New Mars Forums

After a quick scan it seems that electron-proton fusion occurs only at the heart of a Type II Supernova.  So you might want to look at alternative neutron sources.

In theory, but tormac fusion works in theory.

What will you do with all the energy it generates?  How will it be a rocket and not a bomb?

How heavy does the neutron source have to be?  Will it really be efficient enough to generate more energy than it uses?

When the neutrons hit stuff other than the Li, it will produce radioactive stuff.  How bad would this problem be?  Will you be able to have a crew?

It's cool that you're thinking beyond chemical energy 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 100724.htm

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The magnetism of these nanoparticles is a permanent one (like iron) which, even at ambient temperature, is quite significant. This amazing behaviour has been obtained not just with gold (a phenomenon which had already been put forward as experimentally possible) but, in this research, nanoparticles of silver and copper (the atoms of which are intrinsically non-magnetic) with a size of 2 nm (0.000002 mm) have also been shown to be magnetic at ambient temperature.
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This discovery goes beyond the mere fact of converting non-magnetic elements to magnetic ones. These properties appear in smaller-sized particles that have never been seen in classical magnetic elements. In fact, they can be considered as the smallest magnets ever obtained. Moreover, such properties do not occur only at low temperatures but they are conserved, apparently without any degradation, at temperatures well above the ambient ones.
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Thanks to Midoshi!  I'm sure he's already trying to convince a bunch of people to live in a high CO2 environment in order to get better data 

A very good question actually.  Current speculation is that the atmospheres of Venus, Earth and Mars started similarly (they were born from the same primordial gas cloud, after all), but that Earth's is so different after these billions of years because of Earth's magnetic field (Venus and Mars both lack a significant magnetic field).

Here you go dunwich ...

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=105214#105214

... it is just a little earlier in this thread.

The post is by Midoshi

http://newmars.com/forums/search.php?se … or=Midoshi

Welcome to newmars dunwich.

Thank you for the image.  It is fun to imagine.

Please forgive Terraformer's rudeness.  He is a child.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet

I don't think _must_ is right.  Say you create a wormhole with two mouths close together (i.e., ~ Planck wavelength) and then move them apart.  The acceleration induces a timeshift, but as long as you don't move them back together, you won't make a CTC.

This is simplistic of course, since timeshift is created, for example, just by being at different "heights" in a gravity field, and you can get a CTC if you have ongoing timeshift with no relative motion - but there seem to be situations where the motion of the mouths can compensate for the timeshift.  It may even be that chronology protection prevents other sorts of movement (who'da'guessed there was an ultimate speed?).

At least, that is my understanding from ease-dropping on physicists discussing this guy ...

Matt Visser, From wormhole to time machine: Comments on Hawking’s Chronology Protection Conjecture
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/9202/9202090v2.pdf

The paper referenced by the article says 7.7 billion until the peak of the red giant phase, 3 billion until the Sun swallows the Earth, and 1 billion until the Sun grows bright enough to boil Earth's oceans. 

After the red giant phase the Sun will cool to a white dwarf, which can probably be thought of as its death.

Hey that's really cool.  I hope you get funded and are able to generate lots of negative energy for us   8)

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Three high school students from Wisconsin discovered an asteroid while doing an astronomical observation project for a class in school. Connor Leipold, Tim Patika, and Kyle Simpson of The Prairie School near Racine were notified this week by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts that the object they discovered has been verified as an asteroid.

The students will have the opportunity to name the asteroid, temporarily designated as 2008 AZ28. They spotted the asteroid through telescopes located in New Mexico that operate remotely via the internet.
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http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/17 … -asteroid/

How cool is that.

Well the ITER project is going to spend $US 15 billion to try and make it happen, so it's probably not as easy as you think.

To create a magnetic field, you need a _changing_ electric field, for example, produced by a moving charge.  This is the idea behind the electromagnet ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnet

... the ability merely to store charge is provided by batteries or capacitors (which is more like your idea) ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor