Propulsion Isn't Just Everything, It's The Only Thing

spacedaily ^ | 6 Nov 01 | Rick Fleeter

[lafroste]

Boy, posts like this can drive me nuts. Obviously the problem is propulsion. And nearly as obviously, the solution is right there, crying to be picked up. I have grappled with the phenomenon for ten years now. Geez, I wish I could afford a decently equipped laboratory.

(flame away - but...oh nevermind, you wouldn't believe me anyway)

[GeronL]

NASA should stick around until they are made irrevelent by the private/corporate spacers. NASA would then become a part of the US military in the role of defending North America from attacks from space.

So just killing NASA is probably not the way to go at this point. I want to see some private sector activities before that happens.

[GeronL]

Then start some sort of campaign to restart the program.

[RadioAstronomer]

Try to get anything "Nuclear" in this country going. One of the big problems is where the money is going to come from. Not trying to be a wet blanket, but many folks have tried to do this very thing over the past 20 years.

[GeronL]

we have launched satellites with 'nuclear' batteries before and they were in strong containers. They have no risk of an explosion, this would be a good power source for whatever propulsion source comes out next.

I have no doubt that improvements will continue as usual.

[RadioAstronomer]

Yup been around them. :) However a nuclear rocket is a completely different animal from a RTG. :) I hope you are right. However, it won't be in my lifetime. Sigh!!!!!

[boris]

No flames. Just a simple request for the physical basis--the theory--of your easy and obvious solution to a problem that has resisted generations of whiz-kids.

--Boris

[boris]

"Tender young shoots need environmental challenges, but their roots and surrounding soil must be relatively undisturbed. Perhaps even actively protected."

This is nonsense. I call it the "Twilight Zone" argument.

What you are positing is that some all-powerful Galactic Federation has placed us "off limits". Maybe even patrolling outside the orbit of Pluto to enforce the Prime Directive.

If one assumes that there are many intelligent space-faring civilizations, it is more-or-less certain that one or more of them would give the finger (or tentacle) to the would-be game wardens. If several did, eventually one would get through, land on the White House lawn, and ask to meet the interns (they get the political news a little late).

Even less probable is an all-powerful Galactic Empire which enforces such prohibitions.

--Boris

[boris]

" I thought that we tested the Nerva type rocket engines in the 60s and they were far superior to the chemical ones."

Depends. Nuclear thermal rockets are superior. 800 to 900 "seconds" of specific impulse. Superior "performance".

But look at the thrust-to-weight ratio:

Nerva/Kiwi/Phoebus never got much above 7.5 thrust-to-weight. The SSME is ~70 in thrust-to-weight. Some of the expendible engines designed in the 1960s were close to 100 thrust-to-weight.

Even the "Timberwind" nuclear engine was only about 10:1 thrust-to-weight.

That's why nuclear thermal rockets are not good for boosters; they are simply too heavy--not to mention the danger of launching an operating reactor from the ground. The abort scenarios alone are horrifying.

But for in-space applications, where raw Isp matters more and thrust-to-weight matters less, they would be great. You can launch the reactor "cold" and with the reflectors retracted. In such a condition you could go up and hug it without fear of radiation. Once you turn it on, it is "hot" and therefore dangerous. Indeed, disposal of the engine once you reach your destination or return home is a big issue. The "obvious" solution--dropping it into the Sun-- is too costly in terms of Delta-Vee, reaction mass, and $$$.

Plus, the eco freaks would riot, protesting our wanton pollution of the Sun.

--Bors

[Diamond]

1. Why did You put everything so bleeping far apart?
2. Why did You make us so short lived?

Dear boris,

Thank you for contacting My customer service department. The answers to your questions are:

1. Because I'm bigger than you, and because I could, but don't forget about sub-atomic particles and stuff like that.
2. The prototype was designed to live forever but you can see what kind of problems that would cause now. Just imagine what it would be like with people like Bill and Hitlery Clinton living forever, or at least for very long periods of time. They would just be roaming around the earth like vampires or something and you just couldn't get rid of them.

Hope that helps.

Sincerely,

God

[RightWhale]

The first question is where are we going.

The second is how we will go there.

The third is what we will do when we get there.

When and why might also be of interest.

[RadioAstronomer]

Thanks for the info! I bow to your expertise. I am not a propulsion engineer. :)

[operation clinton cleanup]

I think the power of digested legumes has been vastly overlooked!

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[RadioAstronomer]

I think the power of digested legumes has been vastly overlooked!

WOW! And you think the EPA has issues with nuclear!?! Wait until they get a hold of this idea! :)

[tim politicus]

Boris, I so much appreciate your thought and posts. As I know you are aware, scientific thought is dependent upon logical thinking and reasoning. That is why I addressed all these issues with such civility, and will continue to do so.

Let us not jump to conclusions with each other. I'm simply seeking to pursue a line of speculation based upon some commonly accepted premises. Clearly we all share a somewhat different set of assumptions. But isn't that is why we talk about things?

I do not ***assume*** that the development of intelligent life is subject to chance or to conflicting powers.

The scenario you assumed as my view, is not, in fact, my view.

In fact, I am attempting to ***simply*** suggest is that what most people take as a serious element of existence and call ‘God’ is the agency responsible for the current seeming isolation of our planet. Such a suggestion may very well seem beneath the notice of many in the media or science today, but this is a very recent development, as I'm sure you're aware.

