You are not logged in.
For SpaceNut re possible topic for work on possible book based upon candidate project...
Our candidate has been working on a proposal for fusing Deuterium. It seems to me that this work might become the foundation or framework for an educational series we might create in the forum, to describe the elemental particles that are known to exist, and to describe their quantum interactions. With this concept in mind, I asked FluxBB to show us the topics we've created with the word "nuclear" in the title.
Nuclear power is safe by Calliban [ 1 2 3 … 26 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 628 2026-04-12 06:20:25 by Mars_B4_MoonNuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care by tahanson43206 [ 1 2 3 … 7 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 166 2026-02-21 18:00:48 by SpaceNutBurezestnik - Russia's nuclear powered cruise missile by Calliban
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 4 2025-10-30 13:18:10 by GW JohnsonHybrid nuclear fission fusion technologies by tahanson43206 [ 1 2 3 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 55 2025-03-28 09:05:21 by tahanson43206Nuclear Reactor Engineering by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 12 2025-03-04 22:00:14 by tahanson43206Nuclear Diamond Battery and radiation belts, Transmutation. by Void
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 9 2025-01-16 10:41:05 by CallibanTritium to Helium-3 Nuclear Battery by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 22 2024-05-28 11:27:13 by CallibanDiesel - from nuclear power - replace fossil sourced hydrocarbons by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 5 2024-03-26 10:53:44 by tahanson43206Nickel-63 to Copper-63 Nuclear Electrical Battery by SpaceNut [ 1 2 3 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 50 2024-02-19 18:13:27 by CallibanNuclear Strong Force - Energy Storage and Retrieval by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 6 2024-01-25 08:43:03 by CallibanNickel-63 to Copper-63 Nuclear Thermal Energy Supply by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 14 2024-01-13 21:37:31 by tahanson43206Nuclear Battery - Manufactured RTG - Recycled - Neutron recharge by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 13 2023-12-25 13:52:21 by tahanson43206Nuclear Battery - Not RTG - Not LENR - Direct Electric supply by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 23 2023-12-25 10:05:11 by tahanson43206Synthetic Fuel Produced using Nuclear Power by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 8 2023-12-18 11:54:55 by SpaceNutUltra Safe Nuclear Technologies Delivers Advanced Nuclear Thermal Prop by RobertDyck
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 10 2023-06-11 09:50:33 by tahanson43206Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy by tahanson43206 [ 1 2 3 4 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 95 2023-01-23 15:31:38 by tahanson43206Nuclear Fusion in Orbit or Deep Space High Vacuum by tahanson43206
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 4 2022-04-20 08:06:50 by Mars_B4_MoonNuclear airliners by RobertDyck [ 1 2 3 ]
Science, Technology, and Astronomy 50 2013-11-14 23:06:39 by JoshNH4HPages:1
The home emergency Power industry (Generac, Kohler, others?) offers a variety of power generation equipment.
I have owned a Honda 3600 watt portable unit, and a Kohler 14,000 watt fixed installation.
The next step up from 14 KW was (and I believe still is) 20 KW.
What I'm thinking about here is fusion power at the home service level. Our candidate's ideas would lend themselves to generating power at a small scale, unlike the scales needed for success in the Sun replication approaches of most investigations on Earth in 2026.
A possible topic might be Home Fusion Power Supply - 14 KW - 20 KW.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut re message from Mr. Burk about new member....
Per instructions from Mr. Burk, we will set up an account for the gent we've been talking to about fusion.
I've asked for his preferred login ID, and will set up the account as soon as we receive it.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
I saw the email
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut .... we appear to have a serious problem, or perhaps an opportunity, on our hands.
Will you be able to attend the next weekly Google Meeting?
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
D-D fusion concepts are not new but require a means to force the atoms together. Which I have not seen, the energy levels are not low, Some want to use a D - He3 to create a similar reaction...Something on the same lines of a cold fusion which use isotopic reactions to create power with a waste that is fused in the ECat topics.
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut ... this message from our candidate came in via email...
