to produce cryogenic zero boil off lox/lh2 propellants to cheaply guide rounds to customers on Earth is the exact opposite of hand waving. Its very precise and gives a clear indication exactly how things work.


Except things don't work that way.


They do work the way I describe. They don't work the way you imagine. You don't see that its your problem, no one elses.


I'm hardly the only one here who thinks you're a havering loon, Mook.


I'm not the only one in your life that despises you and wouldn't go out their way to **** on you if you were on fire.

In fact, pretty much everyone here with any sort of engineering
background seems to think you're an ignorant loony.


Everyone reading your statements over the years understands that you are very unhappy with your life and your work and have achieved nothing really while others like myself have made important contributions to our nation and to business in general.

Hence "handwavium".


Of course, this is how you dismiss anything you don't understand. Given your general lack of intelligence, there are a great deal of things you don't understand.


Poor Mookie.


You're projecting again you miserable sot.

It's always the other person who's stupid because he
doesn't understand things.


You clearly don't understand. You are the one calling me stupid because you don't understand what I'm saying. You have consistently demonstrated your inability to appreciate reality. SpaceX built a VTOVL TSTO-RLV along the lines I described using the assets I described in the time frame I described 25 years ago, proving you wrong then. Matternet, Prime Air, Flirtey are all hot investments today developing delivery drone technology. I described this technology 25 years ago. You predictably didn't understand it, and **** on it. Again, proving you wrong. So, who's the ignorant idiot? You are!


MEMS rockets deliver only small amounts of thrust (hence
'MEMS').

Liquid bipropellant rockets have been made that produce 50 psi using 300 psi pressure fed propellants. A square inch of these cost less than $1 in quanitity on Earth, and vastly less on Mars given the lower energy resource and labour costs.


So why don't you past a couple square feet of the things to your ass
and fly to the Moon?


I gave you a paper that describes just that.


No you didn't. Do you really hallucinate so heavily that you think
that?


Here, let me link to it again;
https://www.scribd.com/document/40549127/Disk-Moonship



You can't just paste a zillion of them on something and
multiply.

I just bought a 4K, Ultra HD, TV. This has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels four colour pixels. That's four times the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels found in your full HD TV. That's 33.17 million plasma points that are switched at 120 times per second through a dynamic range of 12,000 to 1 across a 65" diagonal screen. This is a screen that's 31.87 inches tall and 56.65 inches wide and has an area of 1805.3 square inches. Retail this is $5 per square inch. On Mars this would cost $0.05 per square inch to produce given the lower labour, energy, taxes, regulatory and resource costs. At 50 psi exit plane pressure a MEMS array the size of this screen using very much the same control methodology, would produce 90,267 pounds of force under highly controlled conditions.


I'm happy you have a nice TV, but the rest of that is bull****.


None of it is. That's what you don't get.


I frequently "don't get" lunatics' delusions.


You are the lunatic, you don't get that.

And that's what you
post.


I post what I know of the real world that is relevant to these groups. If you don't want me to post to this group, I will stop posting and never post here again. Just say the word dude, and I'm outa here. The only reason I'm posting now is because many people asked me to come back and post again. If anyone asked me not to post, I will leave and point to that request if anyone asks me to return.

I'm a busy man, and have a lot on my plate. I don't need the grief crazy people like you love to heap on me. But, I'll make it easy. Just ask me not to post here, and I will happily never post here again. You're too chicken **** to do that aren't you?



You have now also added heavy insulated tanks to your
'cheap carrier'.

Advanced tanks,

http://www.compositesworld.com/artic...s-for-cryogens
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index...iquid-h2-fuel/

Advanced cryocoolers,

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10....19-2_25#page-1
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...16/10/002/meta
http://www.colorado.edu/MCEN/mems/research_simon1.htm

Built at very low cost, in quantities of billions rather than dozens, are easily achieved.


'Easily achieved' means "because Mook says so". Handwavium


No easily achieved means that its been done and you can call up any competent supplier and get one made.


Nonsense.


Call up any supplier of cryogenic composite tanks and tell them you want a portable manufacturing plant that makes 1 billion 3 litre tanks per year and they will give you a budget to build it and an estimate of the unit cost of each tank. You will find that the tanks will cost on the order of pennies a piece.

You can't go solid fuel because you need to be able
to turn them on and off.

When you have millions of engines across your thrust surface and several surfaces stacked in layers, you can produced controlled thrust across that surface.


And if you have magic pixie dust you can do whatever you want.


Its not magic and it has nothing to do with pixie dust. You don't get that.


You're posting nonsense.


