Asteroid Mining Venture Could Change Supply/Demand Ratio On Earth

redorbit

On Tuesday, Planetary Resources announced its plan to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), paving the way for mankind's reach beyond the Earth. This would include mining for raw minerals, ranging from water to precious metals such as gold and platinum.

But we should not be interested in gold so much as in platinum, and platinum not so much as a precious metal, but as a catalyst.

I was wondering if it were possible or likely that you could mine the main asteroid belt for these metals.  You could use Ceres as a base for fuel.  You could begin near Earth, go to Ceres, then to the other asteroids for mining, then bring back the metals at the end of the trip.

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)

An "oldie" but goodie video.  This discussion went over my head when I first watched it.  Only after it was a bit explained by Tom Ligon in another video did I begin to get it.  Anyway, this was the first I had heard of Robert Bussard.

Not that he was an obscure figure or anything.

At the time, I was looking for a solution for the energy problem and I found this video.  This video led me to the Space Show, on which Bussard spoke at least once.  I think the Space Show introduced me to some ideas about space, including John Lewis' Mining The Sky.

It's what it's all about.  Going to the asteroid belt to mine asteroids will be fabulously rich enterprise if anybody ever figures it out and does it.

A trip to Mars

Let's say you were to use a Nuclear Thermal Rocket for propulsion and a Nautilius X for habitation.

Speculative Specs:

Empty weight of Nautilus-X and propulsion: 220k lbs  ( 100k kg)
NTR rated 5000 MW, 250k lbs thrust, ISP 1000
Hydrogen fuel as reaction mass:   310k kg
delta-v for Mars insertion 6.6 km/sec, delta-v for Mars orbit 7.2 km/sec

Weight of Nautilus-X includes lander module and fuel.  It would have to fire for over 20 hours for delta v to Mars trajectory, and a little more than that for orbit.  You'd have to do that again to leave Mars, so the reactor would have to be able to fire for over 180 hours.

Total mass 410k kg. ( 902k lbs)

This does not include getting the Nautilus-X into orbit or its crew.  I am not assuming from LEO, but from a lunar-Earth Lagrangian point, like L2.  That may change delta-v numbers, come to think of it.

Gives you an idea of how hard this task would be.  Practically impossible.

Update:

Changed the link above to a better table.  It looks like an excursion from L2 would take much less delta-v.

From the table, it would take 16,540 to go from surface of Earth to the surface of Mars.  That includes getting off the surface of the Earth, inserting into trajectory towards Mars, going into Mars orbit, and then landing.  By starting from L2, you can subtract all but 5500 of it.  Seems like too much though.

You can still use the numbers above, but most of that velocity will cut travel time.  This could give a chance to lighten up on the fuel requirements, though.  It would come at the cost of a longer mission.

Update:

If you were to do a orbit to orbit trajectory, the delta v to Mars and back would be 5748 m/s each way.

Using the assumptions above, the weight can be cut down to 715k pounds.  Now, if you were to use the fuel available at Mars, say on one of the moons, the amount would be decreased dramatically.  Furthermore, if the moon was developed for fuel, that could pay for the fuel on the way down as well as the way back.

Confusion ( conclusion of gas-gun series )

After looking over some of what I've been writing about recently, with respect to the gas gun, I'm confused.

The numbers don't add up.  I'm looking up stuff, but what I see doesn't make sense.

Anyway, that explains what I've been doing.  Nothing to write about until I get an answer.


Update:

Let's look at the equations:

1. The thrust equation:  Thrust equals Isp * g0 * mass flow rate.  An observation:  this looks like momentum.  Momentum equals mass * velocity.  Substitute mass for mass flow rate, and Isp* g0 for velocity.  This makes sense since Isp * g0 equals effective exhaust velocity of a rocket.  Thrust could be said to be nothing more than the momentum of the rocket's exhaust.  Note that g0 is constant, and Isp has a short range of between 200-450 for chemical rockets.  
2. The energy equation:  Kinetic Energy equation is : 1/2 mv squared.  What jumps out at me is the similarity between the two equations.  
3. Acceleration is what we measure with thrust:  the Acceleration is equal to Force divided by Mass. The acceleration constant is gravity at 32 ft/sec²    Therefore,  1 pound of thrust is equal  32 lb-ft/sec²   and substituting 1.5 million pounds of thrust for 1 in the equation gives 48,000,000 lb-ft/sec²    of acceleration.  How much force is that in watts?  How do we get from there to 12 gigawatts from an F1 Saturn V engine? 

Still confused.

