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NASA Funds Designs for a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Rocket (space.com)
"Dangerous radiation. Overstuffed pantries. Cabin fever. NASA could sidestep many of the impediments to a Mars mission if they could just get there faster," writes Space.com, which reports NASA is now exploring an alternative to chemical rockets.
In August, NASA announced an $18.8-million-dollar contract with nuclear company BWXT to design fuel and a reactor suitable for nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), a rocket technology that could jumpstart a new era of space exploration. "The strengths with NTP are the ability to do the very fast round trip [to Mars], the ability to abort even if you're 2 to 3 months into the missions, the overall architectural robustness, and also the growth potential to even more advanced systems," Michael Houts, principal investigator for the NTP project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told Space.com. NTP rockets would pull all that off by offering about twice the bang for the buck that chemical rockets do... "Nuclear thermal propulsion can enable you to get to Mars faster, on the order of twice as fast," said Vishal Patel, a researcher involved in subcontract work for BWXT at the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. in Los Alamos, New Mexico. "We're looking at nice 3- to 4-month transit times."
What "thrust" gets put out? I don't mere heat will do it.
It's all Chode up ins! Now gimme my 1½ inches of reinforced carbon-carbon and a railgun and we'll duke it out like real space lozenges.
For a split moment, I thought I’d just read: “Dangerous radiation. Overstuffed panties. Cabin fever.”
That much faster with this technology.
Is there any limit to the desire of man to clutter the landscape of other lands....
Caution: Contents under pressure
in a twist.
See subject: "We now have the technology to take ET home..." - think about that folks - they let THAT out (& zeropoint energy (toroidal))? Big money will go nuts (Military Industrial Complex + big oil) & IF "ET's" are known (or found) to exist, entire religions (like the Book of Enoch & goldmining slaves (us)) would be out & SOON they would be "outed"... why?
* P O W E R (mostly over YOUR MIND & life-outlook)
APK
P.S.=> Yet we get 'articles' about this? Sure, it may be cool, but it's FAR from what's really going on imo... apk
We'll need to invent something a little faster than a rocket.
Then, we just fake our way through fake Space to our fake Mars. Nobody will figure out, and they still won't see the Earth is flat.
So, can I send this well-proven design?
cosmic highways with dangerous radiation. Have we not learnt anything from using fossil fuels on earth?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It may be physically capable of flying but marketing-wise it is dead on arrival. You can't put the word "nuclear" in there. Is there any way to remove that word? Then it may have a chance.
It's about time NASA started making Buck Rogers type equipment. This going up and down and round and round was starting to get boring.
.....we need to destroy every star we come across, starting with the Sun. That way we can prevent more radiation from polluting the Universe.
"A nuclear powered ion-drive seems a lot more likely to work."
Indeed. Hydrogen is sort of stupid, but that is where they started decades back, and it is perhaps best if they continue along those lines and develop it properly. Then load up with Xenon and get serious. Get the Reactor nice and toasty, both heat and ionize the Xenon with it, and then work with what Plasma Physicists have been doing, in accelerating the product and shooting it out the back end. (Accelerators are notoriously thirsty, but that is another thing Reactors are good at providing.)
135Xe is a particularly good candidate, as it has a very high Thermal Neutron Cross Section, and can carry some of those pesky Neutrons away with them. It isn't stable of course, but it is again another one of those things that Reactors are good at producing.
The Physics is done; the rest is mere Engineering.
A very interesting Captcha: Borate. 10Bo also has possibilities along these lines.
TRL 1 type stuff.
Well, the Rover and Pee Wee projects built and tested nuclear rocket engines, so it's already beyond Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1. Right now nuclear thermal rockets are TRL 4: Module and/or subsystem validation in laboratory environment; standalone prototype implementations.
The trick was to get them to TRL 5 and beyond.
Hydrogen has the advantage that it's available anywhere you can find frozen methane. Xenon can be a bit harder to scavenge. What I'd really like is a "high" power ion rocket that could use rocks for exhaust. This, though, is a big problem because rocks aren't a simple element, but a complex mix that varies. (By "high power" I'm thinking of about 30 pounds thrust, but that's probably dreaming.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Material limits set what we can do with conventional rockets. Not just melting points but thermal shock and fatigue.
No. Chemical rockets are limited by the energy content of the chemical fuel. They haven't been limited by materials for well over fifty years.
Those material limits are the same for a nuclear power source - and shoving water through a barely sub-critical reactor to heat it seems like a laughable idea. Water is hellish corrosive at high temperatures so odds are you'd be leaving a trail of reactor guts behind you before the engine had been running long.
