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Couldn't help it. This subject is too fun. Especially when you get such a informed down to earth lecture on thrust, Isp and a few of the propulsion concepts out there as the one by RobertDyck!

Free Spirit, I've read that article before and it sure is an amazing concept. I suspect though it may not be all that developed above the level of theory. Most of these ideas aren't. The best bet to my knowledge - from a various set of standpoints - would be some sort of Nuclear Thermal Reactor Propulsion.

Wonder if a breakthrough on the containment system of VASIMR could have any effect on the development of Gas Core Nuclear Propulsion? The problem here, or so I'm told, is likewise managing the tremendous heat levels produced that needs to be contained somehow.
Unlike VASIMR of course, the Gas Core Nuclear Reactor has enough thrust to be ground launchable. A strategic advantage in my mind, because then it can be utilized to build a Single Stage to Orbit system that is also fully landable on Earth, the Moon, an asteroid or a space station and back.

Yes, and if we don't easily find similiar fossil evidence, then by the same token, ALH84001 goes down the drain.
Dare I hope that Beagle 2 on ESA:s Mars Express, will have strategic importance for the verification process?

It's been a while, sorry didn't see your reply.

- This was about the dumbest thing I ever heard of! And the American public buy this sort of trash? A tag on a wall... No, I don't remember.

Goebbles was for anyone's freedom of opinion so long as they agreed with his. ??? Kind of like political correctness in our democratic societies, I reckon.

- Know what you mean. If you follow up on every forum you attend you sometimes have no time left for anything else. Also, it can sap one's energy pretty effectively.
I'm glad you found the time to reply to my questions.

- Great and thank's for the link! I agree, that ship looks an awful lot like being bolted together with "rivets".
Maybe the crew is wearing silver suits too?

Jean Baudrillard once said that "sometime in the early 80's, history took a turn and headed off in the 'opposite direction'". If getting to the future means going to the past, I find it sometimes may never the less have a very positive meaning. 

Cheers!
Gennaro

Hm, no replies as of yet (and I who tried not to look too impatient!  ).
Okay, let me rephrase what I'm hinting at. I guess there ought to be a relationship between power of detonation, distance to pusherplate and mass of ship.
Concievably, if we designed suitable mini pulse units released at a high rate at take-off (as suggested) and maybe built a smaller Orion, could not a balanced thrust be attainable with a considerable reduction in blast to ship distance, that is less than several hundreds of meters between detonation and pusherplate?

My idea of a launch site would namely be a circular 'crater' or bowl with a corresponding depth, and we don't want to have to dig this too deep.
At the bottom pillars would be erected around the center of the detonation point, supporting a platform on top (at ground level) upon which the Orion is assembled. Multiple steel girders leading from the edge of the bowl to the platform would provide additional stability as well as serving as bridges to transport men and material to the construction platform.
Prior to take-off the launch platform would be stripped of everything not needed to support the Orion itself and as the first pulse units went off at the bottom of the bowl, the entire tower construction would cave in a controlled demolition fashion (the horizontal steel girders could prove helpful also in this regard, slowing down and controlling the collapse) leaving the Orion free room to ascend into space.

As stated, I'm no engineer but what do you think? Could the basic proposition be considered as sound?

Oh, and one more thing! Have any depictions survived on the early fifties Orions? I've never seen anything but the sixties "worst compromise" version available anywhere.
Would be great to see how they looked.
Thanks!

Fascinating. If I have understood this correctly, I can see that the issue involves major engineering challenges. Not only must the pillars of the tower be able to support 10,000 tons of weight, but the spaceship will obviously have to be constructed on top of it. Also, when the first pulses are launched, the pillars must be designed in such a way that the collapsing tower will not interfer with the take off.

Do you mean to imply that the hundreds of meters between detonation and pusherplate is something required also for the initial rapid succession mini bomblets, you mention?
If so I can't see how it could be done. Building spaceships on the roof of the Empire State building sounds preposterous.

I like it but in my opinion the idea has a serious flaw. What about countries that are not members of the nuclear weapons club? Will they not be allowed to participate?

As their self proclaimed spokesman, I demand that the nuclear nations share their arsenal of pulse units, otherwise you can bet on us non-nuclear states to construct our own propulsion nukes in order not to fall behind in the space race and then we can talk proliferation!