Update:

Okay, now if you take the thrust of 1.5 million pounds and divide it by the mass flow rate of the F1, which is 5569 lb-sec obtain the ratio I obtained here of 269.   Multiply that number by the 48,000,000 lb-ft/sec² number and we get 12,928,712,515, but I don't know what the dimension is of that number.

Could be just a coincidence.  However, using the energy content, I obtained much lower energy numbers.  Other means of calculation were also less than the 12 gigawatts per F1.

Update:

Okay, I think I've got it now.   Since  Thrust equals Isp * g0 * mass flow rate, dividing it by mass flow rate again yields Isp*g0, or what is known as effective exhaust velocity.  Multiplying it by thrust itself gives the following:  Isp*g0*  Isp * g0 * mass flow rate, or just old mv ² as in #2 equation above.

So, what does it all mean?  It means that energy requirements are what drives thrust.  The energy requirements are increasing exponentially while thrust increases only linearly.  In other words, you need a lot more energy than what we know we can deliver from chemical means.  We need nuclear energy for large amounts of energy.  Can't get around this.  Chemical energy isn't good enough.

That concludes the series on the space gun.  Without a nuke, you ain't going nowhere.

The previous post in the series was here.

Monkeys do as the Romans do too, scientists find - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/10018244/Monkeys-do-as-the-Romans-do-too-scientists-find.html

There's something called social proof that seems to be quite similar.

How do you calculate specific impulse?

http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/propulsion/3-how-you-calculate-specific-impulse.html

This looks like bad news for the gas gun.

Next Big Future: Costs and economics of Terrestrial Energy's Integr...

Next Big Future: Costs and economics of Terrestrial Energy's Integr...: Canadian David LeBlanc is developing the Integral Molten Salt Reactor, or IMSR. The goal is to commercialize the Terrestrial reactor by 202...

How much mass per sec per Saturn V engine: efficiency discussion

Seventh in the series on Hunter gas guns.  The sixth is here.

According to Wikipedia, the fuel pump produced 58,564 litres of RP-1 every minute, which translates into about 791 kg/sec for the fuel.  For the oxidizer, 93,920 liter/min which equals 1565 liter/sec, which translates at a density of 1.141 g/ml to 1786 kg/sec.  Taken together, this adds up to 2577 kg/sec reaction mass.  To convert that to pounds, multiply by 2.2 giving  5569 pounds/sec.  From this, each of the five Saturn V engines produced 1,500,000 pounds of thrust.

The ratio of mass of the fuel to the thrust is 269.  That means, by heating the fuel and running it out the nozzle magnifies its force over gravity by 269 times.  The purpose here is that I want to understand how rocket engines work so as to understand why they use as much energy as they do in order to do the task assigned to them.  It still amazes me how much energy they do use.  I thought I was on to some sort of understanding, but it all went to smash.  I figured that it was exhaust velocity times its mass yielding kinetic energy, and it was the kinetic energy that did the work.  But these numbers don't add up to that conclusion.  Or I'm missing something.  Come to think of it, I am missing something because an explanation given here shows that I'm on the right track, basically.

It seems my calculations may be wrong somewhere.  Okay, that messes things up a bit.  Well, it's all a learning experience.  I made a mistake, darn it.  The thrust calculations for the gas gun are too high because I didn't account for the gravitation constant ( I think).

Are the numbers realistic for the energy claims I saw earlier?  It must be true because it was listed in two different places.  These things are energy hogs, no question about it.  That's still right.

Rockets must use energy in a much different way that a gasoline engine does.  A comparison in energy efficiencies shows that a gasoline powered internal combustion engine is much, much more efficient in terms of energy.  It is not usually understood that way.  That is, auto engines are thought to be quite wasteful of energy.  But not compared to rockets.  Compared to rockets, they are a picture of efficiency.

Try to imagine using a rocket engine to get around instead of an internal combustion engine.  You couldn't afford it.

I think a gas gun could be more like an auto engine.  The gas gun is making the gas do work before it is exhausted out the system.  I'm thinking that the rocket engine's exhaust doesn't do work and that's why it is inefficient with energy.

Why would gas guns be any better than rockets?

With a rocket, you have to carry your fuel around.  But a gas gun does too.  But with the gas gun, the acceleration is applied to the mass without it carrying the fuel along with it, or so I think.  Or it is because it makes more efficient use of the energy somehow?  The rocket fuel when burned doesn't do much work.  It just accelerates its own mass which is then sent out the nozzle.  For this reason, a rocket is said to be a reaction engine, based upon Newton's Laws of Motion.  But the same thing can be said of the gas gun.  It is also producing an action-reaction sequence itself.