I am a designer, not an academic. The laser fusion approaches so far have
involved Massive (on an atomic scale) targets at very low rep rates. The
aim of the paper is to propose a method of producing very small ~30µg
crystals of frozen Deuterium traveling at supersonic speeds and at a rep
rate up to 2KHz, and to suggest that excitation at 112nm might induce
fusion by tunneling rather than ablation. I am not looking for funding. I
am looking for open minds. We have placed the whole concept in the public
domain. The proposed technique is practically a bench-top exercise rather
than a massive industrial enterprise.
We have received instructions from Mr. Burk to open an account for this person. A request for needed information (User ID) was sent to the candidate but so far we have received no reply.
What I would like to see is automatic membership in this forum for everyone who is a paid up member of Mars Society.
I think the days of discussion are over, but we don't know what would happen if all members of the Mars Society were given the opportunity to participate in this forum. What we do NOT want is open admission, because our experience with spammers taught us the lesson. We have 19000 spammer accounts as a result.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut ...
We have received communication suggesting that our forum (NewMars) is NOW recognized as the ** official ** forum of the Mars Society.
I'd like to see that status communicated to all Mars Society members.
We need a mechanism to import memberships from the Mars Society database into ours. That is a non-trivial task.
Alternatively, we might develop an Admin tool to perform an import for an individual who might request admission.
In any case, this is a ** very ** good time to think about the future of the forum.
It is ** only ** due to the initiative of a Mars Society member that we are recognized as the ** official ** forum of the Mars Society.
Let's make sure to take advantage of this totally unexpected development.
We need to be published on the main page of the Mars Society web page, and we need support from the chapter apparatus of the Mars Society to insure that every chapter has a Category in our structure, so that each Chapter can create the structure that meets it's needs.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
Mars society membership might be available through James but I am sure it privacy protected.
Most sciencetists do not use forums in any form as these are not protective of IP materials as they are open to the public. NDA come to mind for those that were here which got hired into work for Maven which has now gone dead. Even thou it is I am sure the many logs and measurements are still being pawed through for years.
single deuterium atom measures approximately 106 picometers. So A 30 microgram (µg) crystal of frozen deuterium forms a tiny, visible speck roughly 0.5 to 0.7 millimeters in size. Because solid deuterium gas has an incredibly low density of about 0.20 g/cm^3, this tiny mass occupies a relatively large physical volume compared to heavier solids.
Deuterium gas freezes at approximately -254.4^C 18.7 Kelvin. If the temperature rises even slightly above this threshold, the crystal will instantly melt into a liquid and then rapidly boil into a gas.
The trick is to get by the mechanical physics of vacuums injection, Operating a supersonic, 30 µg frozen deuterium pellet injector at a repetition rate up to 2 kHz (2,000 pellets per second) represents the cutting edge of high-repetition-rate laser-plasma physics and inertial fusion energy. Delivering a solid cryogenic crystal every 500 microseconds introduces extreme fluid dynamics, vacuum, and thermal challenges. At a velocity of 1,000 meters per second (Mach 3), the physical distance between consecutive pellets is exactly 50 centimeters. But the Standard mechanical piston punches cannot operate reliably at 2,000 Hz without destroying the fragile deuterium ice. which is similar to throwing ice cubes at each other...
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut ... thanks for beginning to think about Mars Society opening membership in this forum to all paid-up members of the Society.
I don't think our Admins have started to think about what this would mean for the culture that has evolved here over 20 years.
***
This post is about warfare.... I have a story to report on the use by Russians of lasers intended to blind Ukrainian drones with no effect.
I don't think we have a category suitable for discussion of warfare. Unfortunately, the human race is never going to be free of warfare, because new cases of evil are born with each successful gestation. The evil is randomly distributed, so there is no way to identify it until it expresses as full blown aggression.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articl … 00523.html
FastCompany
A Ukrainian drone attack reveals the limits of laser warfare
Jared Keller
Thu, June 4, 2026 at 8:00 AM EDT
8 min readA Ukrainian drone attack reveals the limits of laser warfare
This article is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a newsletter about military laser weapons and other futuristic defense technology.
The footage is 40 seconds long and, depending on your expectations, either mundane or extraordinary.