Nobody proposes using water as reaction mass in a nuclear thermal rocket-- Specific impulse (Isp) is not high enough; you might as well use chemical propellants.
Hydrogen isn't a lot better. See "hydrogen embrittlement"
Hydrogen is a lot better. It is pretty much what everybody (or at least, everybody who knows the technology) would use for a NTR.
Since nuclear engines were designed, built and tested with hydrogen reaction mass back in the 1960s and early 1970s, your belief that they couldn't work is quaint.
A nuclear powered ion-drive seems a lot more likely to work.
Yes...and no. Ion drives put out a very low thrust per unit power. Thermal rockets are high thrust. There are some applications where you can get there slowly but efficiently, but it's definitely an engineering trade-off.
"A nuclear powered ion-drive seems a lot more likely to work." Indeed. Hydrogen is sort of stupid, but that is where they started decades back, and it is perhaps best if they continue along those lines and develop it properly.
Yes, nuclear thermal is very simple, and it has been demonstrated.
Then load up with Xenon and get serious. Get the Reactor nice and toasty, both heat and ionize the Xenon with it, and then work with what Plasma Physicists have been doing, in accelerating the product and shooting it out the back end.
Really you want to do one or the other, not both. Either use the thermal energy, in which case you want hydrogen, or convert the thermal energy to electrical power and use an ion engine, but not both at once.
(Accelerators are notoriously thirsty, but that is another thing Reactors are good at providing.) 135Xe is a particularly good candidate, as it has a very high Thermal Neutron Cross Section, and can carry some of those pesky Neutrons away with them.
That makes little sense. If you're using the reaction mass for neutron shielding, basically you want the lowest atomic mass you can get. And a fuel that decays with a half life of 9 hours means you'd have to breed the fuel in situ.
We had this tech in the 60s. No Nukes in Space treaty killed that. An engine isn't a weapon.
Nuclear powered Ion engines (or Nuclear Electric Rockets) add the complexity of electrical power conversion and thermal management. NERVA ran at just under 5GW thermal power, however since the heat was carried away by the fuel, they are easy to keep cool. Powering an Ion engine with a nuclear reactor means you need to dump all the heat generated by the reactor using radiators. JIMO proposed a 200kW reactor and needed a football field sized radiator to keep it cool
Can we focus on the rockets we already have and simply get resources into mars orbit?
Seriously we already have the tech for supplies and it doesn't matter if the trip take 2 years. We need to get around 30 supply depots and dropships into geo orbit around mars. Stuff like simply fuel and water. Raw materials to construct 3 shelters that can last 100 years and support 200-500 people each. Large construction and mining vehicles. Point is to bootstrap mining and manufacturing on mars. It's easier to get more supplies than you need early so nothing becomes an emergency. The rockets sending supplies can be cheaper and less reliable although really for supply runs between orbits you could strap an engine onto anything and or tow it.
That alone begs the question of low earth orbit objects. Makes more sense to boost them into a higher junk yard orbit. For instance the International Space Station. It's in LEO and is planned somewhere around 2024 to let it burn up in the atmosphere. Cheaper to boost it and send it to mars.
...Chernobyl and Fukishima didn't spread nuclear material far and wide enough. We need to rain that stuff down on ourselves from the upper atmosphere when one of those things eventually fails.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
as the Department of energy likes to make plutonium. Thorium is a better choice. Safer and when it decays is more or less safe. Fewer bad products. It is also a liquid, so could be ejected and let the solar windings carry it away.
It was once considered for subs as it was safer but the navy wanted plutonium to give to weapons manufacturers.
Unfortunately (orrather fortunately) we'll almost certainly be sliding backwards on a a TRL perspective. There have been a lot of major improvements in NTR design since then - not just for higher peak ISPs, but in particular to deal with the poor T/W of previous designs. The first big improvement was the LOX afterburner concept, wherein you burn the hot hydrogen with LOX early in the flight fie greatly augmented thrust, then revert to pure H2. Since then a lot of designs have also called for bringing atmospheric air into the mix, ranging from simple ram air thrust augmentation all the way up to designs with nuclear thermal-driven compressors and NTR scramjets.
Its hard to say at what point the added complexity ceases to pay off, but at the very least, the afterburner offers a huge leap forward at little cost. And of course you want modern ISPs too. To a point ; some of the more exotic reactor designs can theoretically provide crazy ISPs, but they do so by keeping the hydrogen hotter than the rest of the reactor with tricks like fission fragment reactors, which are anything but mature. Then again, if the craft could also double as a pure fission fragment rocket as well, that would certainly be pretty keen...
