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For OF1939
The video you showed us in the Solar Power topic, in Post #705, appears to me to be a blatant falsehood!
In looking at the terrain chosen for the panels, I see evidence that the planners looked for land where nothing had grown for millions of years, and where no self-respecting deer or any other intelligent creature would venture.
If the surface of Mars were covered with solar panels, absolutely no one would care, except for an artist who might long to see a vista of desert where nothing has grown for millions of years.
This issue seems to be important to you, so this forum provides an opportunity for you to develop your ideas further.
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I only posted the video because it showed an issue with solar panels that I strongly disapprove of. Especially when a viable alternative (nuclear power--Thorium based) already exists. In Europe, where the Greens forced the EU to adopt solar and wind power, these alternative energy sources have already been shown to be unreliable. In Germany (where I recently visited for 5 weeks) there are so-called Wind Farms which are idled due to lack of enough constant winds, and there are now coal mines reopening because of the war in Ukraine preventing import of natural gas.
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For Oldfart1939 re #52
Thanks for explaining your reason for posting the video....
Please forgive my pursuing this a bit further ... I genuinely have NO idea what anyone could find objectionable about a carefully placed and well maintained solar panel. The person who created the video may well have had a motivation that differs from yours.
As far as fission and thorium are concerned.... I don't think the issue is the materials themselves, so much as the obvious untrustworthiness of other human beings.
Human beings have been behaving badly since before recorded times, as indicated indirectly by evidence unearthed by archaeologists.
Human beings are behaving badly today, and we'll find out about some of the misbehavior in tomorrow's news.
If human beings could be trusted with fission, we might have more acceptance of a valuable power source.
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For Oldfart1939 re testing of new FluBB web site...
Please log into the new system at http://newmars.com/new/
Please post a message there to confirm you were able to log in, and to report your observations.
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For OldFart1939 re Encouraging post in Isaacman topic...
Thanks for reminding us of the idea of repairing and boosting Hubble!
While Mr. Isaacman is fixing things, I sure hope he decides not to take the risk of flying Artemis II with the defective heat shield currently installed.
GW Johnson can bring you up to date if you are not aware of the situation, as is (probably) true of most Americans.
If Mr. Isaacman is selected, I think his main challenge will be persuading Congress to redirect the flow of taxpayer dollars away from the current recipients who have such poor track records, and to organizations that can (and will) use those dollars much more effectively.
It should be possible for individual Americans to provide moral support by writing or emailing their Congressional delegation to support the nomination.
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For OlFart1939 re post in Orbital Mechanics topic....
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 43#p228443
First, thank you for your helpful contribution to the discussion of how best to move kbd512's 500 passenger dual-counter-rotating-habitat space transport from LEO to escape velocity. As you probably noted, GW Johnson can give kbd512's vessel a push from LEO that is just shy of escape. The reason for the "just shy" is that the tug needs to get back home, and GW has planned a trajectory that allows that.
kbd512's crew is then responsible for the last 600 to 800 meters per second to reach escape, and that acceleration must happen swiftly enough so that the vessel does not fall back into an extended loop around the Earth.
kbd512 is ** really ** REALLY ** opposed to use of chemical propulsion for main propulsion, so your suggestion of a nuclear thermal system may be attractive. The system needs to be sized for the task at hand, which is to push 1000 tons and achieve (about) 800 m/sec dV.
I sure hope kbd512 likes this suggestion, because if he ** does **, we'll be treated to a series of posts that will make quality reading.
As you have probably noted, this forum, though small in numbers, has three (## 3 ##) members working on various deep space space vessels.
For any reader who drops in on this topic without knowing the history, we have:
1) RobertDyck with two+ years invested in Large Ship (to carry 1000+) humans in incredible discomfort but correspondingly amazing cuisine.
2) GW Johnson, with a medium sized dual-counter-rotating habitat vessel with 4 RPM as the standard and 1 Earth Atmosphere.
3) kbd512 with a dual-counter-rotating habitat design able to carry 500 passengers is some comfort.
I suspect that all three of these designs would benefit from having a small nuclear thermal propulsion system in the mix.
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For kbd512 re #57
This topic is intended for correspondence with Oldfart1939, or noting significant posts, or for Oldfart1939 to publish something that does not fit elsewhere.
