Paper published on producing arbitrarily long nanotubes.

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Have you ever looked at the fuselage of a GA aircraft? The real
problem with a 'flying car' these days would getting them past the CAR
regulations. The airplane side is easy.

Thank you for continuing to support my point. I still argue that even
in a *SF* universe, it is tough to make a case for a flying car. Even
if you hand wave all the tech and regs and costs, very few worlds can
be created where it makes sense to drive around in a vehicle that can
fly.

Perhaps for someone with a very limited world view.


--
Jim Pennino

Doc O'Leary wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Have you ever looked at the fuselage of a GA aircraft? The real
problem with a 'flying car' these days would getting them past the CAR
regulations. The airplane side is easy.

Thank you for continuing to support my point.


Thank you for continuing to be a raving dip****. You've convinced me
you aren't worth wasting time on.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
Fred J. McCall wrote:

So your whole 'argument' amounts to a chicken/egg thing. You said
there were no flying cars in the 'real world'. Now you want to move
the goal posts.


3D televisions can be purchased at Best Buy, Amazon, and many other
retailers.

You can buy greeting cards with holograms.

Have you been living in a cave?


No, I’m saying that just because someone is *trying* to make a
thing happen doesn’t mean it has happened, or will happen. The
starting context for this is a space elevator, but it applies to
many things *in the context of science fiction*. Another fine
example is 3D TV or holograms. Yes, there are people trying to get
there, but they don’t exist in *any* sense as their science fiction
promise. You are being intellectually dishonest when you pretend
there is no difference.

Pointing to experimental aircraft is like pointing to cold fusion.
They are a *fiction* in the real world. Your case is not made when
you?re deliberately being intellectually dishonest like this.


Do you know the FAA definition of 'experimental aircraft'?

No. I know what I see on the road and in the air. I do not see
*any* flying cars anywhere I look. The burden of evidence is on
*you* to show they exist beyond some ill-conceived R&D efforts.

Yep, living in a cave.

It appears you also have not seen any 3D televisons or holograms even
though such are fairly common these days.



--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Same as the case for GA aircraft. You need a car at both ends of the
flight.

Really? If that’s the *only* advantage you can think of, you’re
really supporting my point. Cars are easy to rent, or skip all that
these days and just use an app to get a ride. You’re going to need
to make a *much* better case for it to make sense to put an
expensive flying vehicle in the middle of dangerous road traffic.

Apparently you do not understand that the entire world is not one
big city with Uber at your fingertips.

Try getting an Uber ride in Gthenburg, NE.

So why not a single device?

Because the gulf between that idea and the reality is too great.
Different duties have different engineering requirements. Same
reason a vehicle meant to travel the vacuum of space has different
functional needs from one that is intended to launch from a planet
or one that is intended to re-enter an atmosphere.

Yet many people have been building working machines since the 1930's
so the technology can't be that difficult.


You probably resisted the idea
of putting PDA functionality on cell phones, too.

Wrong again. I was in the camp that *knew* putting a computer in
your pocket meant that “phones� would stop being about phone calls.
Just like a “flying car� in any sane universe would quickly make
driving pointless, so it’d really just be about a newer kind of
aircraft.

Correct, it is more about the COST of a "newer" kind of aircraft that
has been around for almost a century now.


And that’s why I bring up self-driving cars in the context of
trains. Because if flying cars made sense, they’d *first* make
sense in the context of a plane or a car. Even if you never took
it driving, it seems like there should be an obvious advantage of
having a plane you can park at the airport in a facility no
different from a regular parking spot. Yet somehow nobody can
find a market?

Lots of airplanes are parked in a facility no different from a regular
parking spot.

You continue to demonstrate you know absolutely nothing about aviation.


A lot of people own a lot of things that make very little sense. I?m
not asking about that segment of the population. I?m asking about
the people who are more thoughtful about their behaviors. Can you
make the case to *them* that flying cars are actually a good idea?


