3 ideas.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-16 13:22:01

Three Ideas I would like to ask about. They are on:
1-http://newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Therm … propulsion
2-http://newmars.com/wiki/index.php/NIXRS
3-http://newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Weitian_Calendar

What do you think?

BTW, I made my own template :mrgreen:
Am I allowed to do that?

noosfractal · 2007-12-16 16:34:06

1-http://newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Therm … propulsion
What do you think?

Using thermite as a fuel is problematic for a number of reasons. The first is that it has a low specific impulse (Isp) which is the general measure of a good fuel. The second is that it burns so hot that it will destroy the rocket engine unless you use CNT composites or something. The third is that the inputs are solids, so you are limited in design - you can't pump solid aluminum. The fourth is that one of the outputs (aluminum oxide) won't be a gas, so it will coat everything, even if you use CNT composites, further limiting your design choices (basically it would have to be a big dumb booster, further killing your Isp).

There was some talk about using a tri-fuel mixture of Aluminum, Oxygen and a little Hydrogen for lunar missions that was supposed to yield an Isp of 400 seconds, so you might want to look into that. In general you want to use atoms with the smallest possible nucleus - Hydrogen if possible.

BTW, I made my own template :mrgreen:
Am I allowed to do that?

It's annoying, but you can keep it for now since you're all enthusiastic

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-16 16:56:21

Thanks about the tamplate, it seemed like a good way to follow the (unofficial) "not another bland wikipedia ripoff" slogan.

On the topic of templates, I think there should definitely be a CERTIFIED BY AN EXPERT template. It would be put on pages by an expert in a subject, to say that everything on that page is correct.

And Maybe as an addition to the front page, maybe a picture w/the unofficial slogan on it (for decoration)

TTP doesn't have thermite as a fuel, it is used to heat the fuel (usually Hydrogen, I suppose) as opposed to a nuclear reactor. So I guess you could say that it's nuclear thermal, only without the nuclear.

noosfractal · 2007-12-16 19:04:24

TTP doesn't have thermite as a fuel, it is used to heat the fuel (usually Hydrogen, I suppose) as opposed to a nuclear reactor. So I guess you could say that it's nuclear thermal, only without the nuclear.

So then the problem is that you've added mass (e.g., hydrogen) and inefficiency (energy transfer to the fuel) without adding energy, so you've made your Isp even worse.

Nuclear is fundamentally different because the energy comes from a fundamentally different level - nuclear bonds vs. chemical bonds. The initial Isp with nuclear is so high, you can afford to carry extra mass and shrug over energy transfer inefficiencies. Not so when your energy is coming from mere chemical bonds.

If you are going to carry hydrogen, you might as well bake the oxygen out of the rust and just carry LOX to mix with it.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-16 19:24:22

Oh, OK so no go on TTP.

What about NIXRS (I even gave it a scientific acronym ) and the calendar?

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-29 19:42:42

About the Weitian calendar (see link at top) What was the martian perihelion directly before the viking probes landed? The viking probes were the first things to land on mars, right?

noosfractal · 2007-12-29 21:26:34

The viking probes were the first things to land on mars, right?

Actually, the first human-made object to reach Mars was a Russian probe ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2

... but it really should have slowed down a bit more before reaching the surface.

Viking 1 sent back the first images.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-30 09:16:34

ok, since the russian probe died, I'm sttill going w/ the viking landers. How could I calculate the perihelion before they landed?

noosfractal · 2007-12-30 15:58:20

How could I calculate the perihelion before they landed?

Well, just using Excel date arithmetic and subtracting 687 days from the last known perihelion date, you get ...

6/4/2007
7/17/2005
8/30/2003
10/12/2001
11/25/1999
1/7/1998
2/20/1996
4/4/1994
5/17/1992
6/30/1990
8/12/1988
9/25/1986
11/7/1984
12/21/1982
2/2/1981
3/18/1979
4/30/1977
6/13/1975

Since Viking 1 landed 7/20/1976, that was 403 (Earth) days after the last perihelion - so actually it was closer to aphelion.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-30 16:57:02

still, that makes the official starting date for mars 6/13/1975. (I'm assuming 12:00 midnight. it probably wasn't, but that's definitely close enough. Could someone help me write a program to show the MTime, like the things you can put on the bottom of webpages. (in flash, java, C, etc.)

