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#1 Re: Large ships » Large Ship Atomic Propulsion » Today 05:53:42
I abandoned the fission propulsion concept because radiation shielding consumed too much mass, and the radiators were laughably huge.
We've been talking a lot about Boron-11 / Hydrogen fusion recently, so here's my (currently fantasy-based) 1-terawatt large ship fusion engine concept. A 500,000t colonization ship would have 60 engines for impulsive orbit-to-orbit burns. It needs to be constructed in high lunar orbit using lunar Titanium, so that's a whole topic unto itself. To avoid the nastier pitfalls associated with higher-strength Titanium alloys, this ship is fabricated entirely from pure low-strength Grade 1 Titanium with a TiAlN coating applied to passivate the surface against high-O2 environments (not LOX) and atomic Oxygen attack. The double-hull honeycomb structure is 50mm thick, and the 8,940 1.5m diameter LCO2 spheres (149 tanks per engine) are fabricated from 40mm thick Grade 1 Titanium to withstand pressurization at room temperature. The hull's honeycomb cells are filled with BNNT foam, providing adequate radiation protection from a Carrington-type event and GCR without resorting to heavier water-based shielding. Selected plate thicknesses represent a sweet spot for EBW that can run welds fast enough to avoid overheating alpha-phase Titanium and affecting its grain structure to the point where it's unsuitable for cryogenic service temperatures. If an engine's magnetic containment bottle ever "quenches" during engine operation, it's holding back an explosive force of ~1.36GJ, though partially cushioned by the CO2 flow surrounding the plasma chamber. The engine will be destroyed, and bits of it partially vaporized, but it shouldn't damage the hull or adjacent engines too badly. Asymmetric thrust and shock waves transmitted through the hull following an engine failure are unresolved problems. The shock is a pretty serious problem, and the asymmetric thrust is problematic for the counter-rotating habitation modules. The materials operate close enough to limits, but it doesn't require county-sized radiator arrays.
Engine Performance
Thrust: 26.04MN
Isp: 7,833s
Mass Flow Rate: 338.98kg/s
Propellant: CO2
Superconducting Electromagnet Design
Material: doped-Graphene/BNNT
Mass Estimate: 500kg
B-Field Strength: 25-Tesla
Engine / Plasma Chamber Shell
External Diameter: 2.76m
External Length: 2.56m
Total volume: 4.07m^3
Shell Thickness: 48cm
Shell Mass: 71.3t (fusion engine core primary structural shell only, not the electromagnets, neutral beam injectors, engine mounts, radiators, or propellants)
Plasma Core
Diameter: 0.8m
Length: 1.6m
Central Core Volume: 0.8m^3
CO2 Vortex Thermal Barrier Thickness: 0.5m (converts the absorbed Bremsstrahlung into a large amount of kinetic energy)
Total Internal Chamber Volume:
Inner Core Layer
Material: WC-TaC CERMET with HEA alloy binder
Thickness: 5cm
Mass: 7.3t
Purpose: resists X-rays and plasma sputtering
Tensile Layer
Material: Nanofibrous Fiber-Reinforced W-Re Alloy
Thickness: 28cm
Mass: 60.5t
Purpose: resists the 2,500ATM force of the electromagnets
Structural Layer
Material: Reinforced Carbon-Carbon composite
Thickness: 15cm
Mass: 3.5t
#2 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Alpha Centauri Slow Flight Chrysalis 2400 Colonists » Yesterday 22:21:40
tahanson43206,
Since you posted about this, I've been thinking about ways to actually do this using near-term tech. I'll create a thread about my near-term sci-fi fantasy starship design. It's largely a scale-up of my existing ideas, but uses advanced fusion-based propulsion or afterburning fission-fragment rocket engines. Designing and fabricating the rest of the ship, particularly the all-important life support systems, is entirely within our technological capabilities. The propulsion tech is the only current "sci-fi" part, and it's still more of an engineering exercise than a greenfield research dilemma.
#3 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Fluidics-Based Computing » Yesterday 22:01:45
To the best of my knowledge, the only major modern-day application of fluidics is "computer-on-a-chip" (a literal piece of plastic that a human or automated machine injects fluids to test for a very specific interaction) biomedical lab testing, where it is used extensively. I guess hydraulics and transmissions are also major applications, but nowhere near as sophisticated as biomedical fluidics. Regardless, think of this as SCADA using supercritical fluids instead of electronics. Most of the same basic concepts used in electronics still apply to fluidics, but you're using an actual fluid instead of a stream of electrons. If you're more worried about end-of-the-world reliability than data throughput rates for systems that don't require high data rates, then I think there's something here worth pursuing.
#4 Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Fluidics-Based Computing » Yesterday 21:30:06
- kbd512
- Replies: 2
I've asked myself what kind of computer can withstand intense radiation in the Van Allen Belts or in deep space for many years, and many tens of thousands of thermal cycles, long enough to travel to another star. The answer is that vanishingly few solutions exist if the timetable is measured in decades or centuries. However, one kind of compute core is remarkably durable over these time spans.
To be clear, fluidics are not like-for-like replacements for modern electronics in terms of achievable clock speeds or data throughput rates. Realistic clock speeds range from single-digit Hertz to 5 kiloHertz. They won't hold a candle to any smartphone in terms of computing power, even the original models from 20 years ago. However, most navigation, life support, and vehicle control functions require tiny amounts of processing power and bandwidth, which is why the Orion space capsule uses chips that were "state-of-the-art" about 20 years ago. It doesn't need or meaningfully benefit from more power.
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), an early mostly solid-state electronic device from the 1960s, featured clock speeds near 2 MegaHertz, which sounds blazing fast compared to 1-5kHz fluidics-based devices, except that the systems and peripherals it communicated with were all ponderously slower than it was, and largely still are. Moreover, its serial bus communication would not be any faster in practice than a modern parallelized-logic fluidics-based computer operating at 1-5kHz.
A fluidics computer could replicate the AGC's logic using a machined block of many layers of diffusion-bonded Silicon (high-purity Silicon, but nowhere near as pure as a microchip or photovoltaic cell, therefore less costly) about the size of a playing card deck. It would be powered by Supercritical Nitrogen at 350bar and a tiny pump delivering acoustic pressure waves. Logic gate feature sizes would be 50-100nm, though thankfully RAM and ROM "bits" can be much smaller than that. The device would be just as fast as the AGC in practice through parallelization, but would use only 1 to 2 Watts of pumping power compared to the AGC's 55 Watts, and it'd weigh 1lb or less compared to the AGC's 70lbs, but likely 15lbs for a complete AGC as we know it with robust protection, mounting hardware, and the user interfaces to enter and execute commands. It would still function at temperatures and radiation flux values that would completely destroy the AGC, not over a year, but over a century or several centuries.