Why do I need to? Make the case for a car, period, to someone who
lives in the Amazon jungle. The fact that there is no such case
doesn't mean cars are useless.

They *are* uselesss in the middle of the Amazon jungle. But that’s
a straw man; stick to the issue at hand. No, you don’t *have* to
make the case for flying cars, but you *did* decide to chime in to
do that. You haven’t been successful as of yet, so you can try
harder, bail out of the conversation, or just admit that, yeah,
flying cars really are just one of science fiction’s dumber ideas.

Actually there is one flying car, a dune buggy actually, that is on
the market and a portion of the target market is access to remote
parts of the world such as jungle areas by people such as missionaries.

http://www.flyskyrunner.com/


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

Preflighting my airplane takes about 5 minutes.

You didn’t drive your airplane around town for days/weeks/months,
though. And what do you do if you find your car has taken some
damage that made it unable/dangerous to fly? A realistic world
building exercise isn’t going to yield useful results if you can’t
think past how you do things currently.

A preflight is a preflight.

If the machine is damaged you call your insurance agent.


There is no FAA paperwork unless you file a flight plan, and then that
is automated.

Sure, sure. The busywork is all ideally computerized. But the point
is that such a setup isn’t some sort of imagined “I just drive right
to the airport runway and off I go.� We’re a long way from anything
*near* even that kind of SF fantasy.

Only in your blindered view of the world.

The ability to drive to the airport runway and off you go has been
around for nearly a century now, whether you want to accept the reality
or not.

FYI, most personal flights do not require paperwork of any kind.


There are a lot of people who do not own a car; so what?

There are lots of people who do not own a motorcycle; so what?

There are lots of people who do not own an airplane; so what?

Those are all the opposite of the ownership issue being discussed.
Your motives are now clear. I’m done with you.

Only in you narrow world view.

Just because something exists it does not mean everyone, or even a
significant fraction of everyone, will want it.

Your comment about motives is meaningless to me; I have no motives in
regard to flying cars, airplanes, cars, sailboats, bicycles,or any other
vehicle.


--
Jim Pennino

On Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 6:53:43 AM UTC+12, Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Have you ever looked at the fuselage of a GA aircraft? The real
problem with a 'flying car' these days would getting them past the CAR
regulations. The airplane side is easy.

Thank you for continuing to support my point. I still argue that even
in a *SF* universe, it is tough to make a case for a flying car. Even
if you hand wave all the tech and regs and costs, very few worlds can
be created where it makes sense to drive around in a vehicle that can
fly.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

You are delusional when you say its tough to make a case for flying cars.

The Airbus E-fan already exists.

http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/co...-aircraft.html

The Ehang 184 already exists.

http://www.ehang.com/ehang184

Advanced flight control systems already exist.

https://www.ted.com/talks/raffaello_...rs?language=en

Clearly flight on demand systems are here - not the future.

Now, you can actually look at the engineering data from actual flying systems. From that analysis we can say with certainty, the Airbus E-fan uses 1/5th the energy per kilometer than a typical motorcar. The Ehang 184 uses 4/5th the energy per kilometer than a typical motorcar and is capable of point to point travel.

Serious aerospace teams have melded the two together to give a point to point capability to an electric aircraft while reducing its energy cost per kilometre to 1/5th the energy of a typical motorcar - while maintaining higher speed.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technolog...es/puffin.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...stealth-plane/

EXISTING models are quieter than a motorcar and produce no exhaust in operation as a motorcar does, use less energy per unit distance than a motorcar does, travels 7x faster than a motorcar does.

There is absolutely no basis for your delusion. NONE.

The Ehang 184 moves directly from point A to point B - requiring no ground based facilities at all. No roads. No airstrips. Count the costs of road construction and maintenance, and you see why most under developed countries will NEVER have large numbers of automobiles, but are easily serviced by a modest number of drones.

Aircraft are not constrained to a 2D surface and so do not get involved in the same sort of overloaded situations common with terrestrial travel. So, they're safer than motorcars too!