Shot from the deck of a vessel in the harbor of the Russian port city of Novorossiysk on the night of May 22-23 and published to social media by conflict tracker Exilenova Plus on May 28, a Ukrainian attack drone flies low across the fog-shrouded Black Sea toward a Russian warship. The footage shows Russian forces move to intercept the incoming threat: the harbor lights shimmer in the water as tracer fire arcs through the overcast sky. Suddenly, vivid blue beams of light slice across the frame and sweep toward the incoming drone. Bright enough to reflect off the water's surface, they look like something out of a science fiction movie. The drone hits its target anyway.
The details of the remarkable attack are unclear. Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) stated on May 23 that the strike, part of a broader assault on Novorossiysk that also targeted oil storage facilities, had damaged the Russian frigate Admiral Essen, but the military's General Staff claimed the next day that the drone had actually struck the patrol ship Pytlivyi. What's not in dispute is what the footage shows: Russian forces deployed low-power laser dazzlers against an incoming Ukrainian drone. And, more importantly, they didn't work.
Watch the full footage of the engagement from Exilenova Plus:
When the footage of the Novorossiysk assault went viral last week, an open-source intelligence analyst quickly identified the likely source of those vivid blue beams as a 445nm gallium nitride (GaN) laser, a commercially available, relatively inexpensive blue laser that was, in all likelihood, specifically chosen to exploit a vulnerability in drone cameras.
Here's the technical logic, as far as I understand it: a majority of first-person view (FPV) and maritime attack drones rely on silicon-based Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) or Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) imaging sensors for their cameras. Back-illuminated CCD sensors, which are widely used for their superior low-light performance (the kind of conditions you'd encounter in, say, a foggy harbor at night) are highly sensitive to light in the 400-500nm wavelength range due to their quantum efficiency. Point a blue laser at a drone's camera with enough power and you can wash out the image entirely with a flood of photons, leaving an operator flying blind.
The blue laser dazzler presents a cheap and appealing counter-drone option. The 445nm Nichia NUBM44 diode, one of the most powerful commercially available blue laser components, is widely available through commercial channels, and scaling a number of units up into a multi-emitter array could produce a capable dazzler for a fraction of the cost of a kinetic interceptor. Russian forces appear to have been employing these systems in Novorossiysk since at least November 2025, suggesting this tactic has months of operational history behind it. (To be clear: no open-source report has definitively confirmed that the beams in the Novorossiysk footage are specifically 445nm GaN lasers.)
The employment of dazzlers for port security fits neatly with Russia's ongoing push for counter-drone laser capabilities. The Russian military has been documented deploying its Chinese-made 30 kilowatt Silent Hunter laser weapon since at least May 2025, according to footage circulated on Russian Telegram channels. Russia's own domestically-developed LazerBuzz system has reportedly intercepted FPV drones at ranges exceeding a kilometer (although those claims originate with the manufacturer and haven't been independently verified). And as recently as early May, state-run TASS reported that Moscow had issued a formal decree listing counter-drone laser weapons among the systems on active duty protecting the country's airspace borders.
So what went wrong with the Novorossiysk laser defense? Based on the footage released by the USF showing the attack from the perspective of the drone—described as an FP-1/2, so likely produced by Ukrainian defense tech company Fire Point—indicates the system was likely relying on thermal imaging on its terminal approach. Indeed, the footage has the characteristic black-and-white rendering of an infrared seeker, with the target ship's superstructure and machinery glowing with heat against the cooler water and dock.
This is probably why the dazzlers failed: a blue laser (or any visible-spectrum laser, for that matter) cannot physically saturate a thermal imaging sensor. The two systems operate in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, with entirely different detector materials and physics.
The challenges for dazzlers in this scenario go beyond just sensor mismatch. Fire Point drones navigate primarily via inertial systems augmented by satellite guidance with anti-jamming features. Against a fixed, moored target like a warship in harbor, the most likely attack profile is autonomous—the drone flies to a GPS coordinate and hits whatever is there, no live camera feed required. This makes blinding an operator irrelevant.