Using Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) and 5kHz clock speeds for monitoring critical life support functions, such as detecting pressure hull breaches (compartment pressure drops or detection of an interruption to the flow of sN2 through fluid channels carved into the hull) for sending signals back to a central compute core aboard a large interstellar spaceship, uncompressed plain digital data could be sent from per-compartment compute nodes at a rate of 32,000 bits per second. Latency would be limited to sN2's speed of sound at 350bar, about 510m/s, but that is fast enough for the in-compartment compute node or for a response from centralized voting computers to seal off any affected compartment(s).
We've been discussing fusion reactors and fusion rocket engines lately, and one interesting conclusion I've come to is that fluidics-based devices operating at 5kHz, physically mounted to the walls of a Tokamak, may actually be several times faster than a network of fiber optics and a supercomputer located hundreds of meters away to avoid the intense radiation fields created by the superconducting electromagnets, for controlling plasma instability, simply due to network latency and all the overhead of modern digital electronic computers with operating systems. It may actually be fast enough to respond to micro-tears in the plasma because it's integrated into and powered by the walls of the tokamak. These devices would still need to communicate with each other using fiber optics vs pressure waves, but close proximity to the reactor, enabled by the ability to withstand temperatures and magnetic fields that would instantly destroy any electronics-based control system, makes a world of difference.
So... as unimpressive as their low clock speeds and data throughput rates are, not dying because a power cable was cut, network latency killed throughput, or a battery backup failed is a lot more impressive.
Repost of an old Scientific American article on the topic:
Scientific American, December 1964, pages 80-88
From the article:
How reliable are fluid amplifiers compared with their electronic counterparts? A number of comparative tests have been made under various conditions. In the range of what may be called ordinary temperatures -- between 150 degrees and minus 50 degrees centigrade -- electronic amplifiers give a more reliable performance. But at higher or lower temperatures the fluid device is more reliable; for example, at 250 degrees C. or minus 150 degrees C. Its reliability is five times greater than that of an electronic device. When they are compared in various environments of ionizing radiation, the story is much the same: the electronic systems are more reliable at ordinary radiation levels but the fluid systems surpass them under exposure to high radiation levels, such as in or near a nuclear reactor. The fluid systems also stand up much better under vibration -- an important factor in a rocket, where the guidance system is subjected to the severe vibration accompanying the rocket's takeoff and acceleration. Strong vibration tends to weaken the solder joints and other connections' of an electrical system; it has little or no effect on a fluid ampliHer. One test model has come through 3,500 million cycles of high-speed vibration at 260 cycles per second without any detectable impairment of its performance.
Fluidics and Electronic Circuit Logic Equivalents
FLUID CIRCUIT performs the operation of dividing by 10 in an all-fluid digital computer: for every 10 input pulses circuit delivers one output pulse. Input pulses enter from above the plane of circuit through circular, bumplike hole attached to straight channel running from top to bottom just to right of center. The 10 identical logic elements, or modules, are arranged in a series of five pairs, three at left and two at right. Each pair contains two steady input streams (small sausage shapes), two outputs (small circular shapes attached to short straight channels), eight control jets (small teardrop shapes) and eight open vents (large circular shapes). Shallow channels were chemically etched in Dycril plastic by a special process, called Optiform, developed by Bowles Engineering Corporation. For this photograph the channels were filled with white paint to increase the contrast. Normally the working fluid is air.
Another small tech write-up from "obsolete.studio" an organization specializing in the "intersection between art and science":
Form for Fluid Computer
Univac FLODAC explanation PDF:
FLODAC-A PURE FLUID DIGITAL COMPUTER
A very nice write-up showing more logic gates and how they're used:
Fluidic Computation Kit: Towards Electronic-free Shape-changing Interfaces
A collection of PDF presentations from 2007:
Coding and Computation in Microfluidics
If you've worked on cars with automatic transmissions, you may be familiar with the complex valve body that wholly or partially governs the transmission's operation. This is a very primitive fluidics-based computing application that uses hydraulic pressure from the transmission fluid to manipulate the path the fluid takes through the valve body. It looks a lot like a circuit board, except carved into metal, because that's exactly what it is.
#5 Re: Meta New Mars » Calliban Postings including links to notable contributions » Yesterday 13:35:14
Calliban,
I was curious about the Epstein Drive concept, so I looked into it on several sci-fi websites. It's an interesting idea. A terawatt-scale Boron-11 / Hydrogen fusion drive could dump nearly all of the Bremsstrahlung heating it generates into Depleted Uranium "dust". It's an open-cycle gas-core rocket engine using fusion instead of fission.
#6 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Limestone-based Thermal Battery » 2026-10-26 20:34:00
Calliban,
There's probably no practical way to use limestone for a shipboard thermal battery, but that doesn't mean cities couldn't benefit from huge limestone thermal batteries with limited temperature differentials and compact, low-cost Iron-based SCO2-powered turbomachinery using massive thermal reservoirs (the earth and sky) to create always-active thermal engines that pump or desalinate water. I'm still fascinated by the idea of using mostly natural materials to build staggering-scale energy machines that provide essential services to humanity.
#7 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » New Rocket Design » 2026-10-26 20:26:24
offtherock,
As I wrote my edit to that last post, I thought about why engineers don't do this. You might save $50 to $75 per pound over existing methods, but there's a practical operational reality no amount of engineering can realistically overcome. Any rocket that operates on the OTRAG principle, which includes your proposal, would result in a stream of supersonic projectiles raining down over existing flight corridors unless you launch from very remote locations. This is the real non-starter and operational reality that the FAA and similar launch-authorization bodies wouldn't readily accept, because wind shear could blow empty propellant tanks over a progressively larger landing ellipse as the vehicle sequentially punches off empty propellant tanks or rocket cartridges on its way to orbit. There's also a danger to surface vessels. The sheer number of tanks/cartridges needed to deliver a 5-10t payload would quickly lead to a "hit" on a wayward airliner or fishing boat, based on basic probability metrics.
It's still an interesting concept, but it was ultimately dropped for political vs technical reasons. During the Cold War, France and the Soviet Union didn't want West Germany to have orbital launch capability because it would give them a de facto ICBM capability. The Soviets were understandably concerned, since the nazis developed the V2 during WWII and West Germany had nuclear reactors that could be used to produce Plutonium. I think Kahl opened in 1960 or 1961. I don't think they ever bred any Pu239, but I don't know for sure. I know that they built a fast breeder reactor intended to use Pu239 as fuel in the 1980s, but their anti-nuclear wackaloons shut it down. They also had a Pu239 separation facility at Wackersdorf to feed seed fuel to the reactor, but again, their environment-hating nutwhacks killed it.
Anyway, OTRAG and fast breeders were both part of a history that never happened because people hate themselves and each other far more than they love actual growth and potentially better futures with orbital rockets and true energy security. Sometimes one can only marvel at the fear/hatred/stupidity of it all.