No I'm not, you don't get that.

You don't get that.


Only because I'm posting what will actually be done in the next 15 years on Mars.

The only liquid fuel MEMS rockets I've seen
anyone talking about use hydrogen peroxide, not deeply cryogenic fuels

Why doesn't that surprise me.


Because there aren't any?


No, because you're clueless.


I note you still haven't posted a single cite pointing to the
existence of liquid fuel MEMS rockets using deeply cryogenic fuels.


Dude, Epstein's original paper on liquid bipropellant MEMS rockets discussed cryogenic operation. That paper is 15 years old now! Do you really think ZERO progress has been made in the area? Do you really think ZERO progress will be made over the next 15 years? Give me a freaking break! You must have solid rational reasons for such negativity. You don't. You just run your mouth and think that the **** you make up will stick. The only thing you do is reveal yourself to be a clueless miserable moron. haha..

There's a reason for that...


Because you didn't read the one open literature source I provided.

(although feel free to cite such an engine) and they only manage tiny
amounts of thrust. Their thrust/weight ratios are high, but that
rapidly goes to **** once you start adding plumbing, tanks, multiple
engines, etc.

The Shuttle External Tank achieves a tank mass fraction of 3.71% of the propellant it carries at 22 psi for the LOX and 29 psi for the LH2. With advanced construction techniques this same level of performance (4%) is achieved at 300 psi.

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/382034main_...k_Masses. pdf

Thrust to weight ratios of 1000 to 1 are achieved with MEMS based engines as you point out. So, a 4.9 lb propellant tank will weigh less than 0..2 lbs and a 90 lb MEMS thrust array will weigh less than 0.1 lbs.


I note you don't cite any such cryogenic MEMS rockets.


http://cap.ee.imperial.ac.uk/~pdm97/...53_Epstein.pdf

On page 155 this twelve year old paper talks about cryogenic operation of rocket propulsion systems.


Well, actually, no it doesn't.


Right, Epstein mentions cryogenic applications in a paper on liquid bipropellant rockets for NO reason! HAHAHA - that's rich.

Did you read it or just search for the
word 'cryogenic'?


In the context of the paper, how do you conclude that cryogenic liquid bipropellant rockets are IMPOSSIBLE?

What the page does is talk about the potential
operating range for a particular type of valve actuator.


After discussing the importance of such valves for making controllable rocket arrays. Sheez.

That's all.


What more do you need moron?

And it doesn't even give a real bottom range. It merely says
'cryogenic'.


Because he is discussing ALL cryogenic applications. Read the freaking abstract dude! lol.

I will note that LNG is 'cryogenic' but only mildly.


So? Helium is so cold it makes hydrogen solid. What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? It doesn't and this statement has no bearing whatever on the fact that cryogenic bipropellant rockets require efficient valves for reliable operation.

You're blathering on about LH2, which is a whole different kettle of
fish.


Nonsense, page 7 here discussed the use of piezoelectric sensors on the microscale being used in LOX/LH2 rockets. Sheez.

http://www.pcb.com/Contentstore/mktg...c_Pressure.pdf

I also note
your arithmetic above is, well, full of logical flaws. The thrust to
weight ratio of AN ENGINE has nothing to do with tank weights.


That's why I quoted tank weights separately and gave you a pointer to it..


Yes, and it was funny how you did it, turning five pounds into less
than a quarter point with no effort at all.


It's often impossible to follow your 'logic' since it is unconstrained by reality.

You do understand how kick stages work don't you? You realize don't you that the 4% structure fraction for the kick stage is measured relative to the propellants involved? It has little to do with the payload. Especially as the system is a kick stage to correct the round mid flight and requires only low levels of thrust.

So a 25 pound payload requires a 6.57 pound kick stage containing 6.30 pounds of propellant and 0.27 pounds of structure to hold that propellant.

Here is data that allows any competent engineer to estimate tank fractions;

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/382034main_...k_Masses. pdf

Here is data that allows any competent engineer to estimate launch vehicle structural fractions

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0090037584.pdf

Now, Epstein already showed that arrays of micro-scale engines easily achieve thrust to weight ratios of 1000 to 1 and more. Now, 60 pounds of thrust divided by 1000 is 0.06 pounds of MEMS rocket array. Another 0.14 pounds of material - a series of formed plates that attach to the tanks and provide a plenum to connect the engine arrays to the tanks. No more difficult than putting an engineered end on a soda can.

I find
it interesting how you magically make 4.9 lbs weight 0.2 lbs and so
on. Magic.


