Wonderful.:) Aerogel is pretty amazing. I've heard it called "solid smoke," heard some of the things it can do, never actually seen a piece of the stuff, and don't actually know all that much about it.
I don't know - is it absurd? Aerogel makes a fine catcher-of-small-debris, while lead stops radiation. Put one over the other, or mix them, I think it'd make a good armor.
Well, if a) You mine uranium from asteroids b) You put the reactors under the ice cap for cooling, or on the moon for safety, or under Mars' ice cap for both c) You bury the radioactive waste in a subduction fault then yes, nuclear power is clean. Till then, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good.
Plasma can be made by shooting electrons through a gas, or with intense radio waves, or with ionizing radiation. Some heat will be produced, but it doesn't have to be a lot, and it doesn't have to be used to create the plasma.
> Does anyone know what is more likely? A personal force-shield or a personal cloaking device?
As someone else mentioned, the article had a pretty high hype-to-content ratio. Cold plasma might make a great stealth device, by scattering radar beams. It won't cloak anything - in fact, it glows quite a bit.
> It seems having plasmas bend light around objects is easier than deflecting a moving mass.
Sadly, plasmas don't affect moving masses anymore than a gas would. It will slow and scatter particles with a high charge-to-mass ratio, like electrons, protons, and ions. That's what they're talking about shielding against.
I forgot to mention - a cold plasma won't stop neutrons. A neutron bomb's blast would rip through a plasma shield like it's toilet paper. A plasma shield only affects EM fields and waves and charged particles - preferably with a high charge-to-mass ratio, so micrometeorites with static cling don't count.:)
> One commonly-discussed method of generating electricity is to convert solar energy to microwaves in space, then "beam" it to Earth. This plasma would absorb the microwave energy; would it then be converted into electrical potential at the electrodes?
Use a magnetic field to contain a bubble of cold plasma. Put the bubble over a parabolic dish to focus the microwaves at one point. Plasma heats and expands, stretching the magnetic field, inducing current in the coil. When power loss due to heat leaking from the plasma into the outside air becomes a problem, let the coil run down into a capacitor, releasing the now-hot plasma into the air, and squirt some more cold plasma into the remaining magnetic field. Assuming, of coure, that cold plasma can be contained in a magnetic field. After all, they are talking about shielding satillites with it.
There's probably a dozen reasons it won't be feasible, but i'm sure it's possible. Please note that these microwaves are being generated from a solar panel array, so unless efficiency of the transmitter and reciever is over 30% or so - compensating for night, clouds, and dust - it'll just work better to build the solar panels on the ground. Otoh, if you can find a place where microwaves are free... but even then, regular dishes or wire antennas might work better at turning microwaves into electricity.
However, there are probably dozens of ways to use plasma to catch microwaves that would work better than my idea.
> Even better, would it do the same thing with radioactive decay?
It'd be like shooting a bullet into a tub of ping-pong balls. Particles of radiation are sparse, and high-energy. The plasma would absorb their engergy with trillions of tiny, conflicting electric fields. You'd need a dense, thick plasma, but I think it'd work.
> I think that some kind of "aerogel" would be better suited to protect satelites from dusts, even if it sounds less cool:-)
I love the aerogel idea - wasn't there a probe planned to fly through a comet's tail with a piece of aerogel and pick up particles? What suprises me more is that some aerogels can take vacuum - I didn't know that. Maybe mixing some lead into the gel would help stop radiation?
> Congratulations for not prostituting your ideals, but I hate to break it to you: the MPAA does not care about you one bit. Your boycott does not make a difference.
Speaking as Yet Another Dvd Boycotter, I haven't ever, don't, and won't buy DVDs. I know it doesn't hurt the MPAA. Do you think we're trying to change the world? It's not about bringing the MPAA to its knees. It's about having self-respect and not supporting something that we know is wrong.
I haven't bought a cd in almost a year and will not again, unless it's used. I have to admit I've gone to the movies a few times this year, having a girlfriend kind of makes it tough not to, but I have cut back a lot on movies, and will keep doing so.
I have entertainment. Between Alan Dean Foster, Larry Niven, Micheal Flynn, Jerry Pournelle, Orson Scott Card, and Napster, I stay pretty entertained.
> I'm Protestant and Christian... Hmmm. And I'm against net filtering except by personal choice.