#8 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » New Rocket Design » 2026-10-26 19:33:03
offtherock,
The original OTRAG rocket "cartridge" weighed ~330lbs, so Mangalloy steel would knock that back to ~187lbs since the austenitic grades of Mangalloy (60-65ksi) have approximately 2X the yield strength of austenitic stainless (28-32ksi). Wet mass was 3,300lbs, so the upgraded cryogenic-capable Mangalloy results in a dry stage mass per cartridge of only 5.66%. That's pretty darn good by any metric. Yes, CFRP would be lighter still, but CFRP is also expensive, and the tape-winding machines cost millions, whereas a thin sheet of electric resistance welded (ERW) Mangalloy would be dramatically cheaper and faster to produce.
Premium domestic-melt Mangalloy runs about $1-1.25/lb, so $187,000 to $233,750 for the raw materials to fabricate the 1,000X propellant tanks for a 5,000-10,000kg payload, which would be simple rolls of Mangalloy sheet steel. Staging sequencing matters greatly to the vehicle's payload performance. Foreign steels are modestly cheaper, but this is an aerospace vehicle that requires certified materials for the DoD or NASA to consider purchasing launches.
The engines probably need to be fabricated from some kind of stainless steel, but perhaps a single steel with appropriate aerospace coatings would suffice. You won't get away with using Mangalloy near hot O2, but again, aerospace coatings are your friend. A sodium silicate-bonded alumina coating would insulate and protect the propellant tank shells from corrosion. You can apply this coating to the engines as well, which is why I said you MIGHT be able to source a single non-stainless steel to fabricate the entire vehicle, though small components like igniters, control electronics, and whatnot still require other materials. However, 316L powdered metal for the engines is almost certainly cheaper than printing with Mangalloy, because you'd run into various power-related issues during printing that 316L doesn't have. You could mix some Aluminum into the Mangalloy powder to make it easier to print, but you still couldn't print Mangalloy the way you can with 316L, so you'd still pay a premium for the engine. 316L lets you use the laser at full power and fully solidify each printed layer in a single pass.
Edit:
The OTRAG engine weighed 44lbs, so 330-44=286, and half of 286lbs is 143lbs, so 187lbs in total, and IF the rocket propellant tank structure and engine structure can be made almost exclusively from Mangalloy, then the $187K to $233.75K raw materials cost figure provided is accurate. However, powdered metal is more expensive than sheet steel, so expect actual raw materials costs for 1,000X of these rocket cartridges to be higher because at least 44lbs is powdered metal. As previously stated, 44lbs of the total materials weight per cartridge probably needs to be stainless steel. A 45lb pail of 316L from Metal Powders USA is $1,057.50. That means the 3D-printed 316L stainless engine adds $1,057,500 to the cost of 1,000X cartridges. If transport/fab machinery/energy/labor roughly doubles the raw-material cost, then $2.5M for a 10,000kg payload is a pretty safe bet. That means the vehicle, less propellant, launch infrastructure, and operating overhead, is $250/kg to orbit. All that "other provisioning" might add another $200/kg, because it involves a lot of overhead.
#9 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » New Rocket Design » 2026-10-26 18:37:38
By using CFRP to design reasonably small booster stages with minimal hoop stress and keeping diameters sane, you could use a tape-winding machine to rapidly fabricate a low-cost tankage solution. 3D printing lets you integrate many engine features into a single part, with fewer joints and moving parts.
I could envision a 310-315s sea level Isp with computer-optimized injector design with exceptionally precise mixture control, which is what allows Relativity Space to create that beautiful blue-orange flame instead of the smoky soot-filled exhaust of lesser LOX/RP1 engines. OTRAG used hypergolic ignition, but I don't think that actually reduces the cost of a modern rocket all that much.
Anyway, to contain costs OTRAG used a low-cost stainless steel. If we stick with steel over CFRP, then I would say the new weldable Mangalloys (Hadfield steels) are much lower-cost than stainless, considerably higher yield strength so they can be thinner, retain excellent ductility at cryogenic temperatures, and are weldable. The Koreans and Japanese use austenitic Mangalloy (very high-Manganese steel) for cargo ships carrying cryogenic liquid methane, but it's been tested with LOX and LH2 as well. Presumably, the steel could be recovered and remelted, but not reused.
You're obviously going to get a much better propellant mass fraction with CFRP than steel, but steel provides a compelling cost advantage for routine delivery of 1-10t payloads.
#10 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » New Rocket Design » 2026-10-26 18:10:55
offtherock,
This is what your described rocket design reminded me of:
OTRAG - Orbital Transport- und Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft
#11 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-26 16:43:30
Dr Muller,
Well, wait and see...
I've been told my entire life that America has already failed, or is about to. Somehow, we're still here. Eventually, somebody will finally be correct in that assertion, but I won't hold my breath, and I advise everyone else to take a deep breath.
Why would I want to do that? Hillary is old hat. I watched the debate between Trump and Harris, and noticed that what Harris said usually was true and made sense, while Trump just spouted nonsense and falsehoods.
Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris were the alternatives.
Kamala Harris Rips 18-24 Year Olds
"What else do we know about this population, 18 through 24. They are stupid. That is why we put them in dormitories and they have a resident assistant. They make really bad decisions. So, we focused on that age population." - Kamala Harris
"You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?" - Kamala Harris
"It is time for us to do what we have been doingand that time is every day." - Kamala Harris
"Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine so basically that's wrong." - Kamala Harris
It's pretty hard to make President Trump look like some kind of political genius, but Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris both did just that. That's why they lost. Your commentary here reveals why.
This was the Democrats' alternative:
"This generation isn't stupid. They know what we did to them. They're fighting to make our country live up to its highest ideals. We shouldn't be deriding them. We should be helping them, and we should be fortifying them, and we should be apologizing to them for the betrayal that we perpetrated on them." - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
I'm guessing you'll never figure it out.
And yet you are dismissive about the idea that one of these abundant wars might spiral out of control? How well are you doing in Iran at the moment?
As with love, everything is possible in war. Wars are seldom started for rational reasons. That doesn't mean they're going to result in WWIII. Since WWII, the US has gone to war with:
Korea
Dominican Republic
Vietnam
Grenada
Panama
Iraq
Somalia
Bosnia and Kosovo
Afghanistan
Libya
Syria
Iran
Technically, we have special forces in Ukraine as well. They never left. President Trump never had them leave. I really thought he would, but he didn't.
So... The possibility of WWIII...? Very real, but also very remote. I'm not telling you that you're wrong to worry, but freaking out over something that hasn't happened since 1945 is probably a waste of your time and energy.
It is a highly inefficient concept, so economists woulld indeed consider that crazy. Some countries can make things cheaper than others, e.g. because of proximity of natural resources. By trying to do things you are ill-equiped for yourself, you greatly drive up the cost of those. And you will make little use of your own opportunities when you hardly utilize those, because you produce only for the domestic market. It is just a recipe for keeping your citizens poorer than necessary.
Economists don't run businesses. Academics, such as yourself, have no earthly idea about what's required to run a successful business. That's why they're in academics. The fact that you don't think manufacturing is how less wealthy nations become more wealthy, and raise the standard of living for everyone, tells me what I need to know about your understanding. Simply put, I do not give a crap about making a wealthy person just a little bit wealthier by saving a few dollars and cents on the end product.
