nuclear space engine - would it work ??

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:01:12 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote:

In fact. I'm going to dig into the math of this further, because either:
A. The Moon engages in precision on its orbital axis independent of the
Earth.

Precession... and apparently you have the wrong variety of it
in mind.

While lunar axial precession does occur, you seem to have
confused the magnitude of it with lunar orbital precession?

(Snip well-intentioned wrongness)

Errr... you omitted the concepts of 'minimal axial tilt',
'extremely high latitude'. and 'depth of crater'.

It's dark and cold in the bottom of some of those polar craters
and it stays that way for very long periods of time.

Whether there's ice...? But sunlight won't have entered into
the equation.

Pat

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

Chuck Stewart wrote:

Errr... you omitted the concepts of 'minimal axial tilt',
'extremely high latitude'. and 'depth of crater'.

It's dark and cold in the bottom of some of those polar craters
and it stays that way for very long periods of time.

Whether there's ice...? But sunlight won't have entered into
the equation.



No; I'm talking about the gyroscopic precession of Earth on its orbital
axis that makes the northern pole of its rotation face Polaris today,
but means it shall be way off Polaris in 4,000 years from now.
As winter and summer illumination areas are based on Earth's axis in
comparison to our orbital plane around the Sun, and its inclination in
relation to it, those areas shall shift with time.
As our axis shifts with time in relation to the celestial sphere, so
shall the specific areas the Sun illuminates on our world shall also.
Either the Moon is faced with precession of its own, or it's locked to
us, and has its polar axis drift around a circle in the sky over tens of
thousands of years, as we do.
Either way, it gets stuck with areas of its poles that are not
illuminated today being illuminated by full sunlight despite its axis of
rotation.

Pat

This topic drift is bad practice for people who really think. And I'm
not feeling someone is up on their history reading: try "NERVA".

Anyhow, I notice an interesting piece of text here,

snip

wrote:

snip

Jorden, controlled fusion reactions can and have been made in lab
bench
scale apparatus since the 1950s. As in so small and cheap that many
private individuals have built them. snip

Is this documented anywhere? Please provide pointers to publically
accessible information on this.

Thanks -- Martha Adams

In message zrK1h.4612$WB4.2606@trndny04, Martha Adams
writes
This topic drift is bad practice for people who really think.

Thread drift happens even in threads exclusively on sci.space.history,
and provides half the fun.

And I'm
not feeling someone is up on their history reading: try "NERVA".

Anyhow, I notice an interesting piece of text here,

snip

wrote:

snip

Jorden, controlled fusion reactions can and have been made in lab
bench
scale apparatus since the 1950s. As in so small and cheap that many
private individuals have built them. snip

Is this documented anywhere? Please provide pointers to publically
accessible information on this.

Fusion on a very small scale has been demonstrated for years - I recall
what was described as "the first demonstration of nuclear fusion in a
television studio" in the 1970s (corrections welcomed, if this wasn't
really fusion or my date is wrong :-)
I think the most recent idea is pyroelectric fusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_fusion
Not a power source, but it may be useful as a neutron source.

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Robert Kolker wrote:


Oh, and there's ample water on Mars, it turns out. Rather a lot of
subsurface ice, well-distributed over the planet...


Please produce citations for that from vetted scientific journals.



Don't get impatient -- the data on this is very recent, from the MARSIS
radar sounder on Mars Express in particular, and the folks doing it haven't
had time to write up a lot of the results yet.



We can be pretty sure that there's water ice in great abundance at both
of Mars' poles.
Other than that, and what created the Vallis Marineris - liquid water,
or liquid CO2?...that one's still up in air.
Nifty map: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingsinger/78796066/
Does a very good job of letting one know how big Mars actually is.

Pat

Pat

"Frank Glover" wrote in message
...
As long as it's in line-of-sight to the lander, who needs a cable? This
is what repeaters have done on Earth, for many decades...

I'd expect the repeater to have to be parked at least a few miles away- the
lander would almost certainly have to land in a dark place, and a repeater
with batteries to last long enough would be heavy. Thus, a cable good for
several miles.

"Dale" wrote in message
...
I thought you and Henry were talking about Mercury, not the Moon...

The lunar fish would probably be healthier than the Mercury fish.

"David Spain" wrote in message
news:cVo1h.6203$d95.4260@trnddc08...
Scott Hedrick wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
news:iwo0h.4$Z66.3@trnddc07...
I do not believe that the 17 powers enumerated afterwards
were intended to in any way to define or restrict the phrase in para. 1.
I believe if that were the intent, it would have said so right there

*They did*. The words "foregoing powers" are *right there*.


"Foregoing Powers" includes Para 1 which states that Congress shall have
power to provide for the common defense and general welfare.

Actually, Para 1 of Section 1, which creates Congress and sets up the powers
therefore, says "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives."

You need to read it sometime.

What you quoted was from the *introduction* of the Constitution, which does
*not* convey any powers to Congress. From it's location, if it conveyed any
powers, *then the President and also the Supreme Court* could legislate the
common defense and general welfare. Are the Supremes in charge of the
National Guard? Did they create Social Security? A *clear reading* of the
Preamble makes it clear that it tells the reason why the Constitution was
created, *not* that it conveys powers to any branch of the government.

As *you* said: "The framers were *very* aware of how to word legal documents
in their time, this is not an oversight." You can't then decide that they
didn't mean anything by listing the powers of congress, but then also
providing powers to congress outside of Article I.

*Exactly*, which means they included "foregoing powers" for a reason.


Which *includes* providing for the general welfare, without actually
specifying
exactly what that means. Since it means different things at different
times.

Fine- where in Article I is Congress authorized to do such a thing?

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 03:23:06 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote:

Chuck Stewart wrote:

Errr... you omitted the concepts of 'minimal axial tilt', 'extremely
high latitude'. and 'depth of crater'.

Whether there's ice...? But sunlight won't have entered into the
equation.

No; I'm talking about the gyroscopic precession of Earth on its orbital
axis that makes the northern pole of its rotation face Polaris today,
but means it shall be way off Polaris in 4,000 years from now... ...
... ... Either the Moon is faced with precession of its own, or it's
locked to us

But the degree of this particular precession effect is governed
by the degree of axial tilt of the body in question... and the
Moon has very little axial tilt.

(Hey, OM! New magnifier setup... how do you like my column width
now?

Pat

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

Martha Adams wrote:
This topic drift is bad practice for people who really think. And I'm
not feeling someone is up on their history reading: try "NERVA".

NERVA from memory was a fission engine through which hydrogen was
passed. The figure of merit (specific impulse) is about 9km/s.

- Ian Parker