Same here. Half of/. goes up in arms about discrimination against geeks, goths, nerds, etc... and then to hear so many railing against Christians. It's bizarre. Sure, I've known some militant, thought-police Christians, just as I've known some atheists who were just as intolerant.
Hacker - originally created as a term to describe people with an irrepressible curiosity about the world, who created new and cool things and ideas. Now a term to describe vandals, script kiddies, virus writers, webpage defacers, and the such.
Yeah, I'm sure fascism could get us into space faster - after all, Germany was stunningly productive during WW2, if that's any example. But I think fascism is wrong, so... whatever. Besides, I'm not sure how well fascism would work without a common enemy to hate and fear. Hitler had Jews, then the world. Senetor McCarthy and friends had Communists. It seems that fascism feeds on hatred. If we meet hostile aliens, humanity might turn fascist long enough to wipe out the aliens and spread across the solar system before the hatred ran out. Not that I'd actually want that to happen, of course, but that seems to be the future told in Orson Scott Card's Ender books, and some of Robert Heinlein's books, specifically Starship Troopers.
As for socialism, who knows? The impure versions we've seen so far, the USSR, China, FDR's policies, etc - they've seemed to fail pretty impressively, but who knows what pure, voluntary socialism could do? It's not clear cut at all, but I don't think it could ever work on a large scale. Just imho.
> We don't really need to change big business at all - it's pretty much okay.
There's only one thing I'd change about big business, really. I'd make the goverment stop giving favors to certain big businesses. Once that's fixed, once goverment-granted monopolies and the like are stopped, natural monopolies won't last long. Small businesses will keep running rings around big businesses because they are more adaptable, less beareucratic, and healthier.
Once the government stops supporting businesses, the economy will improve dramatically, I'm sure.
I thought your idea of a solution is exactly what we need:
"And second off, you need an upstart. Someone needs to found a cheap-space-launch business that works. It might not have the highest volume of Lockheed-Martin, or Boeing, but it would make government contracters ask LM and Boeing why their estimates aren't lower. And since LM and Boeing and others will simply buy out the first few upstarts, you need to keep founding them"
Thing is, if you're so against capitalism, why are you pushing a solution like this? I understand that you're against big business getting special favors from goverment - so am I. I understand you don't like politics, neither do I. I understand you want to see humanity in space, so do I. I understand you want to see upstarts, small businesses take over the space market, I totally agree.
Why are you badmouthing democracy and capitalism? As I see it, big business is gaining their undeserved power by benefiting off government grants, monopolies, and subsidies. We need to keep big business from buying monopolies from the government, and keep the goverment from granting big business special favors. As I see it, fascism and socialism is what is killing the space business, not capitalism.
Let all the little guys have at it. Small businesses can get us into space, and they are the only ones that can.
Please explain to me why you hate capitalism? I don't mean any insult, I would very much like to know.
Btw - I am not implying that nuclear weapons are weaker in space. I made the assumption that any observers were either behind a pusher plate on an Orion drive, or a long way away, watching. I know that a nuclear weapon blowing up beside Spacelab, or Mir, or Freedom, would tear it to pieces. I made the assumption that we were not talking about military use of a nuke.
"Feel free to correct me on this, but isn't there good reason to suggest that based on reactions that happen on Earth, the chain reaction in space could basically rip through all known near-vacuum, impacting every large-matter-body in space aswell?"
Actually, no it would not. In order to keep a fission chain reaction going, two things have to be happening: the neutron radiation has to be above a certain threshhold, and the matter that the neutrons are hitting have to be something around (at least) 10% U-235. Those large-matter-bodies in space are not made of uranium, much less weapons-grade uranium, and since they are so far away, the neutrons are sparse by the time they hit. Inverse-square-law and all that. Setting off a nuclear weapon in space would cause a bright flash of light, an EMP, and a brief, light shower of neutrons. Then there would be a rapidly thinning cloud of radioactive vapors. That's all.
I love that quote, personally, and Smith was delightfully eeeeeevil.:)
Thing is, though, he was wrong. Any form of life can be a plauge. Whether it's mice destroying corn and grain, rabbits sweeping through Austrailia, bands of locusts wiping out crops all through history, frogs in Egypt in the Bible, tribbles in Star Trek, etc...