We don't have to fight over anything, because we make good stuff that trusted partners are eager to trade for what they are good at making. Nothing wrong with the stability of jobs here.
You've clearly never worked on a German car made in the last 10 years, but keep telling yourself that.
What you propose is known as 'strategic independence', and it is quite expensive. But in some situations it might be worth it. One should see it as an insurance; the premium is basically wasted money, except a disaster happens, which you hope it never will. E.g. you don't want all food production to move abroad, even if it is way cheaper to import than to produce. Because what if your source his crop fails? But it makes no sense to insure against imagined risks.
No, what's "wasted money" is pointlessly driving costs up while driving value proposition to the consumer down through the process known as "enshittification".
Your statement, "it makes no sense to insure against imagined risks" could be applied directly to the pointless spending on wind turbines and solar panels. France had "green energy" long before your "I am the green" followers became the next nazi death cult in Europe. The amount of money Germany squandered on solar panels by handing their money to the Chinese could've paid for a fleet of new reactors that would still be operating in another 50 years, unlike 100% of all existing wind turbines and solar panels, which won't be.
Well, just follow the money. The U.S. profits from Europe by buying more valuable stuff from them than they sell to it. The dollars we earn but cannot spend are then loaned back to the U.S., to finance their insane deficit and national debt. Which they will never be able to pay back, or only with highly inflated money. So basically we just gave away the stuff for free.
The manufactured goods we trade with each other are largely like-kind. At least for now, total dollar figures are roughly aligned. You're free to believe otherwise, as always, but the numbers don't support any other assertion. So, no, your assertion that you're giving stuff away for free is false.
It would sharply decrease, of course, because profits from trading are counted as part of that economy. That would probably mean everyone gets poorer. U.S. citizens the most of all, because these would suffer the loss many times over, once for each bilateral trade relation they have. All other countries would only lose their trade with the U.S., but would happily continue trading with each other. And probably intensify that, through redestining the production surplus they now have to the remaining trade partners. I am not even sure they would suffer at all.
The average US citizen doesn't buy many European goods. You're worried that the rich people would pay a little more for what they buy. I'm not. That means they're "naturally less wealthy" vs actually less wealthy, because who they do business with is a choice.
So to you it is just "might makes right", and you get upset when you are on the losing end of that, such as during the islamic revolution.
The Iranian people were on the losing end of the "islamic revolution". Ask the average Iranian woman if she'd rather live under a brutal dictatorship that will burn her, pour acid on her face, or murder her for refusing to walk in desert heat wearing a head-to-toe jet-black bed sheet, or here in America where all of that is optional. You can still "be goth" here in America, but nobody's forcing you to do it.
So you just shoot them because they annoy you, without due process?
No, we shoot them when they try to run over Federal Police with their cars, or point their guns at the Federal Police. Due process doesn't mean waiting until someone actually murders you for self-defense laws to apply.
Don't you think such checking would be pretty pointless? As long as you still have leaky borders, don't you think that terrorists and convicted felons would naively walk in to let that be checked, rather than cross the border by illegal means? This very quickly truns into the idiocy I had to engage in each time I visited the U.S.: all passengers had to fill out a visa-waiver form, where you ad to answer questions like "did you ever abduct any American children" and "did you serve as guard in a concentration camp during WWII"... Do they really expect anyone would tick the box 'yes' on such questions, even if they did exactly those things?
Checking IDs is not pointless. Most suspected and previously convicted felons with active arrest warrants are found by Police during routine traffic stops, not because the Police formed a dedicated task force to apprehend them. Criminals can try to run from the Police, and some do, but that's when the Police can stop them using force, because that's how our laws work.
The questionnaire you filled out during entry to the US was created so that if we later discover you falsely attested that you were not a convicted felon or terrorist, we can use your own official statements against you to secure a federal conviction. Your own government no doubt uses some variation of this enforcement mechanism, as nearly all governments do. Irrespective of who/what someone claims to be, we still check IDs and paperwork. You think it's all pointless because people can lie. We already know people lie, so we use their lies as a legal means to imprison them for making false official statements. Criminals tend to continually commit more crimes, as hard as that may be for you to believe, and making false official statements is likely routine for them. Their own antisocial behavior is what ultimately entraps them.
If you truly don't understand these basic legal and enforcement concepts, then consider this free education. If you do understand, then you're making a bad-faith argument against enforcing borders because there's no such thing as a 100% secure border. If a wall alone were sufficient, there'd be no need for border guards. If border guards alone were sufficient, there'd be no need for a wall. Using both drastically reduces successful illegal entries while dramatically increasing the cost and complexity of any attempt.
#12 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Forty 40 Ton Mars Delivery Mechanism » 2026-10-25 19:16:46
GW,
Here's some details on a "real hardware" storable propellant engine which slightly exceeds your Isp target.
The Sierra Space Corporation VRM5500-H is a 5,500-lbf vacuum-thrust, pump-fed (or pressure-fed) hypergolic rocket engine, and Agile Space Industries designed, manufactured, tested, and delivered its critical AX19 hydrazine-rich preburner.
Key Engine Specifications:
Thrust: 5,500 lbf vacuum thrust (throttling range from 5,500 lbf down to 900 lbf, a 6:1 ratio)
Propellants: Pure anhydrous hydrazine (N2H4) fuel and Nitrogen Tetroxide (MON-3 / MON 5) oxidizer
Performance: 340 s vacuum specific impulse, 1,000 psia chamber pressure
Cycle: Fuel-rich staged combustion cycle, regeneratively cooled
Physical Dimensions: 61 inches in length, 30 inches nozzle exit diameter, 240:1 nozzle area ratio, ~180 lbm target dry mass
Applications: Launch vehicles, orbit transfer, abort, deorbit, and lunar/space landers
#13 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Limestone-based Thermal Battery » 2026-10-25 17:35:13
Calliban,
The most practical option for cargo delivery without engines or batteries is wind power: sails made from modern fabrics and spars made from modern composites, arranged diagonally in a multi-spar, stem-to-stern sail configuration. It's realistic to sail gigantic, sail-powered cargo ships at 10-15 knots. The ships are obviously slower, but using very little fuel during the entire voyage.
#14 Re: Not So Free Chat » Politics » 2026-10-25 17:29:32
Yuri,
Actually, it's not worth discussing, because what you described never happened. It's not a good-faith argument. The Russians didn't bring down our Space Shuttle. We did. An unnecessary "engineering fix" to a problem that had never destroyed a vehicle before brought down Columbia. This "fix" addressed an aerodynamic heating problem which was apparently less severe than damaging the orbiter's heat shield during ascent. It consisted of a much larger piece of PU spray-on foam surrounding the LOX propellant feed line on the external tank. The enlarged but less aerodynamic foam block struck Columbia's wing leading edge during ascent to orbit. The foam was saturated with moisture from the surrounding atmosphere while the vehicle sat on the launch pad. Loading and feeding LOX into the orbiter subsequently "froze" this trapped moisture inside the enlarged foam block. The heavy, frozen PU foam block broke off the External Tank because of excessive atmospheric pressure during ascent. The separated foam block fractured the RCC leading edge thermal protection system of Columbia's wing. During reentry, superheated plasma entered Columbia's Aluminum-alloy wing box, causing a catastrophic structural failure, and the vehicle broke apart over Texas (and a couple other states, IIRC).