You just wait and see!
:;):

Soph, I didn't say it had to have a 160 man crew. I meant that there's enough bulk potential to trade in for any mission requirement you want. Just think about the potential of the Orion in terms of near Earth industrial expansion! You'll be able to put a toroidal space station up there in no time.
Man, is the ISS going to look ridiculous when blasted by by a 10,000 ton Orion!

Also, I wasn't really asking about the pusher plate in itself, but rather about the construction of the ejection system and eventual stress upon/through it. Are the bomblets really going to be dropped through an open hole in the blast and radiation protective plate? Still, thanks for the reply.

Neither did anyone care to answer just how the ground launch of an Orion would be carried out. If you simply put the Orion on a launch pad and ignite an a-bomb, I have a feeling you don't have an Orion anymore.

Maybe these are tremendously stupid questions, but lacking technical education I'm afraid I represent your regular ignorant public, so please bear with me, will you?

- Darn, I hate this! Why must Euro leadership always be so narrow minded? Will you in America be cool while we in Europe carry out some revolutionary political changes? We need a centralized, efficient structure and a government that actually wants to make things happen!

Regarding radiation hazards before a thick atmosphere on Mars could be arranged, maybe this quote from Robert Zubrin's article The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization could help:

Mars, on the other hand, has an atmosphere of sufficient density to protect crops grown on the surface against solar flares. On Mars, even during the base building phase, large inflatable greenhouses made of transparent plastic protected by thin hard-plastic ultra-violet and abrasion resistant geodesic domes could be readily deployed, rapidly creating large domains for crop growth.

http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/m_econom.doc

Remaining habitats, not inside big plastic domes, would be located underground in a subterrenean setting.

Cheers!

Because I live in Europe maybe I might be able to make a few comments.

Burning synagogues? The only people who do this are Moslems. They generally hate the Jews but can have problems formulating a rational critique of what they are against (like the after all, not so honestly established state of Israel).

When this type of mid-east "refugees" will become numerous enough, they will no doubt try to impose sharia laws on the remains of the indigenous christian culture, which is slowly adapting itself to being mugged, beaten up and group-raped by those people their leaders claim to help. (As you may have heard, the Europans don't make many children, but do all the work, the moslems are unemployed but produce a lot of children.)

There are also other mid-east refugees in Europe (real ones) who wouldn't be to happy about that, since after all, that's what they fled from in the first place.

It's not about the "r"-word, the "Hitler"-word or the "Auschwitz"-word, although those responsible for the current situation of uncontrolled influx like to throw that around. It's an effective way to shut people up.

Burnings of mosques? It ain't happening.

Le Pen is a French curiosity. He's not a very amiable person in some ways, but the reason he's got a relatively substantial share of the votes in France is due to the situation described above.

Lastly, you won't read about this in European papers cause they are controlled by the official commandment of "turning a blind eye".

Cheers!

Well, if planetfall was made in Oxys Planus, on the southern shores of Mare Acidalium, near the equator where it's warm, I'd simply call the settlement Oxis.

It would be your basic early Martian citystate, consisting mainly of agricultultural domes, interconnected by subterrenan passages and hallways, the little kingdom growing and extending organically in all directions.
Close ties would be held with Arcadia, in the west and merchant trades established with 'Alpha' (see: Red Colony) as well as far off Grovers Mill.

Moving northeast along the western shores of the Acidalian sea, you'll eventually reach Cydonia, land of the the great face. Here I might found a city called Sydon.

As terraformation set in, the melting ice would fill the adjoining lowlands and in the far future, both cities would be situated on the shores of the aforementioned Mare Acedalium, by now a real ocean, mighty crystal lit palaces, overlooking the waves.

Oxis and Sydon, does that sound exotically sci-fi enough for you?

:laugh:

Thanks Cindy!

Know what, I deem "freedom of speech and freedom of expression" an ancient, truly indoeuropean idea that re-emerged from oriental true faith suppression to its classical glory with the American constitution.
In Rome, any faith or philosophical theory was tolerated as long as the rule of the emperor was acknowledged through the custom of sacrifice.
Same thing really.

Clearing of the air is of course the prerequisite for any functional government as for personal dignity.

Making an example of the prevalence of the idea during the era of enlightenment, freedom of speech (less slander and promulgating of vice) was established at least by the Swedish act of freedom for the press in 1766.
Seems like in some ways, the American constitution wasn't first with everything.