So, is the gas gun any better than rockets?  I'll have to look at my corrections and see if it actually is.  I thought so before, but now, I'm not so sure.

Update:

This may not be related, but I'm including it anyway.  The thrust for the lunar module ascent stage was only
3500 lbf.  This does not seem like much, ya know?

Update:

The equation to calculate thrust.  Thrust equal isp*g0*mass flow rate.  The mass flow rate is approximated above.  Isp is from the engine specs, g0 equal gravitation constant.

The numbers almost check out, but not quite.

4 Questions About Capturing an Asteroid - Popular Mechanics

http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/science/space/moon-mars/4-questions-about-capturing-an-asteroid-?click=pm_latest



Astronaut Tom Jones answers some questions.

Interesting fact about atmospheric pressure

Wikipedia

Part 6 of series about Hunter Gas Guns, or Cannons to the Planets.  Part 5 here.

quote:

On average, a column of air one square centimeter in cross-section, measured from sea level to the top of the atmosphere, has a mass of about 1.03 kg and weight of about 10.1 N (2.28 lbf)

Comment:

I put this up because I was wondering how much air pressure was needed to move a 100 gram ( about 3 oz) piece of ice through a tube.  Evidently, even much less than 1 atmosphere will do the trick.  Anyway,  if 1 liter of highly compressed hydrogen at room temperature is spread out in a tube that was 150 feet long, how much pressure would still remain?  It looks like much more than 1 atmosphere would still remain, if it began as 700 atmospheres, as I guesstimated in an earlier post.

By the way, according to Boyle's Law, the pressure is proportional to its volume.  If you decrease volume, pressure decreases and vice versa.  Intuitively, you know this is true.  Just squeeze a gas, and it increases its pressure.

This would be the force that I propose that would push the cube forward at the escape velocity of the moon without melting the ice cube.

The idea is to place one of these in space and use it as a propulsion device.  The amount of force applied to the ice cube in such a manner would yield an incredible amount of thrust for the amount of mass used.  See link above at previous post for the calculations and discussion.

Update:

Just wanted to make note that:  1 kilowatt hour = 3, 600, 000 joules.

The approximate amount of energy required to make 1 liter of liquid hydrogen: 13, 700, 000 joules, or about 3.8 kilowatt hours.

For what it is worth.

Update:

The 3 oz ice cube would actually be a cylinder which is about 1.4 inches in diameter and 3.94 inches long.

That defines the inner diameter of the tube.  That's because you want a tight fit.

Tsarnaev the Fraud

americanthinker.com/articles/

Quote:

Seven months after becoming a U.S. citizen on Sept. 11, 2012, Tsarnaev faces charges of committing terrorist acts against "his" country, in addition to murder, mayhem, and numerous other felonies.

Comment:

So, the guy gets naturalized in a city where two of the hijacked planes on 9/11/2001 originated.  All of this was just a coincidence?  Was Benghazi just a coincidence?

Fraud is sufficient reason to revoke his citizenship and try him in a military tribunal.  Frickin' A.  He was naturalized as a hostile act so he could avert justice.  It was premeditated.  An act of war.

Why Do So Many Muslims Embrace Religious and Ideological Warfare?

americanthinker.com/articles

Something here I want to quote because it is an example of the way we get brainwashed into accepting the left's premises:

But let us reflect on the words of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the close friend of Iran's genocidal president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


In reply to the term "moderate Islam," which was apparently quoted to him by a Western journalist, Erdoğan said: "These descriptions are very ugly; it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that's it." [ emphasis added]

It is a distinction without a difference brought to us by the wizards of smart in the media.  My hunch  is that most people probably repeat this phrase "moderate Islam" without critical examination.  Why?  It is probably easier to do that than to think about it.  So nobody thinks about it and it gets accepted.

If only the Koch brothers bought every leftist media source in the country.  If only.

Mosque that Boston suspects attended has radical ties

 Via Ace of Spades

quote from Ace:

I am sick to death of these monsters giving us the Sweetheart Act, coming forward after a massacre to claim that their mosques teach nothing but peace and harmony, while somehow attracting and inspiring butchers and cutthroats and murderers.

Comment:

Something familiar about Boston and the 9/11/2001 attacks.  Two of the hijacked planes originated from Boston.  Another from DC and the fourth from Newark NJ.   Liberal hellholes all of them.

Writer aboard Titanic worried about who’s buying other ocean liners

legalinsurrection.com

Yet the possibility that the Koch Brothers might, just might, be interested in buying eight newspapers owned by the Tribune Co., including the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune, has the legacy media and left-blogosphere worried.