However, there is something that can prevent a species from becoming a plauge. A natural predator. The prey gets healthier and smarter, because its weakest are being killed, and its population is cut down to a healthier level.
Not that the Earth is overpopulated - it isn't, yet. We already produce more food than we need, and can produce far more, if we needed to. Famine is a distribution/economic problem, not a problem of production. But that's another subject.
We've tamed the Earth, mostly, and it's made us complacent and arrogent. We need the healthy paranoia and humility that a more dangerous enviroment would provide.
Whoever you are, I agree with you. I also don't care about my karma, so I'll put my name on it.:)
Christianity has got to be one of the most misused religions out there. People say they're Christians, then kill abortion docters, or mock gay people, or launch several violent Crusades against muslims in the middle ages, or say cloning is "contrary to God's law," or sell indulgences (quite common in Martin Luther's day)...
(Romans 2:17-24) Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
Yeah, I can quote scripture, too - anyone can. I sin, too - everyone does. If people in places like Slashdot hate Christians, well, I can't blame them, really. Speaking for people who call ourselves Christians, we brought this on ourself.
Yes, freedom is very fragile and tends to fall. Those few free societies that have existed usually fell within a few centuries. Either from gradual erosion from within from power-greedy types, or from invasion. That is why our freedoms must be protected so carefully, because the ones we have left could vanish at any moment.
Governments and those in power cannot be trusted. That is why we must keep them in check, limited. Once they take too many freedoms, they become cancers that cannot be stopped with anything short of either mass exodus or war.
> where people voluntarily decide to give up their right to form a corporation in an effort to create a socialist economic system, what will that society do to a few who wish to stay where they are, but create a private corporation rather than yield that right to the greater society around them?
Then those few have not stayed in that society. They are outsiders who just happen to live there, and the rest of the society would not be obligated to keep sharing their resources with the ones who didn't share back.
Thanks - a fascinating reply, wish I could mod you up.
> Current estimates... indicate that this would only be a viable form of energy production for ~650 years... In comparison, nuclear fusion could provide our energy needs for the next several million years simply from deuterium extracted from sea water.
So it would only be feasible as a stopgap to supply us with energy until fusion goes mainstream. My only real point is that just because fusion's a lot better doesn't mean we shouldn't use fission, too, for now. I understand what you're saying, though - in the long run, fission's a joke compared to fusion.
> In comparison, there are several aneutronic fusion reactions ( H-2/He-3 ), ( H-2/H-1 ), ( Li6/H-1 ), etc etc that don't produce either neutrons *or* gamma rays.
I just wanted to mention that, even using H-2 and He-3, for example, you'll also get H-2/H-2 reactions, which emit neutrons. Unless you, say, fire the He-3 into the chamber in one direction, and the H-2 in the opposite, minimizing the dirty reactions. So far, though, AFAIK, no fission or fusion reaction is totally clean. Of course, compared to Plutonium or U-235, I'm sure the occasional H-2/H-2 reaction is trivial.:)
I also wanted to add Boron-11 + Hydrogen to your list. Decays into three alpha particles, iirc.
> In this regard, there are many people who are opposed to the large scale deployment of fision power simply because it means that research into fusion power will slow to a crawl.
I totally overlooked that. Maybe it would be better to stay away from fission, then. Or not, I don't know. Worrisome.
> In short, not everyone who is opposed to the production of electricity in fision reactors is a greenie.
One thing I've often wondered is why greenies are opposed to nuclear power. By their standards, it's almost perfect. They should be lobbying for strict safety laws for fission & fusion reactors, and laws concerning the disposal of radioactive waste, imho, not trying to stop it altogether, which they surely cannot do, anyway.
If I'm not mistaken, the old co2 scrubbers merely filtered out the co2 and stored it in the filter, letting the o2 through. The filters would get full from time to time, and they'd have to be replaced and discarded. Not elegant, but it worked. Throw in a spare o2 tank to keep the air pressure up, and everybody's happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Wonderful. :) Aerogel is pretty amazing. I've heard it called "solid smoke," heard some of the things it can do, never actually seen a piece of the stuff, and don't actually know all that much about it.
I don't know - is it absurd? Aerogel makes a fine catcher-of-small-debris, while lead stops radiation. Put one over the other, or mix them, I think it'd make a good armor.
> If Nuclear power plants are so eco-frendly why are us Brits having such a problem exporting the waist to Japan.