4% is achievable in flight systems the size I'm describing and built at very low cost. Consider a soda can that masses 0.46 ounces carries 12 ounces of fluid and can withstand 200 psig pressure and when made in the billions cost $0.02 each - including the inert lining, the pop top opening mechanism, and the colourful printing on the outside. A 3 litre system made in comparable quantities massing about the same mass, coated with foam insulation and thermal protection layers impressed with propellant flow lines and headers - will cost about the same when made of Earth sourced materials, and cost substantially less when made of Mars sourced materials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUhisi2FBuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=7dK1VVtja5c


We're not talking soda cans here, Mookie.


We're talking soda can quantities, we're talking soda can precision, we're talking soda can pricing.



30 rounds per second x 25 pounds per round x 3600 seconds per hour x 8766 hours per year =
23.66 billion pounds per year per launcher to nearly a billion location each year.


Now divide your numbers by 180 for a realistic firing rate,

General Atomics already reports 14,000 rounds per minute from their Blitzer. This is 233 rounds per second. I'm proposing 30 rounds per second - largely due to reloading concerns.


Horse****. Cite or admit you're lying.


I gave the link elsewhere. Here's one;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=7dK1VVtja5c


That's making a soda can, you idiot. The only link for a firing rate
anything like you're talking about is for MetalStorm, which is neither
Blitzer nor any other sort of railgun.


I discussed this at length above.


Multiple rounds launched per firing. A firing rate here of 6 to 12 per minute and up to 14,000 projectiles per minute - which is more than the 1800 projectiles per minute I cited.


Which is pure fantasy,


no its not.

doesn't exist,


you're saying it cannot exist - ever, despite the fact that the builders of the gun say tests done this far prove it can.

and doesn't work.

you're saying it cannot work - ever, despite the fact that the builders of the gun say tests done this far provie it can.

Do you know
ANYTHING about magnetic fields, Mook?


I am intimately familiar with the history of magnetic launchers and the details of their engineering and operation. You are not.

http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.325107



deduct the
weight of all the extra **** you have to put on the round for
midcourse corrections and surviving reentry, and adopt a realistic
maintenance cycle for your equipment.

The round is 33.1 pounds to carry a 25 pound useful cargo. If you wish to limit the entire system to 25 pounds then the cargo is reduced to 19 ponds.


Mookery of the facts. Your number are whacked, no matter how you
scale them.


No they're not. You are the one whacked.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!!!


Yet I have pointed you to a 1978 article that discusses in detail how rail guns are fully capable of attaining Mars escape velocities and rapid firing rates. Whereas you just run you mouth and spout ****.




This is on par with a fleet of bulk ocean carriers or railroads with the added capacity to deliver r directly to consumers.


Yeah, because I WANT projectiles doing interplanetary speeds slamming
into my house.

They won't, any more than oil tankers will slam into your house, or any more than your house will be covered with crude oil.


So *NOT* "delivering directly to consumers", then.


Delivering directly to consumers means they're NOT slamming into your house any more than a delivery truck arriving at your drive is not running into your house.


So how are they 'delivering directly' to me, Mookie? Transporters?


I described how the round would use its 60 lbf thrust MEMS rocket array to bring the payload to the landing point designated for it.





So there is no reason to believe off world colonies cannot trade with Earth as easily as power or information can be delivered to Earth by off world assets.


No reason unless you live in the real world and aren't allowed to use
magic.


The world you live in is certainly different than mine. That makes your world less real in many respects because the real world has inertially guided 50 calibre rounds using MEMS rockets, the real world has magnetically launched rounds also inertially guided capable of achieving planetary escape velocities firing at rates well in excess of 1800 rounds per minute, the real world has planets with vastly more resources than exist on Earth free of many of the constraints that we face here.


Do you know what the phrase "inertially guided" means?


Yes. You obviously do not.


Of course not. I only worked in the field for 30+ years.


One would think you would understand the topic by now. Perhaps your role over the past 30 years as a gofer for your betters explains the discrepancy.

The .50
caliber rounds you're talking about are OPTICALLY guided (where's the
IMU?).


There are about 70 companies that build these things. Here's a builder of the accelerometers that I'm familiar with

http://www.colibrys.com/mems-applica...ed-ammunition/

Anyone with any knowledge whatever of this topic know that while a guided bullet does use an optical or radar sensor to track the target, they know too that the bullet must first know its position and velocity in space and its orientation as well, in order to know how to apply forces to guide it to its target. This requires accelerometers, gyros, and systems such as IMU.

Blitzer is RADAR guided. Inertial guidance can only get you
approximately to a specific point. It can't track a target to hit it.