So please examine your crazy delusion and drop it.

Doc O'Leary schrieb:
Another fine
example is 3D TV or holograms. Yes, there are people trying to get
there, but they don’t exist in *any* sense as their science fiction
promise.

Holograms is actually one of the worst cases.

It seems that very many SF authors simply do not understand
the properties of real holograms at all.

A hologram consists of an interference pattern. When directed
light falls on that pattern, 3D objects can be seen.

One point that SF authors or directors routinely miss is that you
cannot see anything of the hologram if you are not looking at
the interference pattern. A hologram cannot absorb, bend or
refract light anywhere else (so the Doctor from Voyager is out).

It is also not possible to have 3D projector that, simply by
projecting light, can make something appear in thin air that can
be viewed at an angle from the projector. So, forget about R2D2
pojecting the picture of Princess Leia.

On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:32:24 AM UTC+12, Thomas Koenig wrote:
Doc O'Leary schrieb:
Another fine
example is 3D TV or holograms. Yes, there are people trying to get
there, but they don’t exist in *any* sense as their science fiction
promise.

Holograms is actually one of the worst cases.

It seems that very many SF authors simply do not understand
the properties of real holograms at all.

A hologram consists of an interference pattern. When directed
light falls on that pattern, 3D objects can be seen.

One point that SF authors or directors routinely miss is that you
cannot see anything of the hologram if you are not looking at
the interference pattern. A hologram cannot absorb, bend or
refract light anywhere else (so the Doctor from Voyager is out).

It is also not possible to have 3D projector that, simply by
projecting light, can make something appear in thin air that can
be viewed at an angle from the projector. So, forget about R2D2
pojecting the picture of Princess Leia.

Even with these limitations, a lot can be accomplished...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjP4SvHjkdo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyxyy10YoNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CqUYBopWLs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0f7-FhT8B0

On Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 8:42:00 PM UTC+12, Thomas Koenig wrote:
Robert Clark schrieb:

From Nanoscale to Macroscale: Applications of Nanotechnology to Production
of Bulk Ultra-Strong Materials.

I've been involved in CNT application development a little bit myself.

Let's just say it is _very_ difficult to get from theoretical properties
to practical performance.

That's not what's reported here;

https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs...mao_2012_p.pdf

And with the techniques reported here;

http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Docu..._AANov2013.pdf

It seems near-term development to consider that a 2.5% to 3.5% structure fraction is possible of Zero Boil Off LH2 and LOX tanks (and even lower fractions for LOX/LNG tanks!) that operate at 3,000 psi (204 bar) and above! This means that very low mass high performance systems are possible.

High pressure lightweight tanks, when combined with arrays of microscopic bipropellant pressure fed rockets, with a 2,000 psi combustion chamber pressure and a 150 psi nozzle exit pressure produced at less than $15 per square inch (10 pounds force (4.5 kgf) per dollar!) with a 1,000 to 1 thrust to weight!

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

http://www.las.inpe.br/~jrsenna/Aero...av2997p1-7.pdf

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/ARI/A...outhampton.pdf

http://thirdworld.nl/a-high-pressure...-rocket-engine


Vendors for tanks;

http://smad.com

And engines (made of refractory metals);

http://www.microfabrica.com

have quoted quite reasonable performance costs going forward.

Other vendors, have quoted industrial scale hydrogen and oxygen production for producing fuel on demand;

https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/46676.pdf

500 kg per astronaut, and 8 astronauts (with 4 crew members) twelve in all, total 6,000 kg of payload to the surface of the moon, with sufficient propellant to return directly to Earth after four days.