Comment:

If only they'd buy the newspapers and turn them around.  They should also buy up all the rest of the leftist mouthpieces and shut them down.

Furor over gay teacher’s firing may pit city of Columbus against Roman Catholic diocese

LifeSiteNews.com

Columbus city law deems it a misdemeanor for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on sexual preference. It is also illegal for employers to have policies that discriminate based on sexual preference. There is no exemption for religious organizations or other employers who object to homosexuality on religious grounds. A guilty verdict carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Comment:

The law has to be unconstitutional, but who knows these days.

Church has the right, under the First Amendment, to fire this woman.  The law is in conflict with religious liberty.

How Much Do Americans Know About Science? | Ideas & Innovations | Smithsonian Magazine

Powered by    *  Test gives answers before you can Click the following to access the sent link: How Much Do Americans Know About Science? | Ideas & Innovations | Smithsonian Magazine* *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/How-Much-Do-Americans-Know-About-Science.html?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=20130424&utm_content=scienceandtechnologyknowledgequiz&device=android

[Shared Post] Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston Bombing

Comment:  How about making the current laws actually work there,  Bloomie?  Those guys shouldn't have been in the country, or at least watched more carefully.   shared post from Politicker   Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will 'Have to Change' After Boston Bombing by jcolvinobserver In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country's interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change" to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks. "The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. "But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change." Read More Read more of this post jcolvinobserver | April 22, 2013 at 12:24 pm | Tags: attacks, bomb, bombings, Boston Marathon, Michael Bloomberg, Security, surveillance, Terrorism | URL: http://nyob.co/ZhGUHw Comment    See all comments Change your email settings at Manage Notifications. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://politicker.com/2013/04/bloomberg-says-post-boston-interpretation-of-the-constitution-will-have-to-change/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

A Coming Economic Crash?

A Coming Economic Crash?

Paper Gold Vs Physical Gold- Ann Barnhardt Explains Decoupling

alternativeeconomics.wordpress.com

The thing newbies to this kind of thinking must realize is that the price of gold will not rise to Freegold valuations, it must fall hard first. This is simply because the paper gold (futures) market cannot exist with Freegold. Freegold cannot be “free” until the paper market dies and paper supply collapses with it. This very process frees gold.

Comment:

Freegold?  It must mean a free market price for gold, but that doesn't exist now.  Anyway, the price is being manipulated, no doubt about it.  Barnhardt also says that the divergence will be a sign of the beginning of the end.  We are there.  This article was written in 2011.

 

The most important economic chart in Western civilization — and how it happened

The most important economic chart in Western civilization — and how it happened

It’s sad that the case for economic growth needs to be made. But it seems that too many people have lost sight of why growth is good as they fret about issues such as the environment and inequality (both of which growth actually helps).

Comment:

Why do people insist upon drinking the poison that makes them sick in the first place?  We have an anti-growth faction in control, yet people are not happy with the lack of economic growth.  The answer to that is to stop electing anti-growth politicians to office.  There seems to be a disconnect here.  Connect the dots, for heavens sake.

Buying opportunity for Gold

The disconnect between the paper market and the physical market for gold gives a good buying opportunity. Despite the recent plunge, demand for physical gold continues.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

Home > Guest Post: Physical Gold vs. Paper Gold: The Ultimate Disconnect

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Guest Post: Physical Gold vs. Paper Gold: The Ultimate Disconnect

By Tyler Durden

Created 04/23/2013 - 21:29

The paper price of gold crashed to $1,325 in the wake of this huge trade. It is now hovering around $1,400. Our first reaction is to suggest that this is only an aberration, and that the fundamentals of the depreciating value of paper currencies will eventually take the price of gold much higher, making it a buying opportunity. But what we can't predict is whether big players might again deliver short-term downturns to the market. The momentum in the futures market can make swings surprisingly larger than the fundamentals of currency valuation would suggest; but the fundamentals will drive the long-term market more than these short-term events. The fight between pricing from the physical market for bullion and that from the "paper market" of futures is showing signs of discrimination and disagreement, as the physical market is booming, while prices set by futures are seemingly pressured to go nowhere. In short, we think this is a strong buying opportunity.

• Central Banks
• China
• Commitment of Traders
• ETC
• Exchange Traded Fund
• Futures market
• George Soros
• Goldman Sachs
• goldman sachs
• Gross Domestic Product
• Guest Post
• LIBOR
• MF Global
• Precious Metals
• Purchasing Power
• Sovereign Debt

---

Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-23/guest-post-physical-gold-vs-paper-gold-ultimate-disconnect

3D printer makes tiniest human liver ever - health - 23 April 2013 - New Scientist

3D printer makes tiniest human liver ever - health - 23 April 2013 - New Scientist

Organovo's ultimate goal is to create human-sized structures suitable for transplant; the big hurdle is being able to print larger branched networks of blood vessels to nourish such an organ. The company unveiled the mini-livers at the annual Experimental Biology conference this week in Boston.