That's why these other things are used. Remember, you foolishly stated there was NO inertial guidance on these rounds. That's moronic. There are.

In the case of the low cost transfer of material from Mars to Earth, there will be an IMU and a UHDTV sensor that looks in all directions at once

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nIgpKzdYoI

along with conventional GPS when signals are available. This combination easily does all the astrogation and navigation between worlds.




It appears
not, since EXACTO is NOT 'inertially guided', which is sort of the
point of the thing.


EXACTO, and similar systems developed by Sandia are 'fire and forget' systems that are built into rounds, including smart bullets.


That doesn't make them 'inertially guided'


No, the gyros and accelerometers on board do that.

and EXACTO is *NOT* 'fire
and forget'. You can't just throw phrases out, Mookie. Words have
meanings. EXACTO requires the gunner to hold on the target until the
bullet arrives. That is *NOT* 'fire and forget'.


Details are classified, and so, you cannot know what you pretend to know here. As far as word meanings go why don't you write a letter complaining to Robert Mehrabian, Chairman , President, and Chief Executive Officer of Teledyne - who says EXACTO is part of DARPA's 'fire and forget' program. LOL

Moron

https://www.rt.com/usa/172148-darpa-...guided-bullet/



As for the rest of your Mookery of reality,
'magical'.



snip MagicalMookieMalarky



How's that Lunar XPrize going for you, Mookie? 'Magical'...


Thanks for asking!


snip MookSpew

What you avoid relating is that you are NOT part of an existing team
and insist you are somehow magically going to win anyway.


No, I'm saying that the teams have all accepted money from me, and so if *any* win I will receive a return. Further, some of the teams who have fallen out are in negotiation to sell their hardware and IP to some of their investors, to pay off the others and pay bills, and I'm saying that that IP has three primary near term uses for me;

(1) Landing virtual reality robots on the Moon and making them available to internet users for $1 per minute will easily give massive returns for the cost of placing them there using the technology developed,

(2) Placing a pair of UHDTV (8K) cameras at Lagrange Point One, above the moon, and beaming life colour images at 120 fps to Earth, via laser beam, provides massive returns for the cost of that,

(3) Placing a cryptocurrency trading desk at Lagrange Point One and making it available through the internet provides massive returns for the cost of that.

(4) Placing a laser broadband communications satellite at the L5 and L4 provide the ability to sell telecom services to people on the moon, and demonstrate the feasibility of laser broadband.

(5) With communications at L5 and L4 a second pair of 8K cameras is placed to give live feeds of the lunar far side.

(6) With demonstration of laser telecom over cislunar distances, new communications satellite platforms are designed and launched to capture the world's $1.68 trillion per year telecom market.

http://www.computerworld.com/article...ng-lasers.html

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/t...l#.WGcCR3dh2Cc

http://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles...eak_threshold/

http://ipnsig.org

(7) Tracking methodology and error correcting systems, using conjugate optics provide a pioneering pathway to laser based power beaming using solar pumped lasers as the primary source.

  #135  
Old December 31st 16, 09:06 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

William Mook wrote:

On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 5:02:33 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 6:03:19 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

On Monday, December 26, 2016 at 1:47:53 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:


General Atomics markets a rail gun that shoots 30 rounds per second 25 pounds each at Mach 7.


No, it doesn't. Try 10 rounds per minute and even that isn't working
yet at those kinds of rates for long because of heat issues and rail
erosion and ablation.

Already publicly GA is reporting 60 rounds per minute, FROM A SINGLE RAIL. By stacking rounds in the barrel, over 14,000 rounds per minute is achieved. That's 233 rounds per second - well above the 30 rounds per second I've quoted.

http://www.defensetech.org/2010/05/0...c-rail-cannon/


Note: "working on" vice "reporting".

Its well above my figure and no mention of the limitations you made up.


Only in MookieMath is 1 round per second "well above" 30 rounds per
second.


30 rounds per second is 1800 rounds per minute.


Yes, it is, but nobody has a railgun anywhere near that firing rate,
nor will they any time in the near future.


General Atomics said they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute with this technology. I gave you a link to that.


They've said no such thing so you've obviously provided no such link.
Put down the crack pipe, Mook.


Only in MookieWorld is "working on" the same as reporting it
as accomplished.


You obviously have no understanding of how technology development works to create new products.


Well, one of us doesn't. Given that I've done that and you apparently
have not, I know which of us that is.


You are making the assertion that there's no way that magnetic launchers can ever achieve 30 rounds per second by the time we send them to Mars. That's what you're saying.