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not âEureka!â(TM), but
That's all there is to it. The rector is very hot, you take hydrogen from your tank, run it through the reactor where it boils and heats up to however hot you can run your reactor (much hotter than hydrogen and oxygen burns), and let it flow through a nozzle. You'll need a pump to push the hydrogen into the reactor, but that will just be a turbopump running off some of the hot gas. You can then use the turbopump exhaust to keep the pressure up in your propellant tank.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
"The rector is very hot"
It's the way you dress.
You don't have to use xenon for your ion drive.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
If you are going with a high specific impulse and also greater-than-micro thrust propulsion system, you will need some kind of thermodynamic cycle to generate the required electric power, and that cycle will need to reject heat. Furthermore, the heat rejection for the cold side of that cycle into vacuum involves Stefan-Boltzmann T^4 limited radiators -- the "radiator" in your aging apartment building benefits from convection of air that is not on option in space.
Even a photovoltaic cell is subject to the Carnot limit on efficiency. The solar cell has the advantage that the hot side is surface-of-the-Sun hot in terms of the radiation spectrum of the impinging light whereas you have large surface area of the panels to radiate from the cold side. However clumsy and bulky solar panels are, you will need something almost as clumsy and bulky for radiators for a nuclear energy cycle to generate electricity venturing farther out from the Sun.
Is Discovery a nuclear-electric craft? In the 2001 A Space Odyssey genre of science fiction, you still get to wave your hands a lot even though it was meant to portray a plausible near-term future rather than warp drives and Star Trek transporters. Early concepts of Discovery had large space radiators making it dragonfly-like in appearance, but that wasn't "cool" so it ended up with this thin spine with the habitat at one end and presumably the nuclear power plant way at the other end. I never did figure out what those "pods" or "bunkers" were along the spine -- too small for cryogenic propellant storage, too small for proper Stefan-Boltzman fourth-power-of-surface-temperature radiators.
There are crazy concepts for more effective space radiators involving spraying water or pellets to get enormous surface area and then somehow recapturing the water or solid pellets so you don't end up losing them. Discovery didn't seem to depict that system.
And then there is nuclear thermal, but those are much lower specific impulse, not that much better than chemical rockets, especially when you consider the bulk of liquid hydrogen tanks and the weight of the nuclear reactor. Your "radiator" (Carnot-cycle cold side) is to blast H2 molecules out your rocket nozzles, a lot of H2 molecules. We have come full circle from the NERVA project of the 60's to VASIMIR or whatever kind of much higher impulse nuclear or solar-electric propulsion back to nuclear thermal, again?
While a thermal electric power cycle may not be attractive in a rocket, there is another nuclear option. Aneutronic fusion devices will allow direct electric conversion, with a relatively lightweight reactor; ideal for such applications. Fusing pB11 may be impossible for a Tokamak, but fortunately there are other promising avenues like the Polywell.
Not to dismiss fission reactors though, as for many activities in space, heat would not be considered waste.
because you know what you are talking about.
I'm wondering if part of the impulse for doing this is that it would be nearly inconceivable for Space X to get the permitting to do this, while NASA being the government can get the government's permission to do this. Is this a push back against commercial space exploration?
The Apollo program cost $110B in today's money. The next "big" thing is Mars. Now, NASA decided to "invest" $19M in the most important piece of tech for this program, the "next" rocket engine. Pocket money, by comparison. Depressing.
sarcasm.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Of coarse it will nothing will ever come of it because the green crusaders will shut this shit down and insist that the entire weight of world civilization be used to combat 'white privelege', 'global warming', and 'homophobia'.
Humanity will not be allowed to leave this planet. Our sorry lot is to wallow in self hatred until something destroys us.
It is not conceivable that the humans who have turned Christopher Columbus into a devil would possibly see the need to venture beyond their own backyard and possibly destroy some microbes on Mars. We must give up on any dreams of exploring the universe beyond this little ball we inhabit
Maybe a less civilized, less 'humane' but more virile race will rise from our ashes and claim the stars. The current one is too pathetic to do so. Rather than conquering the stars we conquer each other in the belief that the other is either racist, or a communist, or whatever.
Just curious what sort of pollution or fallout we can expect if the rocket carrying this into space (or the rocket itself, if it's going up itself) has a catastrophic incident? Is the nuclear fuel in one of these things going to make a big mess as it spreads through the atmosphere and falls into the ocean?