Why not bury it in a subduction fault?
> The first general purpose digital computer was ATLAS, built by the Brits at Bletchley Park to crack the German Enigma Code.
Built from relays by Alan Turing, wasn't it? Nicknamed The Bomb, because it ticked?
Well, if
a) You mine uranium from asteroids
b) You put the reactors under the ice cap for cooling, or on the moon for safety, or under Mars' ice cap for both
c) You bury the radioactive waste in a subduction fault
then yes, nuclear power is clean. Till then, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good.
Plasma can be made by shooting electrons through a gas, or with intense radio waves, or with ionizing radiation. Some heat will be produced, but it doesn't have to be a lot, and it doesn't have to be used to create the plasma.
> Does anyone know what is more likely? A personal force-shield or a personal cloaking device?
As someone else mentioned, the article had a pretty high hype-to-content ratio. Cold plasma might make a great stealth device, by scattering radar beams. It won't cloak anything - in fact, it glows quite a bit.
> It seems having plasmas bend light around objects is easier than deflecting a moving mass.
Sadly, plasmas don't affect moving masses anymore than a gas would. It will slow and scatter particles with a high charge-to-mass ratio, like electrons, protons, and ions. That's what they're talking about shielding against.
I knew I should have saved my moderator points... that should be at least a 4, Informative, imho.
I forgot to mention - a cold plasma won't stop neutrons. A neutron bomb's blast would rip through a plasma shield like it's toilet paper. A plasma shield only affects EM fields and waves and charged particles - preferably with a high charge-to-mass ratio, so micrometeorites with static cling don't count. :)
> One commonly-discussed method of generating electricity is to convert solar energy to microwaves in space, then "beam" it to Earth. This plasma would absorb the microwave energy; would it then be converted into electrical potential at the electrodes?
Use a magnetic field to contain a bubble of cold plasma. Put the bubble over a parabolic dish to focus the microwaves at one point. Plasma heats and expands, stretching the magnetic field, inducing current in the coil. When power loss due to heat leaking from the plasma into the outside air becomes a problem, let the coil run down into a capacitor, releasing the now-hot plasma into the air, and squirt some more cold plasma into the remaining magnetic field. Assuming, of coure, that cold plasma can be contained in a magnetic field. After all, they are talking about shielding satillites with it.
There's probably a dozen reasons it won't be feasible, but i'm sure it's possible. Please note that these microwaves are being generated from a solar panel array, so unless efficiency of the transmitter and reciever is over 30% or so - compensating for night, clouds, and dust - it'll just work better to build the solar panels on the ground. Otoh, if you can find a place where microwaves are free... but even then, regular dishes or wire antennas might work better at turning microwaves into electricity.
However, there are probably dozens of ways to use plasma to catch microwaves that would work better than my idea.
> Even better, would it do the same thing with radioactive decay?
It'd be like shooting a bullet into a tub of ping-pong balls. Particles of radiation are sparse, and high-energy. The plasma would absorb their engergy with trillions of tiny, conflicting electric fields. You'd need a dense, thick plasma, but I think it'd work.
Can aerogel stand up to vacuum? I kind of assumed it couldn't, but if it can, it'd make the perfect debris shield, imho.
> I think that some kind of "aerogel" would be better suited to protect satelites from dusts, even if it sounds less cool :-)
I love the aerogel idea - wasn't there a probe planned to fly through a comet's tail with a piece of aerogel and pick up particles? What suprises me more is that some aerogels can take vacuum - I didn't know that. Maybe mixing some lead into the gel would help stop radiation?
> Congratulations for not prostituting your ideals, but I hate to break it to you: the MPAA does not care about you one bit. Your boycott does not make a difference.
Speaking as Yet Another Dvd Boycotter, I haven't ever, don't, and won't buy DVDs. I know it doesn't hurt the MPAA. Do you think we're trying to change the world? It's not about bringing the MPAA to its knees. It's about having self-respect and not supporting something that we know is wrong.
I haven't bought a cd in almost a year and will not again, unless it's used. I have to admit I've gone to the movies a few times this year, having a girlfriend kind of makes it tough not to, but I have cut back a lot on movies, and will keep doing so.
I have entertainment. Between Alan Dean Foster, Larry Niven, Micheal Flynn, Jerry Pournelle, Orson Scott Card, and Napster, I stay pretty entertained.