Well, hurray for that.  Not all news is bad, but sometimes it seems that way.

Nerdy calculations

Update:

This is now included in the latest series I'm writing.  It's about the Hunter Gas Gun used as a propulsive device for space.  Part Five of the Series.  Part Four is here.

How much energy in a gallon of gasoline?  Answer: 1.3 * 10 ⁸ Joules.

The reason I mention it is that a gallon of hydrogen is said to be comparable.  Also, that it take 40% of the energy content of hydrogen to put it into liquid form.  That's an astounding amount of energy.  A Joule is about a Watt, by the way.  There are 3.79 liters in a gallon.  So, let's approximate how much energy is required to liquify 1 liter of hydrogen.   It is:   .40 times 1.3 * 10 ⁸  divided by 3.79 equals 0.137 * 10 ⁸  Joules or about 10% of a gallon of gasoline.

Why is this important?  Well, I want to do a thought experiment here in order to see if an idea might have some merit.  That's using the hydrogen gas in a hydrogen gas gun for a spacecraft's propulsion.

Here's the point.  There's already a lot of energy in the liquid hydrogen.  Just one liter has 1.37 * 10 ⁷  Joules ( watts ) in it which could do work before you do anything else to it.  That's about 13 megawatts for those of you in Rio Linda.

I did another nerdy calculation by figuring out how many atmospheres of pressure it takes to get to liquid hydrogen.  In other words, at standard temperature and pressure, there 2 grams of hydrogen for every 22.4 liters of volume.  If you take 1 liter of liquid hydrogen and heat it up to room temperature, you will get something like 700 atmospheres of pressure.

The pressure is what can do your work for you.  Like taking an ice cube that weighs about 10 grams and accelerating it to 2.5 km/sec.  Looks like it will give you about 31250 Joules of energy to that ice cube.

What does that do for you?  Well, that 31 kilowatts of power right there.  One kilowatt  = 1.34102209 horsepower.  One horsepower equals 550 lb-ft.  That would equal 22864 lb-ft of kinetic energy which can be used as thrust to propel a spacecraft.

All that from one ice cube?

No.  You'd have to do it every second in order to do some useful work.  A typical rocket may fire for a couple minutes or more.   You would need  a rapid firing capability of at least once per second for that long in order to transmit some respectable delta-v.

The space shuttle took 8 minutes to get to orbit.  Thats 480 seconds.  So, for about 10 pounds worth of ice, you could get 22k lbs of thrust for eight minutes.


I don't know if you'll even use 1 liter of liquid hydrogen for each shot, but I could be wrong about that.  It has to traverse a lot of tubing.  If you used about 1 liter for each shot, for 480 shots, it would take 480 liters.

Not bad.  It won't get you much velocity though.

Well, that's enough for now.

Microraptor terrorized land and water new dino research reveals - SlashGear

http://www.slashgear.com/microraptor-terrorized-land-and-water-new-dino-research-reveals-23278889/

Watch "Blacksmithing Oddjob's Hat (James Bond) - MAN AT ARMS" on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6UneNt1LWc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Checkout this article from CultureMap

Whataburger spicy ketchup and mustard soon to hit supermarkets

http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/food-drink/04-23-13-whataburger-ketchup-mustard-supermarkets/

Obama's Freudian Slip

When he said that "we are stronger" after the 9-11 attack, WHO was he talking about?  Why, the big government liberals that he belongs to, of course.  That's the slip up.  He really didn't mean to say that openly, but he did say that in his deepest heart.  But he really didn't mean to say it openly, that's what makes it a Freudian slip.  Because he did mean it that way, deep down inside.  Deep down inside, he wants the government to be bigger and stronger,  His faction is stronger than ever, but what about us?

One look at how Boston responded to the latest jihadist atrocity should give an important clue.  People cowering in their homes because of a couple idiots who want to kill those people there who were only having a good time and enjoying themselves.

Are "we, the people" stronger after that?  What do YOU think?

Now here's a thought...

Quote:

TAKE a small car cruising down the highway at 90 kilometers per hour and put its kinetic energy into something the size of an ice cube. That's the energy of the small projectile screaming down the barrel of Livermore's gas gun at 8 kilometers per second-three quarters of the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity.

Comment:

If you could preserve that little ice cube as ice during the entire time, you would have a respectable amount of kinetic energy that could used to propel a spacecraft.  Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but a hundred horsepower or so applied continually for a certain amount of time will get you going plenty fast.  A hundred horsepower is 100 hp times 550 lb-ft/hp equals   55k pounds!

The ice cube sent into space at 8 km-sec will eventually melt and vaporize into space.  It will be harmless at that point.

It would be a neat trick, if you could pull it off.

Mind-boggling inefficiency

Once again, I turn to the immensely inefficient rocket engine with this quote:

The power generated by five of these engines was best conceptualized by author David Woods in his book How Apollo Flew to the Moon—"[T]he power output of the Saturn first stage was 60 gigawatts. This happens to be very similar to the peak electricity demand of the United Kingdom."[ emphasis added]

That's 60 million kilowatts.  One horsepower = 745.699872 watts.  One horsepower is 550 lb-ft.

Substituting terms in the equations yields 60 billion watts divided by 746 watts per hp equal 80,428,954,424 hp.  Substituting again to get lb-ft:  Multiply 550 lb-ft times  80,428,954,424 horsepower gives an astronomical  44,235,924,932,976 lb-ft of power.  But the thrust is only 7.68 million pounds.

That means only 1.74 e-7 th of the power produced gets translated into thrust.

Less than 2 ten millionths of the power produced is translated into useful work!!!

It requires a lot of fuel to produce the relatively minuscule amount of work to get the beast off the ground.

That fuel has to be lifted itself.  No wonder the payload fractions are so low.  With all that fuel to lug around, the thing can't get out of its own way.

Hard for me to believe that this is the best we can do.

Grasshopper 250m Test | Ring of Fire

ParaPundit: We Could Have Prevented The Boston Bombing

ParaPundit: We Could Have Prevented The Boston Bombing

Quote:

Unsurprisingly, CNN already has an article entitled Don't blame immigration for Boston bombings. Er, if they hadn't immigrated here they wouldn't have been here to blow up Americans. One of the Muslim immigrant brothers was a naturalized citizen and the other had a green card.[emphasis added]

Comment:

The mind-controllers are telling us all what to think.

My country, my ass.

Shocking gas gun experiments

This is a detailed explanation of the gas-gun experiments which led to the SHARP project headed by John Hunter.

I wanted to see if such a device could be used for space propulsion.

It has occurred to me that the rocket engine is very wasteful of energy.  If a space-gun could be substituted for a rocket engine, much less energy would be needed to accelerate a mass in space, or so I speculate.  Since much less energy is needed, much less mass is needed.  Mass is the big enemy in space.  If much less mass is needed, less propellant is needed and so forth.

A few musings before I go to work

There's nearly a thousand views of my Blogger profile.  Perhaps people are bit curious about me.  I try to be wizzy wig--- "what you see is what you get"..  What you see here is me.  Read the blog if you are curious.

I don't have a wall full of awards, diplomas, nor patents.  I've got a BS in computer science, but no professional career to speak of.  I have to earn my bones here, which is a bit of a challenge to say the least.

At the beginning of the blog, I got a lot of zero pageview days.  Yesterday, I had 350 pageviews.  It has been a long, hard slog to get to that modest total.  I put in a lot of work to get that.  I don't want to seem arrogant, but damn it, I have earned what little I've got here.

This is a very hard thing to do, but I feel I'm making progress.  At times though, it seems like I'm just spinning my wheels.  I get tired a lot these days.  I really work hard for a guy my age.  A regular job where I put in 50 hours a week or more, and this.  I get up very early, as you can see.

All in all, I'm pleased with what I've done here even if it isn't all that appreciated nor noticed.  I'm happy with what I've got.  But I want more.  It's frustrating sometimes that I can't do better.

Horsehead Nebula as Imaged by Hubble Telescope

Even when you think the people in charge are the opposite end of this pic, they sometimes do something right.

Gun Shows Across the Nation Draw Record Crowds, Even After Toomey-Manchin Bill Fails

Free Republic

Quote:

April gun shows—both before and after the Senate killed the Toomey-Manchin bill—have seen record crowds, as many fear the debate over the Second Amendment is not yet over. …

Comment:

On the one hand, you see this and it looks like patriotism isn't dead in this country.  On the other hand, you look at the liberals and it's definitely dead.  Which side wins in the end?

Or am I misinterpreting this reaction?  Is it patriotism or is it fear?  What are these people doing by buying these guns?  Are they defending themselves or the country?

Nothing makes sense.

Obama: ‘We can sustain another terrorist attack’

The Hill's Pundits Blog

Said Obama in 2010:

"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever ... we absorbed it and we are stronger."

Comment:

Rather blase attitude, I'd say.  It's okay to commit terrorism against America on American soil.  Why it's no big deal.  What's the big fuss?

Brokaw: U.S. partly to blame for Boston terror Veteran NBC anchor attempts moral equivalency

Free Republic

Quote:

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw strongly suggested Sunday that America is partly to blame for the gruesome terrorists attacks in Boston, because the young, Muslim men involved may have felt “alienated” and angry over U.S. drone strikes on “innocent civilians” in Muslim countries abroad.

Comment:

So what exactly are we supposed to do when we are attacked?  Just go into a corner, curl up into a ball and suck our thumbs?

Immigrants More Likely to Identify as Liberal, Put International Law Over Constitution

FrontPage Magazine

This study from the Hudson Institute has wider implications beyond the current debate over amnesty. It places the blame for its findings on a failure of patriotism.

The Constitution is King.  Any attempt to bring it down is treason.

Who's got the gold?

Answer: Nobody knows for sure.  But it is probably going to the East.  Western Civilization is going broke and doesn't have the gold it once had.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

Home > The Secret World Of Gold

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The Secret World Of Gold

By Tyler Durden

Created 04/21/2013 - 12:27

In a wide-ranging look at the history and present of the barbarous relic, CBC's [1]Brian McKenna and [1] Ann-Marie MacDonald [1] have gathered many perspectives (pro and con) on gold. The following documentary moves from historical shipwrecks to Nazi 'death gold' and England's war chest to recent years where widespread economic uncertainty has given the yellow metal a "new lustre in the world of high finance." Valued for its permanence, beauty and scarcity, people will lie, cheat, steal and kill in the name of gold; and the clip provides color on many of the market manipulations of the last few years. As MacDonald says, whether it's a few gold coins or gold bars stored in one of the many vaults around the world, many investors are taking a shine to gold. But there's not a lot of it. It is said that, even melted down, there would not be enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Some claim that much of the gold held by the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve and Fort Knox is gone - that for every 100 ounces of gold traded, there exists only one ounce of real, physical gold. So, where is the gold - and who really owns it?

• Bank of England
• Federal Reserve

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Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-21/secret-world-gold

Links:
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/the-secret-world-of-gold.html?subpage=infographic

1.21 gigawatts?! - Dr. Brown & Marty - Back to the future

BAE Electromagnetic Railgun

The thought occurred to me that something like this could be used as a propulsion device in space.  They would fire a projectile into space and the recoil could propel the spacecraft.

Two problems come to mind, which would by no means mean that this would be the only problems.

Anyway, number one would be heat.   If you use the railgun to propel ice, the ice would melt.  You'd want the ice to melt after you sent it out, but not before.

The energy problem could be solved by a nuclear reactor.  Heh, heh.  Preferably, a small one.

Bob Zubrin is wrong about Vasimir

That in particular is nuclear power to run it.  He said that Vasimir won't work because the nuclear power needed for the Vasimir hasn't been invented and couldn't be invented.

He must not know about the Nerva rocket engine developed during the Apollo Era.

Even a relatively small Nerva type rocket engine nuclear core would suffice for a Vasimir to power a Mars mission in a short time frame.  The trick would be to turn the heat energy into electric energy on that scale.  That would be the hard part.  Getting the energy itself would be the easy part.

Actually, the biggest trick is getting rid of all the heat.  There's no place for it to go.

Maybe you can turn the heat into light and the light can get rid of the excess energy.

Update:

This post is not to defend Vasimir, but to point out Zubrin's error.

One thing I've noticed about all rockets is that they are energy hogs.  If you can solve that problem, you can do a lot towards reducing the amount of mass needed to get from point a to point b.

A few thoughts on The Nuclear Rocket

Didn't exactly finish the book.  But I've been thinking about it.

A few thoughts and observations to share here:

• The name "NucRocCorp" should be changed to Nu Rocket Corporation.  Image is everything.  A name like that will relegate you to obscurity.  A name with "new" in it will help it out some.
• The corporation will be like a GSE ( Government Sponsored Entity), which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your perspective.
• Examples of GSEs are the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
• He suggests sending radioactive waste into space in order to dispose of it.  Wait!!! That's not a bad idea.
• He believes that we should start with the B4 core.  This was proven during the Apollo Era with the Rover/Nerva program.  The Nerva upper stage would have bolted onto a Saturn V rocket and almost would have doubled its payload.
• Instead of launching from Kennedy, he suggests a remote location.  Possibly near the equator.  I'm thinking Omelek Island, which SpaceX has launched from with one of their Falcon rockets.
• He believes that people will focus on the risks first, but when they see the rewards, will decide the risks are worth it.  By the way, the risks are small and manageable.  The rewards are astronomically large, if you pardon the pun.
• He emphasizes that it should be an international venture, with potential for the entire world to participate, if their behavior meets certain standards.

