Slashdot Mirror
NASA to Research Antimatter Rocket
Fraser Cain writes "One of the dozen technologies selected by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) this year is Positronics Research's ideas for an antimatter rocket engine. Instead of 3100 kg of propellant on board Cassini, the spacecraft could get by with just 310 micrograms of electrons and positrons. Of course, making the antimatter can be expensive."
Could this be possibly used to create a spacecraft on which John Glenn could be placed, suddenly creating an "evil" John Glenn with a goatee from a parallel universe?
Captain! If we can't stabilize that containment field in the next thirty seconds, we're going to have a core breech. Wait... what if we reverse the polarity? Brilliant!
I like the idea of trying to push along basic research with incentives.
I think they're called 'grants'.
When will NASA finally start investigating the chances of having am impropability drive? As long as it's not running the chances aren't that small.
"Would you give your five year old a nuclear warhead?"
Yes.
It's virtually impossible to detonate a nuclear weapon (if not actually impossible), without arming it first. I don't think a five year old could manage that.
Anyways, after he grew up and got sick of it not doing anything, I'd just sell it back to the government and put the money in his college fund.
My laptop is more powerful than a 1975 supercomputer that filled a room, but a D cell battery hasn't changed its size in 30 years and today's best D cell lasts what 2, 3 times as long as one from 1975?
Indeed, how can our civilization advance until everyone is carrying around D-cell-sized batteries that contain enough energy to destroy a city. (Try not to short-circuit them.)
Your world view must change regularly. But you probably don't remember it.
Here on Earth we have the Sun to power the whole planet, which can then be distilled down to more power dense forms. That doesn't exist in space.
I could be wrong about this, but I heard there was talk of Sun power actually existing in space, outside of Earth! Something about Copernicus and a heliocentric solar system, but like I said, I could be wrong about this...
The unofficial
Because if a near-free energy source was developed our oil dependent economy would be in trouble. Our supreme overlords would not like that very much.
There are all kinds of supposed suppressed technology like the free energy magnetic motor. Some are probably fakes but some look very convincing. I'm not an expert in any of this, but it's obvious power technology is being suppressed. Breakthroughs are made every day in technology but strangely rarely in energy research. How else can you explain our cars still using the same exact fuel they always have while my 5 year old computer is consider ancient.
Farnsworth: "So what are you doing to protect my constitutional right to bear doomsday devices?"
NRA Guy: "Well, first off, we're gonna get rid of that three day waiting period for mad scientists."
Farnsworth: "Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can't get a doomsday device, tomorrow it's the mad grad student! Where will it end?!"
NRA Guy: "Amen, brother. I don't go anywhere without my mutated anthrax. For duck huntin'."
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Uh-oh: "Positronics Research, headed up by Dr. Smith" Good Heavens! Next it will be "MIT, headed up by Dr. Otto Octavius" or "NASA, headed up by Dr. Victor Von Doom" or "Scientology, headed up by L. Ron Hubbard". Oh the pain...
You're right - clearly, based on the evidence you've presented, the earth's oil will last forever.
Its based on body odor.
You see our galaxy is really smelly and all the other ones want to get away from it.
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.
Sounds great, until you realize your antimatter catalyst needs a penning trap weighing hundreds of tons. Good news is that in space, it will weigh nothing!
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato
Humans like to find new territory and conquer it.
<Bush>
Well, there's still Iran.
</Bush>
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
theoretical predictions based on that are off by 1E120. Which is no small number I'm sure you'll agree.
I dunno.... only 5 characters... seems pretty small to me. Certainly a lot shorter than my phone number.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I wonder if these "grants" can be harnessed to directly push along space craft.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Humor intolerance unfortunately is not as easy to treat as lactose intolerance. The GP obviously got the joke but feels that anyone with a different sense of humor is not funny. Let's hope that the GP thinks that most people are not funny!
This reminds me of something a faculty member told me once about a chair in another department (after I had complained - confidentially - that that department seemed to be remarkably unremarkable). He said that the chair did not believe in hiring anyone more intelligent than himself - and that didn't leave many people to choose from.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Well, if you could create an antimatter superconducting ring, you could fill it with positrons and float it in a magnetic field.
Of course, making and manipulating an antimatter superconducting ring is left as an exercise for the reader.
Here's a napkin and a pen to get you started.