Politicians haev just always been too pussy about it. (Hey Trump! You arenâ(TM)t a pussy, are you? >:D)
Obviously youâ(TM)d use conventional rockets to get it into orbit. But then, 10% of light speed all the way baby!!
I get it that you are cynical about the crowd here, it's not an unreasonable position but being a dick about it still means you are a dick.
Gaseous core nuclear reactors are the future - RD-600M.
Solid core engines are too primitive. We are almost 60 years into a space age now
I stand to be corrected, but could a nuclear reactor provide huge amounts of electrical energy which combined with a massive ion drive create an interesting and efficient propulsion system? Very lay perspective here. Spitballing
could give you the same or better ISP and get you there faster.
What I'd really like is a "high" power ion rocket that could use rocks for exhaust. This, though, is a big problem because rocks aren't a simple element, but a complex mix that varies. (By "high power" I'm thinking of about 30 pounds thrust, but that's probably dreaming.)
You're looking for a mass driver. You sit your rock on top of a superconducting magnet and accelerate in a large EM cannon. When it's nearly at the end you let the rock fly on and decelerate the magnet for reuse. Exhaust velocity is as high as your power supply and the length of your cannon allows. Thrust depends on rate of fire.
huh,
That is clever adding the LOX to that, and then discard the tanks. Nice way to get up to speed quickly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Someone mod this guy "funny"!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Even if you don't discard the LOX tanks and do it as a SSTO, the mass fraction is still greatly improved versus a pure hydrogen NTR. And even in the portion of the flight where you're burning LOX with the hot H2, it's significantly higher performance than a regular hydrolox engine, because the hydrogen has already taken on a lot of energy; if I recall the numbers correctly, designs predict somewhere around 550 sec sea level.
Adding an afterburner doesn't increase the total system mass much, but greatly increases thrust for early in the flight when you really need it. And in many ways, you're facing a much easier task than a regular hydrolox engine. Your hydrogen is gaseous and has enough energy to vaporize the LOX, so you're dealing with gas phase combustion, as well as self ignition.
It's interesting thinking about how far you can take nuclear thermal designs. Picture, for example, the afterburner case, with a fission fragment reactor as the heater. You can transition all the way from super high thrust for liftoff and atmospheric flight, to moderate thrust / high ISP for attaining orbit and performing orbital maneuvers, all the way to ISPs in the hundreds of thousands via direct fission fragment propulsion (note: requires large radiators). A single system could provide you access to every flight mode needed for missions ranging from the surface Earth out to the Oort Cloud and even potentially beyond - as well as effectively unlimited onboard power. And you can refill it anywhere you can get water; given the very high temperatures capable in the core, the primary loop should readily function for thermolysis (it happens on its own at those temperatures), with hydrogen-selective membranes leading to the hydrogen tank and a chiller for liquefaction (needed regardless to deal with boiloff).
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not âEureka!â(TM), but
In his "What's New" column for the week of December 20, 1996, PhD. physicist Bob Parks writes, "But an NRC study released this week also looks at the long-term exposure to cosmic radiation. It estimates that during a round-trip to Mars, the nucleus of every cell in the body would be traversed by a primary high-Z, high-energy particle. Nobody is certain about what that would do, but it's not likely to be good for you."
If you reduce the round-trip time for a Mars journey by one-half, does that mean only half the cells in your body are traversed by a high-Z (i.e., high mass) particle? We are 21 years past Bob's article. Do we now know the results of the postulated cell damage?
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Just huck all the mass into the converter and fire away.
See subject: I wasn't speaking of the crowd here (many are good to me, others aren't - that's life). I was speaking of humanity. I'm pretty optimistic in our abilities and I say it from experience - I am older than many here and saw changes in my life that were the province of science fiction (e.g. StarTrek with communicators, tricorders, spacecraft, & phasers). We've got a LOT of that & IBM + others are working on teleportation even... I can only surmize that once a person (or group of people) get an idea in their head (from inspiration imo usually)? They can & WILL figure out HOW to get it done. I have great faith in people that way since I've seen it happen over 1/2 a century++ now, many times...
* By the way - calilng me a 'dick' on YOUR part, is only projecting what YOU YOURSELF feel you are you know.
APK
P.S.=> I am fairly certain of what I stated also - that we are being HELD BACK due to "powers that be" leeching on us all, keeping the 'status quo' the way THEY like & benefit by (@ our expense overall) & for CONTROL + POWER (& I understand that & don't blame them in a way, but in a "moreso way" I DO hold them guilty for it as well)... apk
Anyone else fee that this sounds too good to be true?