#15 Re: Meta New Mars » kbd512 Postings » 2026-10-25 17:26:40
tahanson43206,
I'm happy to see whatever GW has created.
#16 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-25 17:07:08
Dr Muller,
The problem is that it is not anything less than stupid to wreck your own country. That is not name calling, just an objective assessment. But if you say that it was actually their intent to do this, I stand corrected, and they were just evil...
We're not wrecking our own country. Your assertion that we are doesn't make it true. It makes it your opinion. People in America are still allowed to vote for policies that you, personally, disagree with.
Weird 'conclusion'. I never gave any characterization of other U.S. politicians, especially those not in power. I hardly know those.
Maybe you should spend at least as much time learning about Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris as you do fixating on President Trump, because those were the alternatives presented to American voters.
So what? Europe learned the lesson that it is more profitable to cooperate than to exploit each other unilaterally. It is now 80 years later, you might as well drag in the Romans or Alexander the Great. And you think the U.S. is a peaceful nation incapable of starting wars? Wake up!
Europeans cooperate to talk trash about the US, but not much else, certainly not on defense. The Romans and Alexander the Great predated the power structures established after WWII. I never claimed the US was a peaceful nation. We've been at war more often than not, but somehow we didn't start either of the two most destructive conflicts in human history. There's an object lesson in there for someone, and since you're from Europe, I think that someone is you.
I was referring more to threatening sovereignty, through military force if necessary.
So was I.
But since you mention tariffs... These are just taxes levied from your own population, and it is the prerogative of sovereign countries to make their own tax laws. (Even within the E.U.) The reciprocity you refer to is of course a joke; there was nothing reciprocal on the tariffs that were proposed on 'liberation day'. But if U.S. voters prefer to pay more tax and vote for that, this is their democratic right. In fact I would encourage the U.S. to adopt a budgetting policy that is self-sustaining, instead of freeloading on the rest of the world.
I would prefer to see American cars on American roads, British cars on British roads, and so on. That means every nation has its own automotive industry. I know that's a crazy concept, but there it is. If everyone has their own domestic manufacturing and supply, then they don't need to fight over what they already have, their middle class has stable jobs, and factories are where most manufacturing innovations occur.
Freeloading... That's an interesting choice of words. If all trade with the US ended tomorrow, what would happen to the global economy?
Who brainwashed you into believing that? Greenland is EU as well as NATO territory, and it is utterly unthinkable that we would even contemplate allowing a rival power in. It is in fact more likely that the U.S. would allow the Chinese a military base on Hawaii. And BTW, there is not much communism left in China, other than in name. Nowadays it is a fully capitalistic dictatorship, much like the U.S. is becoming.
If Greenland broke away from Denmark completely, they were planning to invite "infrastructure investments" from Chinese state-owned enterprises. CCCC was going to build or expand an airport on Greenland, they were going to open an Iron and rare-earth-metal mines. They needed money and jobs, which is understandable. I don't blame them for their needs, but if China is the nation meeting those needs, then it's a direct threat to the US, unless we're supposed to pretend that the communist Chinese and Americans are great old-time drinking buddies.
There's not much communism left in China, according to you, but you're asking me if I've been brainwashed?
Interesting that you left out the part where in 1953 the CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to replace it by a puppet regime, in order to facilitate their ransacking of Iran's oil reserves. And no, I don't think at all that might makes right, and what you describe appears to be an internal Iranian affair. So it is unclear how the U.S. government would have any right to seize those monies.
Yeah, America and Britain built oil infrastructure in Iran, their leader wanted to steal what he never built, so then we "stole it back". Funny how thievery works, isn't it? If someone can generate more force, then they can always take back what you took from them.
Great idea, if it is on the internet it must be true, right?
I'm at least curious enough to listen to people I mostly disagree with. You're clearly afraid to listen to American Democrats talk to each other about what they actually think and feel about their own party. If you're intellectually honest and the evidence doesn't align with your assertions, it means your understanding is wrong.
'Radical leftists' no doubt meaning concerned U.S. citizens filming what happens with their phones. The Minneapolis ICE killings were world news, so you won't fool anyone here.
Concerned citizens don't chase the Police 50 miles away from where they live. They're paid activists. Public records show payments between government accounts and these activists. This may not specifically be illegal because attribution is difficult to prove unless someone confesses, but impeding federal officers executing lawful arrest warrants is a federal felony:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/15-membe … ntifa-ties
Here's the indictment:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1446251/dl?inline
Ah, so your issue is actually not checking of IDs, but poor control of the land borders.
The real issue is not checking whether the person entering America is already a convicted felon or known terrorist from another country.
The point of course is that whatever the rules are, a man disguised as a woman can always enter these premises. And that especially men with ill intends would be inclined to do exactly that.
But I already agreed this is a bad idea; the entire idea of having to dress up as a woman and be exposed in their changing room makes me irky.
In that case, I think we can finally agree on something. I don't want men playing dress-up in a bathroom with my mother, wife, or daughter. We have laws here that prevent that sort of behavior. The Democrats attempted, and in a handful of cases succeeded, to repeal or change those laws in numerous jurisdictions, particularly in cities where Democrats have majority control over the legislature, executive, and judiciary.
#17 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-25 12:19:09
Dr Muller,
The only one that can be seen here to engage in excessive name calling and personal attack is you...
You submitted more than one post calling everyone who voted for President Trump "stupid". I can go back and point them out to you, but there's no point because you don't find any fault with your actions.
My original statement was that no one should (and will) ever trust a country of which the population at any time can appoint a known psychopat as their leader, and sheepishly watch how he is destroying the world economy as well as their own, his own military, prey on their former allies and friends, and quite likely initiate world war III.
In various interviews, President Trump has personally said he regrets some of his remarks, particularly those that may have caused someone personal pain. I've never heard Hillary Clinton say the same thing. Vice President Harris has repeatedly said she thinks she's never handled anything poorly and wouldn't have changed the administration's border policy or the policies enacted or enforced under the Biden administration. Psychopaths don't express regrets that way because they find no fault in their actions; no introspection or belief that their behavior was wrong.
You're either very selective in your definition of a "psychopath", or you don't have any consistently applied standard.
European and Asian nations started WWI and WWII- two global wars in one century. As an American, I find your insinuation that the US will start WWIII to be delightfully self-aware, but it's what I've come to expect.
Preying upon former allies and friends... Now there's a real zinger. Nearly every nation on the planet has levied tariffs against US imports for decades, which directly suppresses US economic growth, but when there's finally reciprocity, you think equality is "preying upon others". We'll have to disagree on that one.