> I'm Protestant and Christian... Hmmm. And I'm against net filtering except by personal choice.
/. goes up in arms about discrimination against geeks, goths, nerds, etc... and then to hear so many railing against Christians. It's bizarre. Sure, I've known some militant, thought-police Christians, just as I've known some atheists who were just as intolerant.
Same here. Half of
Hacker - originally created as a term to describe people with an irrepressible curiosity about the world, who created new and cool things and ideas. Now a term to describe vandals, script kiddies, virus writers, webpage defacers, and the such.
I can't be the only one to see the connection.
Oh. Thanks. :)
Yeah, I'm sure fascism could get us into space faster - after all, Germany was stunningly productive during WW2, if that's any example. But I think fascism is wrong, so... whatever. Besides, I'm not sure how well fascism would work without a common enemy to hate and fear. Hitler had Jews, then the world. Senetor McCarthy and friends had Communists. It seems that fascism feeds on hatred. If we meet hostile aliens, humanity might turn fascist long enough to wipe out the aliens and spread across the solar system before the hatred ran out. Not that I'd actually want that to happen, of course, but that seems to be the future told in Orson Scott Card's Ender books, and some of Robert Heinlein's books, specifically Starship Troopers.
As for socialism, who knows? The impure versions we've seen so far, the USSR, China, FDR's policies, etc - they've seemed to fail pretty impressively, but who knows what pure, voluntary socialism could do? It's not clear cut at all, but I don't think it could ever work on a large scale. Just imho.
> We don't really need to change big business at all - it's pretty much okay.
There's only one thing I'd change about big business, really. I'd make the goverment stop giving favors to certain big businesses. Once that's fixed, once goverment-granted monopolies and the like are stopped, natural monopolies won't last long. Small businesses will keep running rings around big businesses because they are more adaptable, less beareucratic, and healthier.
Once the government stops supporting businesses, the economy will improve dramatically, I'm sure.
I thought your idea of a solution is exactly what we need:
"And second off, you need an upstart. Someone needs to found a cheap-space-launch business that works. It might not have the highest volume of Lockheed-Martin, or Boeing, but it would make government contracters ask LM and Boeing why their estimates aren't lower. And since LM and Boeing and others will simply buy out the first few upstarts, you need to keep founding them"
Thing is, if you're so against capitalism, why are you pushing a solution like this? I understand that you're against big business getting special favors from goverment - so am I. I understand you don't like politics, neither do I. I understand you want to see humanity in space, so do I. I understand you want to see upstarts, small businesses take over the space market, I totally agree.
Why are you badmouthing democracy and capitalism? As I see it, big business is gaining their undeserved power by benefiting off government grants, monopolies, and subsidies. We need to keep big business from buying monopolies from the government, and keep the goverment from granting big business special favors. As I see it, fascism and socialism is what is killing the space business, not capitalism.
Let all the little guys have at it. Small businesses can get us into space, and they are the only ones that can.
Please explain to me why you hate capitalism? I don't mean any insult, I would very much like to know.
Btw - I am not implying that nuclear weapons are weaker in space. I made the assumption that any observers were either behind a pusher plate on an Orion drive, or a long way away, watching. I know that a nuclear weapon blowing up beside Spacelab, or Mir, or Freedom, would tear it to pieces. I made the assumption that we were not talking about military use of a nuke.
"Feel free to correct me on this, but isn't there good reason to suggest that based on reactions that happen on Earth, the chain reaction in space could basically rip through all known near-vacuum, impacting every large-matter-body in space aswell?"
Actually, no it would not. In order to keep a fission chain reaction going, two things have to be happening: the neutron radiation has to be above a certain threshhold, and the matter that the neutrons are hitting have to be something around (at least) 10% U-235. Those large-matter-bodies in space are not made of uranium, much less weapons-grade uranium, and since they are so far away, the neutrons are sparse by the time they hit. Inverse-square-law and all that. Setting off a nuclear weapon in space would cause a bright flash of light, an EMP, and a brief, light shower of neutrons. Then there would be a rapidly thinning cloud of radioactive vapors. That's all.
I love that quote, personally, and Smith was delightfully eeeeeevil. :)
Thing is, though, he was wrong. Any form of life can be a plauge. Whether it's mice destroying corn and grain, rabbits sweeping through Austrailia, bands of locusts wiping out crops all through history, frogs in Egypt in the Bible, tribbles in Star Trek, etc...