I can see the headlines now: "Serious Accident at Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp."
Developing a nuclear reactor suitable for space flight would be a game changer, assuming it could be scaled to megawatt levels.
1. Power a magnetic shield.
2. Powering Ion drives for longer journeys
3. Of course providing all the electrical power for communications and other ship functions regardless of the distance from the sun
You get megawatts of power available and suddenly, you are talking about building a ship, not a tin can.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What’s frustrating about this announcement is the inevitability of the start/stop/start/stop (nerva2timberwind) that space policy imposes on the idea of actually flying something. That being said, looks like no one has officially glanced at technology updates for a few years, so maybe they can improve (again) on past nonflying concepts.
See subject: "I've got one that can SEE..." glad to see it myself outta you & thanks (despite the rest of your comment). I am utterly convinced we have a LOT more than meets the eye but it's NOT given to us for the reasons I noted (maintaining the status quo, & mainly by "big oil" monies & their top investors).
* Heck - I don't think we are even @ the ultimate "height"/pinnacle of human knowledge (there is nothing new under the sun nor will there be) - & that we've had higher knowledge in the distant past also (but blew ourselves up, or rather, those in control started LOSING control & decided "F' it - if Nino Brown is going down, YOU'RE ALL GOING DOWN" & hid themselves (probably underground) & blew it up to wait it out & start again - here we are, SAME shit, different millenium...)
Hence tales like "Ragnarok" (which many religions or legends know of) & the great flood that geologic records even second...
(IF I am right? How sad, & stupid!)
APK
P.S.=> Glad to see others know I told the truth on Ben Rich (& probably more but on some of it I can only speculate, albeit based on documentaries & reading I've done over decades)... apk
We already developed this technology half a century ago. Los Alamos built and tested nuclear engines for rockets, but the project was cancelled in the 1970's. Hopefully, this new project resurrects that work and they improve upon it. Materials science has come a long way since then and I would think they could combine the two. Link to LANL story -
https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue1_2011/story4full.shtml
I think the craziest part of this is that there is a company called "Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp"
Will the rocket have a DVD player for the kids? Otherwise, it is 2-3 months of, "Are we there yet?"
Though I will say they've got their NERVA....
Should we assume that, at the very least, they're going to start with that, rather than from scratch?
Mars is not massive enough to hold an atmosphere we could breathe and live in without external support. You may as well colonize the moon. Also, it's closer, conveniently. Mars is an uninteresting and uninhabitable ball of rock.
THAT SAID, if you MUST go, why not just give every member of the crew a medically induced coma, a catheter, external electronic stimulation to keep muscles from atrophy, IV nutrition and hydration, etc.
The crew and colonists would launch to space, be hooked up to machines and knocked out, to be awakened just before arrival, (or if you're confident nothing would go wrong with all the vibration of a rocket-launch, they could sleep all the way from before launch to after landing). This is how launch-day could go.
7AM, wake up to last day on earth. Have coffee, clear out of hotel room.
8AM, remember NOT TO EAT breakfast.
9AM, report for lift-off.
10AM, LIFTOFF, orbit, verify all systems are go.
11AM, all passengers load into transit pods.
12PM, passengers are all rendered comatose.
1PM, crew oversees initiation of long, slow burn to change to Mars orbit and catch planet.
2PM, crew all load each other/selves into pods, and are rendered comatose.
--months later--
zero hour (h=0): first of crew reawakened by onboard computer.
h+1, first crew member checks over craft and crew, begins waking rest of crew; verification of location & velocity, plus trajectory. Supply craft sent to land on Mars. Reports sent to Earth.
h+2, crew now awake and undergo health checks; crew gets ready to wake passengers, perform health checks on them, etc.
h+3, passengers all awake, undergoing checks of status, health, etc. All supply craft are verified as having landed safely on Mars.
h+4, passengers board landing craft.
h+5, passenger landing craft, sent from interplanetary transit module, lands on Mars
From the point of view of the passenger, the duration between 12 PM on take-off day, and h+3 several months later, are seemingly only about an hour apart. For most of the crew, that day is only a few hours longer, despite it having a months-long "..." in the middle.
If you ARE going to be stupid enough to try to colonize a rock that will never be able to see your descendants walking around on the surface, without the aid of life-preserving space-suits, THIS is the way to do it. No advanced engine required.