With your permission ? I will invite Oldfart1939 to comment on your post.
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For Oldfart1939 re post in Orbital mechanics topic
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 76#p228476
Thank you for reminding members of another of the many treasures we have in the many thousands of posts in the archive.
I have probably read more than anyone active today, because of the work I did for SpaceNut to fix hundreds of older posts. And I've read every non-political post since I joined in 2015, but all that I have read is probably only a third (at most) of what is there.
I tried to introduce a tagging system early on, but I was the only one using it, and I've run out of steam.
The forum software ** does ** provide a powerful search tool, since it collects words used in each post. The table where all those words are stored is huge by now, as I'm sure you can imagine.
If you would like to tackle the memory recall you've described, I'd be happy to see the topic brought back into view.
GW Johnson has been presenting in person and by video about his Space Tug concept for several years now. It is nice to see that work beginning to receive a small amount of recognition. If something was done previously, it is possible he was not aware of it.
Again, thanks for reminding the readers (and members) of that earlier work!
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Oldfart1939,
kbd512 is only ** really ** REALLY ** opposed to making per-passenger ticket prices out of the realm of people of normal means. If you have to fly a dozen or more times to send an ITV on its way, that tends to drastically limit who can and will spend the money to make the trip. I really don't care in the slightest what piece of tech or combination of things makes the flight affordable enough to become routine. I'm totally agnostic on what powers this ITV, so long as it delivers affordable ticket prices. Whether the tech involved is solar, nuclear, electric, chemical, the Mach Effect thruster if that pans out, a warp drive, or anything else is fine with me. If someone can prove though testing and full development of a flight-rated engine that their propulsion tech has "the right stuff", then we're golden.
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For Oldfart1939...
FYI... GW followed upon on your mention/inquiry/suggestion of nuclear fission power for space flight...
This post is for a new study by GW Johnson on NERVA style engines for Space Tug application:
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For Oldfart1939 re 17 person Exploration crew concept....
Thanks for reporting on the possible collaboration between NASA and SpaceX for a Mars expedition.
As you noted, you had started work on designing such an expedition, so this might be a good time to pick up that topic and carry it a bit further. I recall the theme of triplets of skill sets and the idea of cross training of individuals. That concept is familiar as a characteristic of elite military teams, such as the Navy Seals or Green Berets.
GW Johnson has proposed a rotating habitat deep space exploration vehicle that would provide one G at 4 RPM (as I recall). RobertDyck's design provides Mars G at 3 RPM. I'll bet the SpaceX/NASA version has no rotation at all, or something like the baton design GW has described.
In any case, it would be good to see you back at work on your 17 person expedition.
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For Oldfart1939 re link to Blue Origin test....
Thanks for showing us that 24 second run of the booster.
It seemed to me that the water deluge system was very well designed, because the burn seemed to produce only exhaust and water in one direction, as intended.
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For Oldfart1939 re 38 personnel in rotating habitat deep space exploration vessel....
38 is the number of personnel that came out of thin air as an optimum number to ride in one of GW Johnson's deep space exploration vessels.
GW has a ** lot ** of irons in the fire right now, and the deep space exploration vessel is nowhere near the top of his list. However, I brought it up this evening in the Google meeting, so now it has at least a small chance of renewed life here in the forum.
The consensus seemed to be that a multiple years long expedition away from Earth needs a crew complement greater than your Mars optimized number of 17.
My question for you is: If you had the opportunity to design a crew for a deep space exploration mission, and the count is 38, how would you assign responsibilities? As a reminder, the vessel includes two habitats for personnel that rotate at 4 RPM, so the diameter is fixed by the laws of physics. The width of the wheels is determined by the number of personnel and the amount of space allocated to them in the wheels. The ship itself will include significant volume NOT in the habitats, but my guess is personnel will want to spend as much time as possible in the habitats. On the ** other ** hand, the habitats needs to be kept as light as possible so they can be enlisted for navigation, as part of a set of gyroscopes for vessel orientation. In other words, the contents of the habitats needs to be kept to the minimum to sustain the crew in modest comfort, so as much as possible can be allocated to the microgravity environment. The ISS has shown that a lot can be accomplished in a microgravity environment.
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