To project this payload to the moon directly requires a delta vee from Earth's surface of 12 km/sec. With eight elements - of 13,500 kg each we have;

Structu 472.5 kg
Propellant: 13,027.5 kg
Hydrogen: 2,004.2
Oxygen: 11,023.3


In more detail;

Each of the eight elements are;

13,500.0 kg - element total
472.5 kg - structure
13,027.5 kg - propellant
2,004.2 kg - LH2
11,023.3 kg - LOX

Payload is;

6,000.0 kg - payload

Carrying a dozen people (8 passengers and 4 crew)

At take off;

114,000.0 kg take off weight
52,110.0 kg propellant S1
0.45711 u - S1
2.57 km/sec dV - S1
2.57 km/sec total dV - S1

This burns through four of the eight tanks, and drops them off downrange. They re-enter the atmosphere and slow to subsonic speed. They deploy inflatable wings and control surfaces, and are recovered by aircraft loitering downrange. A tow line is dropped from the nose of each element, and a tow plane snags it, and drags the element, now glider, back to the launch center.. The engine re-ignites, and each element executes a nose up maneuver and lands on its tail, similar to the way tail sitter operated in the 1950s.

Meanwhile four other elements continue skyward, burning propellant from two outboard tanks pushing two inline tanks and the payload to higher speeds

60,000.0 kg - total S2
26,055.0 kg - propellant S2
0.43425 u - S2
2.56 km/sec dV - S2
5.13 km/sec total dV - S2

Those two elements drop off when empty, and the two inline tanks and payload continue to accelerate, burning the propellant in the seventh element at the base of the eighth element. The two spent elements are recovered even further down-range from the first four - using aircraft loitering at that location.

33,000.0 kg - total S3
13,027.5 kg - propellant S3
0.39477 u - S3
2.26 km/sec dV - S3
7.39 km/sec total dV - S3

The seventh element, separates from the eight element atop it, and skips around the world, gliding back to the launch center for recovery by vertical landing. The eighth element pushes itself and the payload to the moon, along a Free Return trajectory and is recovered 7 days after launch. The payload lands directly on the lunar surface, and returns to Earth, landing at the launch centre 11 days after launch.

19,500.0 kg total S4
13,027.5 kg - propellant S4
0.66808 u - S4
4.96 km/sec dV - S4
12.35 km/sec total dV - S4

The 6,000 kg payload consists of a single stage that slows to zero speed at the lunar surface by imparting 2.3 km/sec to the direct ascent stage. It then fires again imparting another 2.3 km/sec to the stage, returning it to Earth along a minimum energy trajectory in 3.5 days, after spending 4 days on the lunar surface.

3,841.3 kg - propellant
3,250.3 kg - LOX
591.0 kg - LH2

134.4 kg - structure

2,024.3 kg - payload
(168.7 kg (371.1 lbs) per astronaut)

There are nine systems, that cost $5 million each. A total of $45 million. The launch and support infrastructure costs another $55 million. Spares and test articles, along with the development programme, $25 million. This permits the conversion of 149,621.4 litres of water into 16,624.6 kg of LH2 and 132,997.8 kg of LOX. Of this total 91,435.3 kg is placed in zero boil off high pressure containers, and 41,561.5 kg is sold for $0.15 per kg. The cost of the hydrogen is $16,624.60 and the earnings from the LOX sales is $6,234.22 so the net propellant cost is $10,390.38 to fill up the ship.. With a six year life span, and 300 uses the $125 million capital cost for the entire system is $523,938.94 per flight when discounted at 8.5% per annum over six years- with 52 flights per year. A total cost of $534,329.32 per launch. This is $66,791.16 per passenger per launch. Adding $10,000 per flight for the crew per passenger, this is $20,000 per crew member per flight, payday. Far more than NASA paid Neil to go to the moon.

NASA suits currently cost $12 million each and $2 million each time they're flown. The Orlan MK suit costs $3 million new, and only $400,000 each time they're flown. MIT's biosuit approach promises to reduce costs to $100,000 and cost per use to $10,000.

http://news.mit.edu/2014/second-skin-spacesuits-0918

It seems reasonable that $25 million can be earned as profits for each lunar traveller. That's $200 million per launch. Since the launcher described above can place 12,500 kg (27,500 lbs) into GTO, and since United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 costs US$ 27,063 per kg to GTO - this is a reasonable alternative use of the vehicle. At $200 million per launch, and with 12,500 kg into GTO - this is a considerable savings over the Atlas V 541.