If you are referring to the Greenland situation, they were cozying up to the communist Chinese because the Chinese wanted a military base of operations near America. China turned those African nations they offered predatory loans to into military protectorates. If giving a base of operations to a rival foreign power that claims the territory of its neighbors is being a "friend" or "ally" to the United States, then we will never agree on that one.
No doubt you are referring to the JCPOA, and that you consider it a bribe to give someone access to HIS OWN money that was frozen to coerce him into bending to your will when he finally does so says a lot.
The people who had lawful control of the seized Iranian assets after they took American hostages during the violent Islamist overthrow of the Iranian government were systematically jailed, tortured, and executed by the Ayatollah Khomenei. Your implied legal theory is that the Ayatollah Khomenei and his lackeys were the lawful custodians of monies the US seized after he jailed and murdered the former monetary asset owners. If we follow your logic to its ultimate conclusion, you're asserting a very straightforward "might makes right" legal argument. Since that is your implied argument, then the United States government had every right to seize the assets that would otherwise have gone into the coffers of Islamists whose first act upon seizing power was to kidnap American citizens.
The idea that U.S. politicians of whatever party would campaign on the merit that they hate their fellow Americans sounds rather absurd.
Go to YouTube. In the search bar, I want you to type, "Democrats hate working class people". Numerous videos show Democrats openly discussing this apparent problem with other Democrats. If Democrat voters seem to think this is true, and the campaign advisors to people like former President Obama state it plainly, then your argument is with them, not me telling you what they are publicly stating as a matter of public perception or actual policy. If you can't be bothered to listen to what people who didn't vote for President Trump have been saying, then I guess that one is on you. Gavin Newsom's wife gave an interview in which she said she wanted to take her children on a tour of the Southern US and gawk at these strange rural working-class creatures, treating them as if they were "zoo animals".
You should at least try to determine whether what you believe is factual matches expressed and perceived reality. That requires some level of introspection and effort. Since you're retired, you obviously have some time available to look into what I've stated.
ICE attempting to deport people like "Maryland Man" (an illegal alien cartel criminal and human trafficker who threatened and was violent toward his own wife) is the way in which media stories are distorted beyond any resemblance to reality. When radical leftists violently interfere with ICE operations, the government attempts to detain them or shoot them if they resist, which is how the Police handle anyone who actively interferes with lawful arrests of violent felony suspects, irrespective of legal status here in the US.
I have travelled to the U.S. many times under Democratic presidents, and I never noticed that they did not bother to check IDs. Quite on the contrary, I would say.
Did you ever attempt to sneak into the US in the dead of night, hundreds of miles away from any recognized port of entry, or did you fly here aboard an airliner and lawfully enter the US through one of our many recognized ports of entry?
Since we both know the answer to that question, maybe you can quit pretending that what illegal aliens do is anything like what you did.
The gender point you raise is really the only one that seems to make sense. But it doesn't really seem a life-threatening issue.
If you have a wife, mother, or daughter you actually care about (clearly not a given from your casual dismissal), maybe ask them if they want a man dressed as a woman, claiming to be a woman, using their bathrooms and changing rooms.
#18 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-24 16:21:16
Dr Muller,
Yes, Granny Mae "stormed" the Capitol building with her walker, and then took a selfie with the Capitol Police. I'm terrified of her. Ohh, scary! She's gonna "take over the government"... How? By baking her apple pie.
Meanwhile, during the "Summer of Love" riots in leftist communist utopia... I wonder why the law wasn't effective there? Oh... That's right, because leftists were in charge.
How about the "fiery, but mostly peaceful protests" that literally show an office building on fire behind CNN's painted clown?
If you actually lived in the US, far away from your fellow leftist activists and the illegal cartel members your ilk like to import to terrorize truly innocent people into giving the government more power, the only thing you'd ever have to worry about is what to eat for dinner.
A sane person doesn't believe a man can become a woman by declaration.
A sane person doesn't import cartel criminals and human traffickers because they can't be bothered to check IDs at the border.
A sane person doesn't give pallets of cash, billions of dollars, to a state sponsor of terrorism to attempt to bribe them to stop developing nuclear weapons.
A sane person doesn't tell their neighbors how much they hate them, and then expect them to vote for people who also say they hate their fellow Americans.
I chose the "evil" that doesn't pretend it's something else. I'm not swayed by theatrics.
Edit:
I truly do "get it". As a leftist, you think you can call me enough names or make enough absurdly false statements to change my beliefs, because that's how leftists fight with each other and bully their ilk into submission. That's where the left and the right differ. If I disagree with someone on the right, they eventually accept that we disagree and let it go. The left never has and never will. They're utterly convinced of their own righteousness, like any other religious cult.
Welcome to arguing with someone on the right. We don't care what leftists think of us and never will, because we're not so weak-minded that we require constant external validation from other people telling us what to think, what to say, and what to do. That's one of the best qualities of people who are actually on the right. It used to be a quality of people on the left, and was what I liked best before they traded independent thought for communist-approved thought. When you don't simply marinate in the pablum of marxists/communists, you're forced to think for yourself and formulate opinions that weren't handed to you by any talking head on a television program or your antisocial feed.
#19 Re: Not So Free Chat » Politics » 2026-10-24 15:50:11
This left vs right view is not really beneficial.
Ive heard Trump is trying to play himself as right wing now. In bed with Russia. So Russia is now on the right.
Its just nonsene.Trump has divided and weakened America more than any us president in the history of the united states.
If u cant see that, i guess i just cant help u.
offtherock,
When leftists don't have any intellectual arguments for why we should give them power again, they tell me this left vs right view is unhelpful. Whenever we give them power again, they fight amongst themselves, do nothing of utility for the average American except find more inventive ways to screw them over, and pursue their brain-dead antisocial experiments to monkey with what was previously a mostly-working society. More than 50% of young men and women won't have sex with each other any longer. Give the antisocial experiments a rest already. Find something constructive to do with your time.
Do you really not understand and accept that was exactly why President Trump was elected twice?
"Muh Russia" has died a natural death. Let it go already. This is the exact type of cockamamie nonsense that gets the left sidelined every single time during the very next election cycle. They tell a lie so outrageous that "it just has to be true", and then we find out they made up every bit of it because their elaborate game of pretend was more exciting than boring reality.
Yuri is on here claiming that a Russian spy satellite shot down the Columbia Space Shuttle when NASA has multiple videos of the launch showing a massive frozen chunk of insulation broke off the External Tank (deliberately put there to "solve" a problem that didn't need to be solved, thereby causing the very type of catastrophe it was supposed to prevent) and smashed the crap out of the tiles on its wing's leading edge. All these supposedly "smart people" should have known it was doomed from the moment it left the Earth's atmosphere, but because a bunch of know-it-alls played their elaborate "game of pretend" with basic flight physics (what actually happens when an ice block the size of a suitcase strikes a fragile heat shield tile at Mach 2.5), 7 irreplaceable astronauts died.