You're a liar. I've said no such thing and I challenge you to show
where I have.


You give NO indication NONE whatever to support your contention that whatever limit you imagine this week is the absolute limit that will never be exceeded prior to our sending this technology to Mars. None.


You're waving your hands and claiming rates that are nowhere near
reality . THAT is the fact of it. You obviously have no
understanding of how railguns work.


I on the other hand point to report after report from the builders of this technology that says they believe they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute and long life barrels and so forth, for about $100 million. Understand, the USN has spent $10 million in this technology as a research program. GA and other vendors are clear in what they can do. You don't seem to want to see that because it flies in the face of the artificial limits you want to place around the technology.


They've said no such thing. You're a liar.


Only up Mookie's Ass does the MetalStorm approach
work with railguns.


If you read the 14,000 round remark, you will see that they were stacking the rounds in the rail system very much like Metal Storm. Metal Storm rounds are chemically propelled, but the electronic signals through the rails of Metal Storm can work with magnetic rail launchers as well. This is in the technical literature if you would care to google it up and read it.


Poor Mookie. He's hallucinating freely.


Reality is TEN ROUNDS PER MINUTE for the first operational system. But
reality has no place in Magical MookieWorld.


The $10 million R&D program results suggest, according to GA that a $100 million system could achieve 14,000 rounds per minute, well in excess of the 1800 rounds per minute I'm postulating.


Hogwash. Liar.




Using multiple rounds per rail, and multiple rails with high current switching between them, its fairly easy to see that millions of rounds per minute can be achieved, as has been achieved with more traditional methods of propelling rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEu9LLQpOF8


MetalStorm ain't the same thing as a railgun, you nitwit. Trying to
fire 'multiple rounds per rail' is a particularly spectacular way to
blow up your launcher.


Metal Storm rounds are chemically propelled and electronically activated via rails. This same geometry is present in GA's rail gun. GA itself has proposed stacking rounds and firing them using a similar technology to achieve 14,000 rounds per minute.


You obviously don't understand either how MetalStorm works or how
railguns work.


So, why did I quote 1,800 rounds per minute (30 rounds per second)?

Because that was the first number you found when you reached into your
ass.


No, I leave that modus operandi to you.


I note you fail to give a source for the number you pulled out of your
ass.


I gave you pointers to literature already that shows that GA intends to achieve 14,000 rounds per minute 7.77 times faster than the 1800 rounds per minute I'm quoting.


No, you didn't. You're obviously hallucinating freely at this point.

I further note that the system you keep pointing to will manage
a rate of fire that is 1/180th of the number you pulled out of your
ass.


Just because you like pulling things out of your ass doesn't mean others do.


You claim to like leaving things in your ass, then?

I will even further note that the 'stretch goal' being worked on
by that system for the second generation is still only 1/30th of the
figure you pulled out of your posterior.


You conveniently ignore that GA is telling the USN that they will achieve 14,000 rounds per minute and long life barrels, and a number of other things if the USN funds the program for more than $10 million.


I conveniently ignore it because they never said it, you lying sack.


Here's another article that states GA's intent to improve performance in the near term.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/...er-minute.html


Did you even bother to read you cite, you nitwit? Let me help you a
bit with a couple of quotes. Keep in mind that I worked at Raytheon
for decades.

"The US Navy wants to develop the power system necessary to get its
prototype electromagnetic railgun to fire hundreds of rounds per
minute rather than the single shot it is capable of today."

See that? SINGLE SHOT. And where is the upgrade headed?

"The Navy apparently wants to take the system a step further and
develop a high-average-power pulsed power system able to store up to
200MJ of energy and deliver this energy to the launcher at a rate of
once every 6 seconds (10 rounds per/minute), for bursts of 100's of
shots."

See that? What's the rate they're trying to get power to achieve? TEN
ROUNDS PER MINUTE. Does that number seem at all familiar to you? It
should, since it's the number I've been giving you since the
beginning.


The question any thinking person should ask is what makes you think that 30 rounds per second (1800 rounds per minute) cannot be achieved? The fact is, you are the one pulling positions out of your ass with no other purpose but to create basically bogus arguments against the central thesis that magnetic launchers will be used to deliver low cost commodities between worlds. Everyone can see this. Except you.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0110007073.pdf


Do you even bother to read your own cites or do you just MookSpew?


Clearly any commercial enterprise operating on Mars will use the technology to access markets across the solar system. You can bitch and cry all you want, just like you bitched and moaned about a TSTO-RLV back in the 1990s saying what I proposed two VTOVL rocket stages was impossible impractical and proof I was insante! lol. Until SpaceX acquired TRW's pintle fed engine technology and hired Tom Mueller and built a TSTO-RLV with two VTOVL stages (Falcon Heavy).