JoshNH4H · 2008-03-13 14:51:10

Electron capture is one of the less energetic forms of Radioactive decay, generally releasing energy on the order of 1 MeV or less per reaction. But there is one very large difference between it and every other mode of true radioactive decay: it can be prohibited from occurring. This is proven. Unstable Be-7 is known to arrive at earth. And, about the 'low' energy released, it is actually magnitudes higher than is really possible with chemical fuels. I suggest creating Ca-39, stripping it of all of its electrons, and then, when the time comes, immersing it in hydrogen, methane, or ammonia, to A) take electrons from them to decay with or B) to heat up and send out the back. The Isp could be anywhere from 1 to 100,000 or more.(I'm not sure) (Ca-39 decays by Electron cappture with beta emission to Ar-39, a slightly radioactive isotope of Argon. It has a half life of milliseconds, can be produced in a nuclear reactor, and releases 6.5 MeV.) The beta decay part increaces the output a lot. What is the Max Isp? Just so you know, this is a form of not-radioactive NTR, and the ions would have to be stored.

louis · 2008-03-29 06:49:23

Some nice ideas with the calendar.

Thought the languages could more diverse. Yiddish seemed a bit over-represented! How about Japanese or Chinese.

I see Japanese for Red Earth is "Ni" so I propose that for one of the days.

Some suggested holidays:

Foundation Day - To celebrate the foundation of the first colony.

Unity Day - To celebrate the peace and unity of the Mars settlers.

Knowledge Day - To celebrate the sciences that got people to Mars.

Mars Future Day - To celebrate plans and ongoing work for the terraforming of Mars.

Antius · 2008-04-02 06:44:09

Some of the calendar ideas are interesting. I think it makes more sense to stick with SI units for seconds and simply redefine a Martian hour or Martian minute (or both). The day-length is what it is, so is fairly inflexible and it would be daft trying to engineer an odd-hour into the clock.

I don't like the idea of abolishing the Christian calendar and have never liked any of this 'CE - Common Era' nonsense. The whole thing has a Marxian, multicultural, anti-Christian, anti-western and anti-white smell to it.

idiom · 2008-04-19 04:00:04

I would zero the Martian calendar to match the Gregorian calendar.

However messing with clocks is easy. Daylight savings, February 29th, etc are commonly integrated into electronics.

More complex stuff is things like the NTSC video format. Where PAL countries play video at 25 frames per second, NTSC plays at 29.97 frames per second. The rule is drop one frame out of every thousand. Mostly because playing at 30 fps would be to easy.

Messing with how long a second is would be a mistake. Adding a 25th hour would be doable. Making every hour run for 65 minutes or so would work but could lead to a lot of mistakes and errors between equipment that hasn't been updated or correctly switched to Mars Time.

cIclops · 2008-04-19 06:26:31

Some nice ideas with the calendar.
Thought the languages could more diverse. Yiddish seemed a bit over-represented! How about Japanese or Chinese.
I see Japanese for Red Earth is "Ni" so I propose that for one of the days.
Some suggested holidays:
Foundation Day - To celebrate the foundation of the first colony.
Unity Day - To celebrate the peace and unity of the Mars settlers.
Knowledge Day - To celebrate the sciences that got people to Mars.
Mars Future Day - To celebrate plans and ongoing work for the terraforming of Mars.

Yes those are nice. How about Humanity Day - to celebrate the bond between the people of Mars and Earth?

Terraformer · 2008-04-19 10:17:29

How about a night (don't know what to call it) where everyone will look up at the stars, all the observatories will be open to the public, so people can see the majesty of Creation? To prevent all the Apathy towards the space program holding Terra back?

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#1 2007-12-16 13:22:01

Re: 3 ideas.

#2 2007-12-16 16:34:06

Re: 3 ideas.

#3 2007-12-16 16:56:21

Re: 3 ideas.

#4 2007-12-16 19:04:24

Re: 3 ideas.

#5 2007-12-16 19:24:22

Re: 3 ideas.

#6 2007-12-29 19:42:42

Re: 3 ideas.

#7 2007-12-29 21:26:34

Re: 3 ideas.

#8 2007-12-30 09:16:34

Re: 3 ideas.

#9 2007-12-30 15:58:20

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#10 2007-12-30 16:57:02

Re: 3 ideas.

#11 2008-03-13 14:51:10

Re: 3 ideas.

#12 2008-03-29 06:49:23

Re: 3 ideas.

#13 2008-04-02 06:44:09

Re: 3 ideas.

#14 2008-04-19 04:00:04

Re: 3 ideas.

#15 2008-04-19 06:26:31

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#16 2008-04-19 10:17:29

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