Please don't so quickly dismiss me. It seems reasonable to me, given the order of issues upon which we are discussing, to at least entertain, for a moment, the idea.

So as to not leave to vaguaries yet another post:
By ‘God’ I mean a mind of, over, and greater in scope than the entire universe. This may sound irrational to a (simply) materialistic evolutionist, but what if ***even*** the broader principles of evolution, centered upon the idea of the ‘survival of the ***fittest***’ taken to their ultimate conclusion, militate that, given the existence of time, in the end, such a being must exist and most importantly:

***Dominate***?

Normally, perhaps, such a suggestion may make one libel to the charge of obscuring the issue. However, I, in all sincerity do not feel that in issues regarding the development of life itself or the interplanetary interaction or non-intereaction of ‘intelligent’ species, such speculation is dimissively silly.

I do not assume darwinian evolution, but I will take the time to entertain any assumption for the cause of rational and civil discouse, without which, there would be no science, or theology, or any academic field.

Boris, is the love of learning anything other than the love of the play of ideas? The science, discipline, or even mind that believes that it already has all the answers, is dead.

I'm not trained as a scientist first, but, like Newton, perhaps even Einstein, as a thinker. So I approach most issues from the ‘outside’. While that may make one seem the fool, I'm no more interested in mere appearances than I am sure you are.

[boris]

God is defined (in this argument) as "A being greater than which no other can exist."

Even an athiest can conceive of such a being.

So God exists--at least in the imagination.

But I can conceive of a still greater being. This being is not limited to existing only in the imagination. Among His attributes is existence in reality. Surely a being who cannot exist in reality is not greater than one who can.

Therefore one of the attributes of God--a being greater than which no other can exist--is existence in reality.

What is the flaw in this argument?

Hint: I got an "A" in my Philosophy 101 exam, so I know the answer.

I believe in God. But man has constructed myriads of fallacious "proofs" of His existence.

--Boris

[tim politicus]

Ah, boris, how did you know? I can't imagine receiving a more pleasant post. No wonder you got an A. Its 2:30 am where I am, so I'll reply tomorrow, if I can unravel your knot by then. Good night :-)

[mercy]

Who's 'we'? You got an imortal mouse in your pocket?

[tim politicus]

Ah, Guanilo, inspired and far more deeply educated men than currently popular ideology believe can exist have bequeathed myriads of eloquently crafted reasons for opening our minds to the actuality of God.

Perhaps their ‘arguments’ are not as foolish as we are taught, but instead, our minds, so clearly focused upon the mechanical (but for good reason), have lost sight of the principle.

In your wonderfully prescient critique of my as yet unproposed ontological argument perhaps the flaw in the ointment is the presupposition of the flaw, however popular such a suppostion may be [since Kant].

However I stand by my now explicit assertion: That God indeed is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Equally, I accept your apt formulation of my previously unstated postition: That God is a being greater than which none other can exist. And what then logically follows from these, however formulated, is that the greatest existence is not merely potential, or merely actual, but in fact must be both.

We live in an age were directness is more a virtue. So let me be simpler:

God is being itself. That is, God is existence itself. That is why none greater is conceivable. Get it? [This is why I don't depend upon an evolutionary view of God, even though I'd hold ‘God’ to be the ultimate effect of such a process.]

Unfortunately, in times past, one couldn't be so direct. Why? Because of a far more potent critique of the ontological argument's real basis: If by the term ‘God’ one means existence in itself, then ‘God’ must be so pan-theistically material and so universally mundane as to be irrelevant. Or put another way, the fool says in his heart, "God may be granted to be ‘being’, existence itself, but clearly then, ‘God’ would be dead, for so clearly mechanical and lifeless is the bleak realm we inhabit".

Ah, Death, what sting! You've taken our very God away! But wait. What is that sound? The dead stone! Rolled away! And who stands there but the Light, so clearly shining, saying this: "I am Life, and Being, and Existence, and in Me there is no death, non-being or non-existence. So that which is not ***in*** Me is ***not*** to the exact ***degree*** in which it is ***not*** in Me [ie Being].

Or put even more bluntly: God is only that which exists to the degree to which it actually exists. Another formulation is to say that God is ‘integrity’. Or that God is ‘unity’ [not uniformity!].

Interestingly, the ***actual*** human (ie subjective) ***experience*** of ‘being’ or ‘unity’ or ‘integrity’ is what we call ‘love’. But that is another subject.

Another very related subject is to show the reason why ‘truth’, and ‘goodness’, and ‘beauty’, and most other positive qualities have for so long been attributed to ‘God’. Clearly these are all properties of what we would call ‘integrity’ or the actual being of a thing, as opposed to the lack of being, or ‘dis-integration’, or lack of existence of any given thing. But I won't raise that here.

boris, you are clearly a very effective man of science. Most scientists these days ***will not*** [not "cannot"] conceive of any of these issues, seeing only the emptiness of space in these vast issues rather than the potent ground of all their relatively unexamined suppositions about reality, thought, logic, number and measurment. But just as for many, if not most of the great founders of modern science, unique insight and breakthrough awaits those willing to examine the exterior of our gilded box.