It will be the same here.


Put down the crack pipe, Mookie.


The conclusion is obvious...


Yeah, you will be proven an arrogant clueless fool yet again.


If bloviation got it done you'd be Elon Musk.



Because you have to reload and resurface the rails, and recharge the capacitor bank.


Neither of those occurred to you until I mentioned them.

Nonsense.

You were
shooting every second of every day of every year. Magic.

Over the course of a synodic period I said there would only by 92 days of firing - and that the average rate of fire would be 30 rounds per second. This necessarily involves reload and routine maintenance.


This necessarily involves pixie dust and magic.


No it doesn't. It involves engineering.

If you look at Metal Storm rail technology, you can see that multiple rounds are placed in a stack and individual rounds addressed for firing a primer electronically with signals being transmitted through rails.


How nice for it, but you cannot do that with an electromagnetic
railgun. Go educate yourself.


This same signal sequence can be applied to a high current switch in a stack of rounds for a rail gun. This allows firing the rounds in quick succession - up to 14,000 rounds per minute - which takes advantage of certain features of rail geometry to adjust for erosion as the stack is fired. Now one design I've seen have the rails come in two parts. One is in the gun. Another is part of the round stack. Just as bullets today consist of a bullet, a casing, propellant,a rim that engages the chamber held securely by the bolt, and a primer that detonates the propellant when struck with a firing poin.

So too do these rail gun round stacks come equipped with thin surface layer that erodes in controlled ways. Basically you have a thin soda can thin extrusion, the length of the rails, forming 900 pairs of rail head surfaces. Each round in the stack is positioned in such a way that each round follows a slightly different path down the extrusion, so that each round erodes its extruded head, but not those of its neighbours. The extruded can is magnetically attached to a pair of current lines. 900 rounds together with their extruded rail head layer, are placed in a barrel at a rate of 2 per minute while the capacitor bank is charged. This could easily rise to 10 per minute if certain signalling details could be worked out and an adequate power supply were available.

The bank is then discharged over 3.85 seconds - and the spent rail surfaces ejected, the same way casings are ejected in a machine gun. Another rail head extrusion is brought into place as the gun tracks its target, with another 900 rounds fitted in the chamber - this all done 2x per minute and could rise to 10x per minute achieving 9,000 rounds per minute far above the 1800 rounds per minute I've proposed earlier.

In a commercial application the spent extruded rail heads are recycled. Melted down and new extrusions created.


It's the pixie dust coating that makes it all work.




Teledyne and Cubic already market a self guided 50 cal round. These impart up to 150 m/s delta ver to bullets ising MEMs solid rockets.


Yes, it's a little tiny lightweight projectile.

Haha. You have no idea how things scale do you? Fact is, the 25 pound Blitzer fired projectile already has a guidance system on it. A 50 cal round weighs 1.73 ounces actually shows just how small lightweight and low cost these guidance systems can be. The EXACTO round masses 1.73 ounces - the Blitzer round weighs 25 pounds and a B61-12 weighs 700 pounds! All have guidance systems on them and use a combination of aerodynamic and rocket forces to guide them to their targets.


Haha. It's you who has no idea how things scale.

No, based on your statement you're the moron. Not me.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!!!!!


Yet, I have given significant reasoning and rationale for the figures I've quoted. You have given no sensible reason for your position. You don't seem to realise that. So, any sensible person reading this would understand you have the problem. No one else.


Bull****. Given your 'reasoning', you can easily fart your way to the
moon and win the Lunar XPrize.


The fact that you
can multiply doesn't mean you can just scale up.

You obviously do not understand how scaling works with arrays of MEMS engines.


You obviously do not understand, well, much of anything.

snip MookSpew


This is why I label
so many of your 'calculations' as "MookieMath".

No, you use derogatory terms because it makes you feel superior and is a way to compensate when you clearly don't understand a topic you apparently don't care about.


And Mookie adds mindreading to his resume...


No, I am reading your intentions based on your statements. Every sane person does it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4563880/


You really don't read your own cites, do you?



Adapted to use the water and energy resources of the moon and Mars using cryogenic ZBO lox/lh2 MEMs rockets these easily provide sufficient guidance to deliver products anywhere required cheaply.


Handwavium.

Nonsense. Saying we're going to use abundant water resources and energy resources found in place on either the moon or Mars to produce cryogenic zero boil off lox/lh2 propellants to cheaply guide rounds to customers on Earth is the exact opposite of hand waving. Its very precise and gives a clear indication exactly how things work.


Except things don't work that way.

They do work the way I describe. They don't work the way you imagine. You don't see that its your problem, no one elses.


I'm hardly the only one here who thinks you're a havering loon, Mook.


I'm not the only one in your life that despises you and wouldn't go out their way to **** on you if you were on fire.

In fact, pretty much everyone here with any sort of engineering
background seems to think you're an ignorant loony.


Everyone reading your statements over the years understands that you are very unhappy with your life and your work and have achieved nothing really while others like myself have made important contributions to our nation and to business in general.


Mookie now not only spews nonsense, he claims his nonsense speaks for
'everyone'. Yet derision seems to be almost universally aimed at him.

Hence "handwavium".

Of course, this is how you dismiss anything you don't understand. Given your general lack of intelligence, there are a great deal of things you don't understand.


Poor Mookie.


You're projecting again you miserable sot.


Poor Mookie.

It's always the other person who's stupid because he
doesn't understand things.


You clearly don't understand. You are the one calling me stupid because you don't understand what I'm saying.


I'm calling you stupid because you keep saying stupid ****e.


You have consistently demonstrated your inability to appreciate reality. SpaceX built a VTOVL TSTO-RLV along the lines I described using the assets I described in the time frame I described 25 years ago, proving you wrong then. Matternet, Prime Air, Flirtey are all hot investments today developing delivery drone technology. I described this technology 25 years ago. You predictably didn't understand it, and **** on it. Again, proving you wrong. So, who's the ignorant idiot? You are!


Of course, Mookie. You said it all, Mookie. Elon Musk owes you a
huge debt, Mookie.

You're ****ing nuts, Mookie.


MEMS rockets deliver only small amounts of thrust (hence
'MEMS').

Liquid bipropellant rockets have been made that produce 50 psi using 300 psi pressure fed propellants. A square inch of these cost less than $1 in quanitity on Earth, and vastly less on Mars given the lower energy resource and labour costs.


So why don't you past a couple square feet of the things to your ass
and fly to the Moon?

I gave you a paper that describes just that.


No you didn't. Do you really hallucinate so heavily that you think
that?


Here, let me link to it again;
https://www.scribd.com/document/40549127/Disk-Moonship


Mookie, offering your own writing as proof of what you're writing is,
well, nutty.



You can't just paste a zillion of them on something and
multiply.

I just bought a 4K, Ultra HD, TV. This has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels four colour pixels. That's four times the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels found in your full HD TV. That's 33.17 million plasma points that are switched at 120 times per second through a dynamic range of 12,000 to 1 across a 65" diagonal screen. This is a screen that's 31.87 inches tall and 56.65 inches wide and has an area of 1805.3 square inches. Retail this is $5 per square inch. On Mars this would cost $0.05 per square inch to produce given the lower labour, energy, taxes, regulatory and resource costs. At 50 psi exit plane pressure a MEMS array the size of this screen using very much the same control methodology, would produce 90,267 pounds of force under highly controlled conditions.


I'm happy you have a nice TV, but the rest of that is bull****.

None of it is. That's what you don't get.


I frequently "don't get" lunatics' delusions.


You are the lunatic, you don't get that.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!

And that's what you
post.


I post what I know of the real world that is relevant to these groups.


The problem is that you don't 'know' much and what you do 'know' is
largely nutty.


If you don't want me to post to this group, I will stop posting and never post here again. Just say the word dude, and I'm outa here. The only reason I'm posting now is because many people asked me to come back and post again. If anyone asked me not to post, I will leave and point to that request if anyone asks me to return.


Name these people who asked you to post here. I've asked you that
before and you seem unable to answer. This is becoming boring, like
all your other oft-repeated bull****. Which part of "nobody cares" is
it that you are unable to wrap your head around?


I'm a busy man, and have a lot on my plate. I don't need the grief crazy people like you love to heap on me. But, I'll make it easy. Just ask me not to post here, and I will happily never post here again. You're too chicken **** to do that aren't you?


Mook, which part of "I don't give a **** what you do" is it that is
beyond your comprehension? Post, don't post, I don't care. But when
you post idiocy, you're likely to be called an idiot.



You have now also added heavy insulated tanks to your
'cheap carrier'.

Advanced tanks,

http://www.compositesworld.com/artic...s-for-cryogens
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index...iquid-h2-fuel/

Advanced cryocoolers,

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10....19-2_25#page-1
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...16/10/002/meta
http://www.colorado.edu/MCEN/mems/research_simon1.htm

Built at very low cost, in quantities of billions rather than dozens, are easily achieved.