The American leftist media and counter-culture insanity has done more than any President in the history of the United States could ever fathom doing by intent or accident to hurt America. If you can't see that, it's because you're intellectually dishonest with yourself. Before President Trump, President Bush was the devil incarnate. Prior to that, the mainstream left simply didn't give any airtime to the left's lunatic fringes, because the mainstream left was afraid the American people, including many of their own supporters, would wholesale reject the edicts of their most radical activists. Now the average Democrat, the same people too afraid to publicly admit that men can never be women (because that's how biology works), are fixated on whatever the television tells them to fixate on. Turn it all off, formulate your own opinions based on your own thoughts, without any input from anyone else, and then maybe we can have an intellectually honest conversation that leads somewhere productive. As long as you're doom-scrolling the left's outrageous fear porn, there's nothing to talk about.
You literally can't stop talking about President Trump, because someone else told you to hate him. Someone quite literally used neurolinguistic programming to make you think one person is solely responsible for everything wrong with American society. You sound exactly like my father- this left vs right thing is not helpful, but also, blame everything on President Biden. He simply would not stop talking about President Biden, as if somehow a man who was never actually in charge of anything, except when the cameras were rolling (more elaborate pretending- the only thing Democrats do well), did anything more than sleep through his term in office and crap himself every so often in front of foreign dignitaries. I can't even really be mad at the guy because he doesn't know what planet he's on half the time. I'm mad at his wife and all the other diptwaddles who thought everything that went on during his term was a-okay f-i-n-e, but the man himself? Get real.
#20 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-24 14:21:50
Dr Muller,
Democrats are the ones who actively target their political enemies. If they can't use the electorate to get their way, they use the legal system. If they can't use the legal system, they immediately resort to violence. As far as the midterms are concerned, every incumbent party in living memory has lost seats during the midterms, so that is what I expect to happen during these midterms. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden certainly did.
According to you, people don't know their own interests and "voted wrong", because they're "stupid". Hmm... Let me think.
What common cause do I have with someone who uses the legal system and violence to get their way?
What common cause do I have with someone who refuses to enforce the borders and opens my country to hordes of illegal alien criminals?
What common cause do I have with someone who calls me every name imaginable and tells me how much they hate America and/or their fellow Americans?
What common cause do I have with someone who doesn't know that males can't become females, nor females become males, by mere verbal declaration?
But, yeah, you're right. If I wasn't "stupid", according to you, I would vote for people who advocate for political violence, send illegal alien invaders to rape and murder my fellow Americans, hate the very country that gave them everything they have (including the right to behave like an ungrateful spoiled brat while the best life has to offer is handed to them on a silver platter), and want men in my daughters' bathroom at school. Whether the Republicans win or lose elections at the midterms, I don't have any common cause with people who believe or want those things. None.
#21 Re: Not So Free Chat » Politics » 2026-10-24 11:41:50
offtherock,
I've never had any kind of antisocial media account, apart from reading all the antisocial opinions people post here. That said, all the people who claim to hate America and the West are universally leftists, typically closet communists/marxists. I honestly don't know much about what President Trump has said on Twitter or Facebook because I really don't care. I don't watch television because I don't have one anymore, and I haven't for many years. I only pay attention to what policies get drafted and where the money goes. That tells me pretty much everything I need to know.
Leftists/marxists/communists are the ones sowing division within the West. Our Democrats never miss an opportunity to tell the world how much they hate their fellow Americans, the general idea of America as originally envisioned, the entire history of Western civilization, and pretty much anyone who won't pretend that a dude with a beard and chest hair is a woman because he says he is.
The list of major leftist freak-outs (not an all-inclusive list), but the highlights within living memory:
1. Vietnam War (deeply unpopular with people who only wanted to smoke dope and spread STDs)
2. The weather is changing over time (it was a great scam while it lasted, but there's zero buy-in from the developing world)
3. We started really going after Islamists who wanted to destroy America (leftists hate the very idea of America, so they found a common cause)
4. There were still more people with less melanin in their skin than more, so only more of their racism nonsense, which they're still miffed about because my fellow Republicans took their slaves away (do your own work... still, to this day; and no, Mexicans will not be your new slaves or indentured servants)
5. President Trump was elected, therefore the world is ending (Russian Collusion hoax, "muh racism and ism ism", and other laughably stupid nonsense to refuse to acknowledge that the American people told the Democrats where to stuff it)
6. Drag queen story hour and everyone on the left pretending that boys can be girls and girls can be boys (hasn't really caught on, especially amongst the lesbians and gays- go figure)
7. The Russians are still being themselves, a tin-pot dictatorship knocking off neighboring dictatorships (to quote President Obama, "The 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back")
8. Jewish people are allowed to exist in Israel and to defend themselves against racially/religiously-motivated mass murder by mass murdering the people who came into their country to mass murder Jews (I get that people on the left truly hate each other and everyone else, but my grandfather already fought that war and we're not fighting it again)
9. Weekend at Bernie's couldn't be hidden from public view, which was a total disaster, so President Trump was elected again (after the multiple assassination attempts and kangaroo court drama over a bank loan that was paid back to a bank and whatever money his lawyer paid to a hooker to buy her off)
10. Antisocial media is, well, antisocial, and not always in the direction marxists/leftists think it should go in (against their "enemies")
The fact that you give a crap about Russian trolls tells me what I need to know. Muh Russia! I couldn't care less about the opinion of Russians in general or what Russia tries and repeatedly fails to do these days. They're a dying backwater power with a joke military that probably isn't very funny at this point to all the mothers of their dead soldiers.
If Russia didn't have nukes, the 1st Infantry Division and 1st Cavalry Division could roll through Moscow inside of a week, but for some stupid reason we're never allowed to use our entire military to literally bring a country to its knees in a week, the way we did to Iraq. Russian and Chinese air defenses in Iraq, Venezuela, and Iran stopped a whole lot of nothing from getting through. B-2 stealth bombers from the 1980s made it through 2020s military equipment undetected, much less intercepted.
American and foreign leftists/marxists have attempted to sell the idea to the American people that their military is a failure since at least the Vietnam War. We never lost a single battle during that entire war, nor any war since, but according to our own leftist/marxist media "we lost, cause reasons". We got bored and left. The casualty numbers reflect reality. By their own admission, we inflicted 10:1 or greater casualty ratios on the NVA throughout the entire war. If our troops win every single battle they ever fight, and the results of every fight are not even close in terms of casualties inflicted, how exactly have we ever lost anything? I guess if a leftists/marxists claim we lost, we're supposed to believe them? I know how to count and yes, after the counting is done I do believe my "lying eyes", because the numbers are cold and ugly reality, not the narrative.
I'm just bored with their elaborate "games of pretend". I'm not going to pretend anything to appease them.
#22 Re: Not So Free Chat » Politics » 2026-10-23 22:59:57
Dr Muller,
A people that is dumb enough to elect convicted criminals and pathological liars as their leaders should never be trusted.
A person who is dumb enough to think we elected a convicted criminal IS a pathological liar and should never be trusted.
There is no point in allying with a state that can betray you at any time.