A visionary proposal that may work technically.  The trouble is the politics.  Democrats will hate the environmental risks, but love the GSE idea.  Republicans will hate the GSE proposition, and they will be skeptical about the benefits.  They may be brought onboard if it is rigorously privatized once the technology is proven.

My Country My Ass

Karl Denninger, MarketTicker.org


Excerpts:

• the fact that despite every news anchor and many of the people in Boston pumping their fists and screaming "USA!" along with lauding law enforcement, the fact is that law enforcement could not find its ass with both hands.
• Not only did they search without a warrant there were multiple reports through the day of seizure of firearms, among other things.  
• Instead, within a half-hour of the "can't find our ass with both hands" cops giving up on locking down the town an ordinary citizen finds the bad guy in his boat.
• Massive, outrageous, millions of dollars in overtime and worthless hardware FAIL, to go along with a citizenry that cowered in abject fear of a couple of jackasses. 
• finally we learned that The Constitution is used toilet paper and a fetid relic of our former (and now-shelved in favor of American Idol) imagination, and that the founders who fought just miles from where this took place are looking down on us in shame from heaven -- we no longer merit the nation they left us.

dailymail.co.uk article: Was Boston bomber inspired by Russia's Bin Laden?

Full Story: 21 April 2013  www.dailymail.co.uk



Mother claims FBI tracked older brother 'for FIVE YEARS' after being told by Moscow of links to Chechen terrorists

The brothers' mother Zubeidat has said the FBI once told her that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was 'really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him'.

Russia's bin Laden:



How does this get by the FBI, then?  Did this administration interfere with this surveillance?  Does this administration have blood on its hands?

Fed Fueling Stock Market Inflation

Frank Ryan, American Thinker

Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret)...specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations.

Quote:

When there is a reluctance to spend and significant money is concurrently infused into the economy, a logical alternative is that the funds will be invested in the financial markets.

Comment:

Krugman says there's no inflation.  But there is.  It is in assets, like stocks.  Bernanke and Co. are reinflating the bubble that burst over a decade ago.  It popped again in 2008 and will pop yet again --- perhaps this year.

Krugman: Gold Does Not Glitter

Blog @ NYTimes

Maybe, just maybe, the gold crash will finally bring intellectual capitulation. But I wouldn’t bet on it.[ emphasis added]

Comment:

For once, Krugman is right about something.  It won't bring intellectual capitulation.  He's right not to bet on it, but wrong to bet on fiat currencies.  History has shown that fiat currencies fail every time.

The Gold Manipulators Have Failed

Message from sender:

Ann Barnhardt on her website said that signs like this are signs that the end is near.

End of what? My guess is the end of fiat currencies based upon the whims of politicians.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

Home > 10 Signs The Paper Gold Crash Unleashed An Unprecedented Demand For Physical Gold And Silver

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10 Signs The Paper Gold Crash Unleashed An Unprecedented Demand For Physical Gold And Silver

By Tyler Durden

Created 04/20/2013 - 19:35

Instead of frightening people away from gold and silver, the takedown of paper gold [1] seems to have had just the opposite effect.  People just can't seem to get enough. The crash of the price of paper gold on Monday has unleashed an unprecedented global frenzy to buy physical gold and silver.  All over the planet, people are recognizing that this is a unique opportunity to be able to acquire large amounts of gold and silver at a bargain price. Will this massive run on physical gold and silver soon lead to widespread shortages of those metals? Premiums over spot prices are rising everywhere already. And once reports of physical shortages of gold and silver become widespread, it is going to absolutely rock the financial world.  But this is what happens when you manipulate free markets - it often has unintended consequences far beyond anything that you ever imagined. The following are 10 signs that the takedown of paper gold has unleashed an unprecedented global run on physical gold and silver...

• Australia
• China
• Chris Martenson
• India
• Japan
• Precious Metals
• Reuters
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• Volatility
• Yuan
• Zurich

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Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-20/10-signs-paper-gold-crash-unleashed-unprecedented-demand-physical-gold-and-silver

Links:
[1] http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/is-the-takedown-of-gold-a-sign-that-the-entire-global-financial-system-is-about-to-crash