To be clear, we have ALL the technology needed to put humans on Mars now, and it wouldn't be at all even difficult to do. There's just no reason to do so. Ever.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
The only way you get to where "Martian" humans can live, and walk about and do stuff on the surface of Mars without spacesuits, is to blanket the entire PLANET in an envelop of gas DENSE enough to maintain roughly one standard atmosphere's pressure under Mars' puny gravity. Such an atmosphere would squeeze any diatomic oxygen molecules UP away from the surface, to boil away into space, or maybe form a layer of the atmosphere which MIGHT be breathable, if not for the fact that it's dozens of miles away from the surface, or hundreds of miles perhaps... (as the oxygen would be less dense, the same reason you don't find much hydrogen gas, either as single atoms or diatomic gas molecules, nor helium gas, for that matter, floating freely near the ground on Earth, as THOSE gases are less dense than the prevailing oxygen and nitrogen, etc. which they're more buoyant than, and hence, not readily found at or near the surface, (the hard ground, or the wet, watery parts) of the planet).
You'd need to find a substance capable of carrying O2 in the air, or oxygen by itself, bonded to something else, that human lungs would be capable of stripping out. Like water, for example, except our ancestors lost the ability to extract oxygen from water eons ago. Also, liquid water wouldn't stay liquid there long, either freezing, or boiling away into space due to low pressure. So again, yeah.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
There are places on Earth, I suspect, or near it, where one can experience the same atmospheric pressure, lack of breathable oxygen, sub-sub-SUB-zero temperatures, as one would encounter on Mars' surface!
Just get into a REALLY BIG hot air balloon, and fly to the upper reaches of the atmosphere. DO NOT bring any protective equipment. As you get really high up, a tiny fraction of the way to that altitude, and become light-headed, pass out, and also freeze to death, (all the while accumulating chest-x-ray after chest-x-ray's worth of hard radiation from space, that would cause you massive cancerous tumors you won't live long enough to die from,) you can reflect on how much trying to live on Mars outside of a pressurized, protected, fully-self-contained, heated, etc.etc.etc. life-supporting enclosure, (much like a moon-base or space station would require,) would SUCK, and how only a moron would let romantic science fiction fantasies from decades, or centuries passed, when we didn't yet know how utterly inhospitable to humans, (or probably very nearly any multicellular life,) Mars actually is, convince him to try something so ruinous, wasteful, idiotic, and pointless.
That said, ENJOY Mars, folks!
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
We've already empirically proven we can get to Martian or in in 41 days. We did it with NEW HORIZON that went to Pluto. We unfortunately have to travel slower to get there because we can't aerobrake ( use Mars'atmosphere to slow down.) However, on the return trip to Earth we can prolly scream across the heavens and be back in Earth orbit in 39 days (Earth has a thick atmosphere to aerobrake on.) Until we thicken Mars' atmosphere, the long haul will be GOING TO Mars.....
See subject: Not even a 'nice try' trying to 'downmod hide' last time I posted this pikoro sockpuppeteer FAKE NAME for your FAKE LIE of a so-called LIFE, lol - caught you in the act - so here goes again, a repost to NULLIFY your puny effete 'weapon', lol:
There's a FINE LINE between genius & insanity!
Ben Rich really DID say that by the way (others even noted it besides myself stupid) & 1 thing I have NO DOUBT in is the creativity + DRIVE to see things thru that human being have (trolls like YOU though? DO NOT COUNT (@ all))...
* How can I say that about YOU in particular? Easy - BLOWING YOU IN PARTICULAR AWAY was just (& I haven't said this here in a LONG while) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" -> https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8116925&cid=50662001/
RoTfLmAo!
(GOOD memory that one, for me... Want more of the same where I knocked the sawdust outta that DIM brain of yours? Ask - I have a dozen++)
We've got that kind of tech that's being SUPPRESSED - a LOT of it!
APK
P.S.=> I don't think you FAKE NAME for FAKE LIFE fools get it - everytime you 'take a shot @ me'? I have SEVERAL on you that aren't just failed attempts (like yours now is) but illustrations of your OUTRIGHT FAILS vs. me many times, dumbo... apk
No. A mass driver is a catapult based engine. I'm looking for an ion rocket based on fumes boiled out of rock, probably by a laser. Fast ejection velocity, not large amounts of ejection. I'd agree that a mass driver would probably be easier to build, but it's not at all what I was looking for.