Agreed!
Europe and Canada should strive for severing all ties with the U.S. at the earliest possible moment, kick out their troops, close their bases, and stop trading with them.
Stop threatening us with a good time.
Very soon they won't have anything to trade anyway, as they are rapidly ruining their economy and military, and will soon be bankrupt. (I.e. hyper-inflation of the dollar is forthcoming.)
I don't want to trade with ungrateful, self-absorbed clowns. You'll destroy yourselves long before the US or Russia ever could. Europeans did that twice in a single century. History doesn't repeat, but it sure does seem to rhyme.
#23 Re: Not So Free Chat » Politics » 2026-10-23 22:40:39
RobertDyck,
They also tried to develop a capsule. It was cancelled more for politics than anything technical.
Yes, there's a distinct pattern to European behavior. Any time their politics are involved, all useful progress stops. That's why they have no space capsule, no lunar landing, and no stealth fighter jets. Orion may be a functional failure for budgetary and timeline reasons, but it's carried the only people back to the moon in over 50 years. Everyone else is too terrified to even try, or their politics overrode all useful progress.
The problem with military budget is Donald Trump demanding every country allied with the US increase their military budget. This started in Trump's first term when he demanded NATO members pay their "fair share" into NATO.
False and False, like most of your false claims and assertions.
NATO members signed an agreement pledging to spend a certain percentage of their GDP on their military. They reneged on their agreements and made no attempt to renegotiate.
This did not start during President Trump's first term. Representatives from the administrations of President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama all publicly requested that European nations honor their defense spending agreements.
But that's not how NATO works. NATO is an alliance. Each country pays for its own military, that's all. But each member country is committed to defend each other.
Military alliances aren't worthwhile if their members don't demonstrate good faith commitment to the alliance.
Furthermore, the US wanted to be the only one with nuclear weapons.
The US had just finished WWII. Retaining sole custody of nuclear weapons on behalf of NATO nations was a prudent precaution at that time.
For NATO, the agreement even allowed a US general to be the Supreme Allied Commander who could give orders to the military of other nations in the alliance.
Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander during WWII.
The US would never accept orders from other members, only give them.
False again. American forces are placed under the jurisdiction of foreign NATO commanders on a routine basis, but you know nothing about how the military actually works and don't care to know because it doesn't align with your beliefs about America, the American military, or even how allied military organizations actually work as a general principle.
US bases in Germany were used primarily to base operations against Middle East countries, not defence of Europe.
Which NATO nation demanded that the US go to war in the Middle East?
Now Trump doesn't like it. He's transactional, he doesn't understand how an alliance works.
The civilian populace in America was never asked whether we agreed to send our soldiers to fight on behalf of foreign nations.
My point is in times of peace, the US can reduce its military budget unilaterally.
My point is that the American people and their government reject your point unilaterally.
Stop telling other countries they have to increase their military budget just so the US can reduce theirs.
Someone has to be a real adult, even while others are behaving like children. Enemies attack under two different circumstances. The first is when you're prepared for the attack. The second is when you're unprepared. Americans have learned the hard way to never be unprepared.
This isn't about supporting US defence contractors.
Support your own defense contractors by designing, developing, procuring, and using your own military hardware. Not so long ago, Canada had its own military rifles, armored vehicles, and fighter jets.
Other NATO members reduced their military budget to where it should be for times of peace.
According to someone who is now whining that the US hasn't done enough to support Ukraine.
So Trump was out of line to tell them to increase theirs.
If Trump is out of line for telling other nations to pay for their own defense, then you're out of line for telling Americans what we should spend on our defense.
Now that Russia is on the rampage, started war to recapture everything that was under Russian control at the height of the Cold War, other NATO members must increase their budget.
I hear a lot of talking. I don't see much else going on.
This wouldn't be necessary if the US had honoured its commitments under treaties.
NATO members pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defense decades before President Trump took office. You keep trying to avoid any personal responsibility, like a typical European. As an American, I'm not having any of it. When you're ready to admit that European nations first reneged on their signed mutual defense agreements that had nothing to do with President Trump, and did so for decades, then we can have an actual honest conversation about what America is obligated to do to defend European countries that signed agreements they did not honor. If the Europeans don't want American involvement, we would be overjoyed to leave the Europeans to their own devices. I would love to have all of our troops and equipment removed from Europe, never to return.
#24 Re: Meta New Mars » RobertDyck Postings » 2026-10-23 20:30:33
Dr Muller,
Putin also convicted his political opponents of various made-up crimes so that he could cling to power. Your only disagreement with his style of governance seems to be who he labels a criminal.
I've noticed that people who have an excessively high opinion of themselves also tend to have an excessively low opinion of others. People vote for their own interests, which don't necessarily align with yours. You are welcome to tell yourself whatever fiction best suits your proclivities, and they are free to continue voting for their interests. You may not like it, but that is why we have voting rights. The only problem with the US electorate is that they're not doing what you think they should, based upon your own beliefs and interests. Americans are allowed to disagree with your opinions and beliefs, and to express them by voting for candidates you don't like.
#25 Re: Large ships » Large Ship Atomic Propulsion » 2026-10-23 00:09:36
Some rough general figures for the power and propulsion section of this vehicle:
Diameter: 18.5m (excluding the 32X 110m wide 115m long Nitinol / CNT fabric leaf-like capillary-action radiator arrays)
Length: 422m
Stage Volume: 113,440m^3
Stage (Dry): 40,154.5t
Stage (Wet): 142,104.5t
Payload: 107,895.5t (will decrease substantially after I add the habitation module, crew consumables, and more radiation shielding for certain parts of the reactor without shielding mass estimates applied)
Apart from the 100,000t of H2O propellant, the 35,673.6t of reactor shielding (Boron Carbide and Iron) is the most significant systems-level mass. This is sufficient to literally walk up to the edge of the shielding, although the reactors are in an unpressurized compartment and the radioactive Xenon and Krypton vented from the core would be immediately lethal to anyone remotely near the main propulsion system. Additional shielding will be required for the molten Lead storage tanks and fission products storage tank. The molten Lead neutron reflector / coolant is progressively removed from the core to shut down the fission process.
If we take a full fuel load for a 1GWe PWR as being ~125t, then this 1TWth system only has about 10X more fuel distributed between 32 reactor cores, but all of it is Th232 and 7-9% enriched LEU because the core is a pure molten Thorium/Uranium eutectic (a liquid metal cooled / liquid metal core fast reactor). The Th-U eutectic volume is 3,613L at the reactor's 1,100C nominal operating temperature, or 3,245L when the core is cold.
The inner shell is 3cm thick W-Re alloy because a molten Th-U eutectic is incredibly corrosive at 1,100C and would rapidly destroy most metals, such as stainless steel and Inconel. Tungsten-Rhenium alloys are heavy but necessary. The channel wall outer shell is Mo-Re alloy because it contains another corrosive molten Lead at 1,100C, moving at considerable velocity. The outer shell is an integrated part of the primary SCO2 coolant loop.