92 space launches per year currently;

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/01/04...n-two-decades/

Capturing 52 commercial launches at $200 million profit, and 52 lunar launches (using the safety reliability, and high profile nature of manned lunar flight to sell launch services) - provides 104 launches times $0.2 billion - $20.8 billion per year. Which is more than NASA's 2016 budget of $19.3 billion per year.

Not a bad return for a $125 million investment!

The first thing we do with the revenue is we place 722 satellites of 900 kg each using 61 launches, over the course of a year to create a global wireless hotspot! Each satellite has an inflatable phased array radio telescope antenna pointed to earth, and an inflatable solar concentrator providing 50 kW of power, in combination with half a dozen open optical laser communicators, that provide 250 Terabit/sec communications backbone, and a petabyte of data storage - along with an 8k image of Earth life - all while providing a world wide unregulated V-band discoverable as NFC device on every handset, laptop, tablet computer on the planet - providing 70 MBit/sec uplink/downlink - and instant global connectivity of everyone everywhere.

This system that costs less than $1.4 billion allows capture of $1.4 trillion per year from 6 billion wireless users world wide.

The next thing we do with this revenue is create a solar power satellite. 275 MW system is appropriate for this launcher. This is a 605 meter diameter thin film electrostatically stabilised concentrator that intercepts 393 MW of solar energy at GEO.

Humanity uses 22,668 TWh of electricity world wide per year and pays $2,493..48 billion per year for it. Each 275 MW satellite generates 2.41 TWh per year. That's 9,406 launches.

At $10,000 per kg each satellite costs $125 million. With a 30 year life span at 8.5% discount rate it costs $11.63 million per year to produce 2.41 billion kWh. The cost is 48/100th cent per kWh. At $0.11 per kWh, the earnings are $265.17 million per year! A quarter billion per satellite.

Well worth the launch!

One launch every 8 hours means that 9 years is required to make all the launches. Populating GEO with 9,406 satellites means that each 605 meter diameter satellite is separated from its neighbours by 28.17 km centre to centre. The laser emitter is 10 meters in diameter and operating at 1,100 nm can focus on to a 4.4 m diameter spot on the Earth's surface using active holographic techniques using conjugate optics.


Telecom income: $1.4 trillion/year
Electricity sales: $2.5 trillion/year

Total sales: $3.6 trillion/year

This is 180x the expenditure of NASA - nearly the entire expenditure of the USG! It is sufficient to support a sovereign style debt in a collateralised central style bank!

At current discount rates for sovereign debt, $3.6 trillion per year supports $100 trillion in sustainable debt. Used as 'hot money' in a fractional reserve system - at the same leverage as the US Federal Reserve - this supports $8 quadrillion in additional borrowings.

In short, we can match the US dollar leveraged against OPEC sales. So, this is of special interest, if we wish to invest in off-world infrastructure, for example, the production of photonic thrusters, interplanetary power networks, and hyperloops.

In article ,
says...

On Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 8:42:00 PM UTC+12, Thomas Koenig wrote:
Robert Clark schrieb:

From Nanoscale to Macroscale: Applications of Nanotechnology to Production
of Bulk Ultra-Strong Materials.

I've been involved in CNT application development a little bit myself.

Let's just say it is _very_ difficult to get from theoretical properties
to practical performance.

That's not what's reported here;

https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs...mao_2012_p.pdf

And with the techniques reported here;

http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Docu..._AANov2013.pdf

It's just like you Mook to dismiss someone with actual experience in the
field in favor of glowing research papers and reports in the media which
contain clear bias. Of course the researchers have nothing but positive
things to say in order to maintain their funding.

A skeptical *engineer* takes research results with a huge grain of salt.
Scaling up lab experiments to something operational in the real world is
quite often difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Yet you seem to
think everything is possible today with a sweeping wave of generalities.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.