FWIW, I'm dreaming of far ahead, with space habitats being long term living facilities that move slowly between the stars scavenging from free planets and asteroids, and moving at just enough faster than the local drift to continually encounter new areas to mine for resources. So my dream engine is quite conservative with respect to it's need for mass, but also doesn't require exotic substances that are hard to find outside of a deep gravity well. Hydrogen (relatively) is abundant in the form of methane, ammonia, etc. Silicon dioxide is reasonably available in the form of rocks. Fuse hydrogen for energy, use the energy to split Silicon Dioxide into Silicon and Oxygen. Save the Oxygen for breathing, etc. eject the Silicon as high velocity (as high as you can reasonably get) ions. A closed ecology can only go so far. There will always be leaks and the need for new resources. But you don't want to expend more than you need to.
We aren't near that point yet, but that's the direction I'd like our tools to be developing.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Another of your SELF-defeats @ my hands "Pikoro the useless" where you say my ware sucks (others disagree) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8277631&cid=50873927/ & BLOW YOU AWAY...
APK
P.S.=> Need more? Keep it up... apk
Correct Pikoro: You always defeat YOURSELF for me - I don't have to do a thing but let you f yourself up for me, hahaha!
* Thanks though - for what? Making ME look great & yourself by way of comparison?? LMAO, well "not so good" (stooge), lol!
(After all, there is NO DENYING you blew yourself away for me shooting off your piehole here saying my ware was useless but many of our /. peers & pros BLEW YOU AWAY by MANY orders of magnitude https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8277631&cid=50873927/ - CLASSIC & PRICELESS! NO scrutiny there? Bullshit stupid - you dusted YOURSELF for me bigmouth, as always... lol!)
APK
P.S.=> Nothing like PUREST TRUTH backed up by concrete verifiable & UNDENIABLE examples I put out to prove it (Want more? I've got @ least 1/2 a dozen of where you screwup more vs. myself above the ones I put out already - just ask & "ye shall receive" to your PUBLIC dismay of course)... apk
I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine. Your software is well written, functional. The Host File Engine performs exactly as promised by mmell
his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant
his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg
(APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good by BronsCon
I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works by bmo
APK your posts on this & the hosts file posts, and more, have never been in error &/or bad advice by BlueStrat
Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising & malvertising is quite valid by JazzLad
I like your host file system by Karmashock
(NEED MORE? Ask!)
* Hosted by Malwarebytes' hpHosts!
(You did better Pikoro?)
APK
P.S.=> China imitated me http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/boffins_supercharge_the_hosts_file_to_save_users_plagued_by_dns_outages/ ... apk
APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience by chihowa
ABP is insufficient as a solid hosts file does everything that APK reminds us about by fast turtle
I support APK's stand on the hosts file by Trax3001BBS
APK, I know people give you a lot of shit regarding hosts, but please don't ever stop by nasredin
APK solution STILL relevant by Thud457
you're right about hosts files by drinkypoo
No complaints from me, I like APK... Reminds me to use a host file. Also, his stuff is free by aaaaaaargh!
APK's monolithic hosts file is looking pretty good by Culture20
* QUESTION: Again - Who does that for YOUR non-existent work Pikoro?
(Eatin yer words != good nutrition Pikoro!)
APK
P.S.=> The above + https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11346751&cid=55574119/ BLOWS YOU AWAY easily - there's no arguing w/ success I have (& YOU don't have any)... apk
"the Host File Engine performs exactly as promised" - by mmell (832646) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @07:17PM (#53882945)
"Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid" - by JazzLad on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @12:30PM (#51948233)
"You need APK's hosts file" - by Teun (17872) on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @08:59AM (#47613163)
"ABP is insufficient as a solid hosts file does everything that APK reminds us about" - by fast turtle (1118037) on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @11:56AM (#44873717)
APK
P.S.=> MANY more coming - see subject... apk
"I've never tried to belittle (APK's work), I've flat out said it's good" - by BronsCon (927697) on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:48PM (#51491263)
"his hosts program is actually pretty good" - by xenotransplant (4179011) on Monday August 10, 2015 @03:34PM (#50287195)
"I've never tried to belittle (APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good" - by BronsCon (927697) on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:48PM (#51491263)
"his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources" by alexgieg (948359) on Friday September 25, 2015 @09:57AM (#50596461)
APK
P.S.=> TONS more are coming... apk