However, there is something that can prevent a species from becoming a plauge. A natural predator. The prey gets healthier and smarter, because its weakest are being killed, and its population is cut down to a healthier level.
Not that the Earth is overpopulated - it isn't, yet. We already produce more food than we need, and can produce far more, if we needed to. Famine is a distribution/economic problem, not a problem of production. But that's another subject.
We've tamed the Earth, mostly, and it's made us complacent and arrogent. We need the healthy paranoia and humility that a more dangerous enviroment would provide.
Why do you say the superuser concept is just plain foolish? I'm not disagreeing, just trying to understand.
Whoever you are, I agree with you. I also don't care about my karma, so I'll put my name on it. :)
Christianity has got to be one of the most misused religions out there. People say they're Christians, then kill abortion docters, or mock gay people, or launch several violent Crusades against muslims in the middle ages, or say cloning is "contrary to God's law," or sell indulgences (quite common in Martin Luther's day)...
(Romans 2:17-24) Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
Yeah, I can quote scripture, too - anyone can. I sin, too - everyone does. If people in places like Slashdot hate Christians, well, I can't blame them, really. Speaking for people who call ourselves Christians, we brought this on ourself.
Yes, freedom is very fragile and tends to fall. Those few free societies that have existed usually fell within a few centuries. Either from gradual erosion from within from power-greedy types, or from invasion. That is why our freedoms must be protected so carefully, because the ones we have left could vanish at any moment.
Governments and those in power cannot be trusted. That is why we must keep them in check, limited. Once they take too many freedoms, they become cancers that cannot be stopped with anything short of either mass exodus or war.
> where people voluntarily decide to give up their right to form a corporation in an effort to create a socialist economic system, what will that society do to a few who wish to stay where they are, but create a private corporation rather than yield that right to the greater society around them?
Then those few have not stayed in that society. They are outsiders who just happen to live there, and the rest of the society would not be obligated to keep sharing their resources with the ones who didn't share back.
Near as I can tell, anyway.
Thanks - a fascinating reply, wish I could mod you up.
... indicate that this would only be a viable form of energy production for ~650 years... In comparison, nuclear fusion could provide our energy needs for the next several million years simply from deuterium extracted from sea water.
:)
> Current estimates
So it would only be feasible as a stopgap to supply us with energy until fusion goes mainstream. My only real point is that just because fusion's a lot better doesn't mean we shouldn't use fission, too, for now. I understand what you're saying, though - in the long run, fission's a joke compared to fusion.
> In comparison, there are several aneutronic fusion reactions ( H-2/He-3 ), ( H-2/H-1 ), ( Li6/H-1 ), etc etc that don't produce either neutrons *or* gamma rays.
I just wanted to mention that, even using H-2 and He-3, for example, you'll also get H-2/H-2 reactions, which emit neutrons. Unless you, say, fire the He-3 into the chamber in one direction, and the H-2 in the opposite, minimizing the dirty reactions. So far, though, AFAIK, no fission or fusion reaction is totally clean. Of course, compared to Plutonium or U-235, I'm sure the occasional H-2/H-2 reaction is trivial.
I also wanted to add Boron-11 + Hydrogen to your list. Decays into three alpha particles, iirc.
> In this regard, there are many people who are opposed to the large scale deployment of fision power simply because it means that research into fusion power will slow to a crawl.
I totally overlooked that. Maybe it would be better to stay away from fission, then. Or not, I don't know. Worrisome.
> In short, not everyone who is opposed to the production of electricity in fision reactors is a greenie.
One thing I've often wondered is why greenies are opposed to nuclear power. By their standards, it's almost perfect. They should be lobbying for strict safety laws for fission & fusion reactors, and laws concerning the disposal of radioactive waste, imho, not trying to stop it altogether, which they surely cannot do, anyway.
I was referring to what's feasible in reality, not law. There will always be those who crave more power than they should have.
If I'm not mistaken, the old co2 scrubbers merely filtered out the co2 and stored it in the filter, letting the o2 through. The filters would get full from time to time, and they'd have to be replaced and discarded. Not elegant, but it worked. Throw in a spare o2 tank to keep the air pressure up, and everybody's happy.