'Easily achieved' means "because Mook says so". Handwavium

No easily achieved means that its been done and you can call up any competent supplier and get one made.


Nonsense.


Call up any supplier of cryogenic composite tanks and tell them you want a portable manufacturing plant that makes 1 billion 3 litre tanks per year and they will give you a budget to build it and an estimate of the unit cost of each tank. You will find that the tanks will cost on the order of pennies a piece.


Horse****.

You can't go solid fuel because you need to be able
to turn them on and off.

When you have millions of engines across your thrust surface and several surfaces stacked in layers, you can produced controlled thrust across that surface.


And if you have magic pixie dust you can do whatever you want.

Its not magic and it has nothing to do with pixie dust. You don't get that.


You're posting nonsense.


No I'm not, you don't get that.


Rubber/Glue/Waaaaa!!

You don't get that.


Only because I'm posting what will actually be done in the next 15 years on Mars.


Now I know you're nuts. Fifteen years? Preposterous!

The only liquid fuel MEMS rockets I've seen
anyone talking about use hydrogen peroxide, not deeply cryogenic fuels

Why doesn't that surprise me.


Because there aren't any?

No, because you're clueless.


I note you still haven't posted a single cite pointing to the
existence of liquid fuel MEMS rockets using deeply cryogenic fuels.


Dude, Epstein's original paper on liquid bipropellant MEMS rockets discussed cryogenic operation. That paper is 15 years old now! Do you really think ZERO progress has been made in the area? Do you really think ZERO progress will be made over the next 15 years? Give me a freaking break! You must have solid rational reasons for such negativity. You don't. You just run your mouth and think that the **** you make up will stick. The only thing you do is reveal yourself to be a clueless miserable moron. haha..


No, it doesn't, Mookie. You're hallucinating freely. haha..

There's a reason for that...


Because you didn't read the one open literature source I provided.


Your problem is that I did read it and, unlike you, I actually
understood what it said.

(although feel free to cite such an engine) and they only manage tiny
amounts of thrust. Their thrust/weight ratios are high, but that
rapidly goes to **** once you start adding plumbing, tanks, multiple
engines, etc.

The Shuttle External Tank achieves a tank mass fraction of 3.71% of the propellant it carries at 22 psi for the LOX and 29 psi for the LH2. With advanced construction techniques this same level of performance (4%) is achieved at 300 psi.

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/382034main_...k_Masses. pdf

Thrust to weight ratios of 1000 to 1 are achieved with MEMS based engines as you point out. So, a 4.9 lb propellant tank will weigh less than 0.2 lbs and a 90 lb MEMS thrust array will weigh less than 0.1 lbs.


I note you don't cite any such cryogenic MEMS rockets.

http://cap.ee.imperial.ac.uk/~pdm97/...53_Epstein.pdf

On page 155 this twelve year old paper talks about cryogenic operation of rocket propulsion systems.


Well, actually, no it doesn't.


Right, Epstein mentions cryogenic applications in a paper on liquid bipropellant rockets for NO reason! HAHAHA - that's rich.


He does no such thing.

Did you read it or just search for the
word 'cryogenic'?


In the context of the paper, how do you conclude that cryogenic liquid bipropellant rockets are IMPOSSIBLE?


Where did I say any such thing?

What the page does is talk about the potential
operating range for a particular type of valve actuator.


After discussing the importance of such valves for making controllable rocket arrays. Sheez.


You really don't understand anything you read or cite, do you?

That's all.


What more do you need moron?


Oh, an actual paper discussing actual MEMS rocket arrays using LH2 and
LOX would be helpful.

And it doesn't even give a real bottom range. It merely says
'cryogenic'.


Because he is discussing ALL cryogenic applications. Read the freaking abstract dude! lol.


Except he's not. Read the freaking paper, dud! lol.

I will note that LNG is 'cryogenic' but only mildly.


So? Helium is so cold it makes hydrogen solid. What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? It doesn't and this statement has no bearing whatever on the fact that cryogenic bipropellant rockets require efficient valves for reliable operation.


You're proposing helium rockets now?

You're blathering on about LH2, which is a whole different kettle of
fish.


Nonsense, page 7 here discussed the use of piezoelectric sensors on the microscale being used in LOX/LH2 rockets. Sheez.

http://www.pcb.com/Contentstore/mktg...c_Pressure.pdf


Not MEMS LH2/LOX rockets. Do you read your own cites?

Bored now.

snip MookSpew unread


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine
 




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