There's also the matter of environmental conditions. Novorossiysk harbor at night, in overcast weather, is exactly the kind of atmosphere that degrades laser performance. Fog, sea spray, and maritime humidity scatter and attenuate laser beams so that even a well-aimed dazzler loses punch through moist air—a well-documented challenge that the U.S. Defense Department has spent considerable time and money trying to solve with its own shipboard laser efforts.
And finally, there's the geometry of the terminal attack run itself. An FPV drone closing on a target at speed offers a laser operator a rapidly shrinking window to acquire, track, and illuminate the system's camera. Even vehicle-mounted systems face significant physics challenges here, which is why so many defense contractors are actively pursuing AI-assisted targeting to ensure operators can make the most of every second during a fast-moving engagement.
Dazzlers are not a new concept. As previously noted, the idea of using intense light to disrupt airborne threats dates back to World War II, and naval forces have long used high-intensity searchlights to disorient adversaries at sea. During the 1982 Falklands War, the UK Royal Navy deployed a shipboard laser dazzler designed to defend surface warships against attack runs by Argentine aircraft, although that system was never actually fired in combat.
The Novorossiysk footage reinforces just how quickly and broadly laser dazzlers are proliferating across the world's militaries in response to the ever-expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones. The U.S. Navy has now fielded eight Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) systems across its Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer fleet to blind the sensors of hostile drones and surveillance platforms; indeed, an ODIN system was visible in photos of the destroyer USS Spruance launching Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran during Operation Epic Fury in February, although whether the warship actually fired its dazzler in anger is a question the Navy won't yet answer. In recent years, Chinese warships have used lasers to harass adversary military aircraft over the Red Sea and warships in the South China Sea, while a Russian spy ship directed lasers at UK Royal Air Force pilots off the coast of Scotland last November 2025. The UK Ministry of Defense is even reportedly exploring a domestic laser dazzler network to protect military installations from drone incursions.
It's also worth noting that a growing number of militaries today are also pursuing man-portable laser weapons, often described as "laser rifles," as an increasingly appealing countermeasure against asymmetric threats. In recent years, Navy sailors have used handheld dazzlers to ward off hostile Iranian watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz and watch over major naval assets like aircraft carriers and submarines during port calls or while traversing busy waterways. France, Russia, South Korea, Indonesia, and Belarus have all developed or fielded handheld laser dazzler systems in the past year, as has at least one American defense contractor. (Phasers, unfortunately, they are not.)
This is the current face of the Laser Wars: not the missile-killing death rays that Pentagon officials have promised for decades (not yet, at least), but brilliant dazzlers sweeping across the sky like the searchlights of old. But the Novorossiysk footage is also a reminder that dazzlers are not a perfect solution—and that, as drone developers increasingly design their systems to account for the specific threats they face on the battlefield, these countermeasures must continue to evolve as well.
Still, when coastal defenders faced with a cheap attack drone reach for a laser during a firefight—even if it's a low-power dazzler—then the nature of warfare has fundamentally shifted. They're not quite C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, but they're close enough.
This article is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a newsletter about military laser weapons and other futuristic defense technology.
This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com
Subscribe to get the Fast Company newsletter: http://fastcompany.com/newsletters
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
war is under the "Not So Free Chat" as that is as political as we get.
The technical use of laser for any not for military purpose can go under "Science, Technology, and Astronomy"
Offline
Like button can go here
For SpaceNut .... Do we have a category for bone loss and mitigation?
I think we could have an entire Category for Health ....
Here is a link to a report about stimulation to reduce bone loss... it turns out the technology started with NASA research
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/08/nx-s1-58 … wtab-en-us
If we had a category for Health and Wellness this Article would go into a topic called "Bone loss and mitigation"
***
Warfare is far too important to be stuck off in Chat.
Unfortunately, violence appears to be a part of the default human condition, and warfare is organized violence.
The only known defense against aggressive humans is superior defensive capability, and the courage to use it.
Chat is NOT the appropriate place for such a fundamental fact of human existence.
Martians are going to have to build a Solar System level defense capability from the earliest Sols of serious settlement. The first obvious danger is asteroid impact, but lurking in the shadows behind accidental asteroids is human directed violence against people on Mars for whatever reason.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here