"I like your host file system." - by Karmashock (2415832) on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @03:57PM (#50489401)
"APK, I know people give you a lot of shit regarding hosts, but please don't ever stop" - by nasredin (958927) on Friday June 12, 2015 @03:34PM (#49899741)
"APK solution STILL relevant" - by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Thursday June 11, 2015 @02:28PM (#49893197)
"APK is kinda right... I've given up on JS based adblocking and gone to blackholing in /etc/hosts, just like it was back in the 90s. The computational load has gotten intolerable for any ad-blocking using JS. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works." - by bmo (77928) on Thursday October 15, 2015 @11:30AM (#50736071)
APK
P.S.=> /.ers say that about your non-existent work Pikoro? apk
"Actually, APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience in this context. Of course, your phone has to be rooted, which isn't the case with Firefox + adblock." - by chihowa (366380) on Saturday May 16, 2015 @11:40AM (#49705641)
"In a footnote, I would like to note that I find your hosts file admirable." - by vel-ex-tech (4337079) on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @10:27PM (#50999097)
"I support APK's stand on the hosts file and can't see why it's not used more than it is. My hosts file is 144247 lines long (4,332 Kb) it & a firewall serves me very well" - by Trax3001BBS (2368736)
"you're right about hosts files" - by drinkypoo (153816) on Thursday May 26, @01:21PM (#36252958)
APK
P.S.=> If it was so easy to make - you've done better Pikoro? No... apk
"Actually, APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience in this context. Of course, your phone has to be rooted, which isn't the case with Firefox + adblock." - by chihowa (366380) on Saturday May 16, 2015 @11:40AM (#49705641)
"In a footnote, I would like to note that I find your hosts file admirable." - by vel-ex-tech (4337079) on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @10:27PM (#50999097)
"I support APK's stand on the hosts file and can't see why it's not used more than it is. My hosts file is 144247 lines long (4,332 Kb) it & a firewall serves me very well" - by Trax3001BBS (2368736)
"you're right about hosts files" - by drinkypoo (153816) on Thursday May 26, @01:21PM (#36252958)
APK
P.S.=> You asked for these quotes & when/where they occurred, you got 'em - how stupid do you feel NOW, Pikoro? apk
"I personally use a HOSTS file blocker produced from a genius called APK. Ever heard of him?" by 110010001000 (697113) on Friday October 27, 2017 @09:35PM (#55448365)
"APK your posts on this and the hosts file posts, and more, have never been in error and/or bad advice" by BlueStrat (756137) on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @08:52PM (#54665383)
"But I love APK!The power of the hostfile compels you!" by ratboy666 (104074) on Friday January 29, 2016 @04:13PM (#51398927)
"that APK guy, I use his host file" by rogoshen1 (2922505) on Tuesday March 03, 2015 @01:44AM (#49169453)
APK
P.S.=> How does EATING YOUR WORDS taste Pikoro? Like your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming 'em back down your throat & washed down w/ the BITTER TASTE of SELF-defeat? Yes, lol... apk
"APK's monolithic hosts file is looking pretty good at the moment." - by Culture20 (968837) on Thursday November 17, @10:08AM (#38085666)
"APK was right all along! C:\WINDOWS\HOSTS is the solution ;)" - by sabri (584428) on Friday October 21, 2016 @08:17PM (#53127073)
"No complaints from me, I like APK's spam. Reminds me to use a host file. Also, his stuff is free." - by aaaaaaargh! (1150173) on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @09:31AM (#50947415)
APK was right! Is it time for us to point Sourceforge to a non-address in our hosts files, and let Sourceforge know we have done same? - by wonkey_monkey
APK
P.S.=> Want more Pikoro (fully qualified out as you requested TO YOUR PUBLIC DISMAY no less, lol)? Just ask - I've got more like these 7 by the BOATLOAD so you can EAT YOUR WORDS some more, lol - obviously, you LIKE the taste! EATING YOUR WORDS != Good nutrition Pikoro... apk
See subject: You replying SHOWS you care & it's too bad you had to EAT YOUR WORDS vs. me yet again as per your usual!
APK
P.S.=> Pikoro, let me tell you something you ought to know - a good chunk of my replies? AUTOMATED (so troll away) - & yes, it's based on screenscraper tech that my hosts file engine has rudiments of the same tech in it, & when certain keywords popup, regions coding does the rest (vs. how posting here + elsewhere online works) - THEN, when the SIZE of a subsequent scrape changes after it? Then, MAYBE I'll actually reply (you figure that one out, ok? Good luck - I doubt you understand it) ... apk
See subject: It only took me seconds to post what you "requested" (fully qualified verification evidence of others liking & using IF NOT RECOMMENDING my work (not yours that doesn't exist)) _ MOST of what you're trolling is pure automation as I said per my other reply to you https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11346751&cid=55578249/ which looks for keywords to post preset responses to others' posts.
* You FAIL, Pikoro...
APK
P.S.=> You'll ALWAYS FAIL vs. me (& your trackrecord proves it, constantly - lol)... apk