Most powerful laser

Foxnews, July 2012

...a laser test facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. -- turned on its 192 laser beams for a scant instant the day after the nation celebrated its birth, unleashing a record-setting 1.85-megajoule blast into a target chamber that delivered more than 500 trillion watts of power....In the historic test, NIF's 192 lasers fired within a few trillionths of a second of each other onto a 2-millimeter-diameter target. Beyond its sheer power, the beam-to-beam uniformity was within 1 percent, making NIF not only the highest energy laser of its kind but the most precise and reproducible.

How does that compare with microwave beams being proposed for the use of launching spacecraft?

According to a previous post, the amount of energy needed for the MAB should be less than .01% of this, but it will need to be supplied over a much longer time period.  It takes about 8 minutes or so to reach orbit.  The spacecraft won't need any energy to get back, if I am correct.

How to get an reusable rocket

At the risk of getting a reaction that goes something like this: "If you're so smart, why don't you do this yourself", I offer this proposition for a reusable rocket design.

Rather than using a RP1/LOX type rocket that Musk is planning to use for his reusable rocket second stage, why not use a LH2/LOX rocket instead?  Here are the calculations that would add 40% of mass to each stage and still get the same payload to orbit.

Instead of going to orbit the way he does, you would slow down the first stage and speed up the second.  The second stage, by virtue of having the higher ISP rocket design, will be able to make up the difference and do it with less propellant.  Happily, that gives us margin on both stages for more mass to do the reusable thingy.

Now these calculations are estimates and are subject to error.  However, even with error, it does not refute my basic point.  That is this:  using a higher ISP rocket for the second stage improves the odds of getting a reusable design.

Using the rule of adding 40% to the mass for a reusable rocket, this procedure is capable of delivering that extra mass in two ways: 1) by using less mass in the first stage and 2) by using less mass in the second stage due to higher ISP.  Compare the ISP of the second stage Falcon (column D) with the second stage modified ( Column G).  The difference is over 4k kgs, which is added to the dry mass in order to make it reusable.  The first stage Falcon has 47.9k kg of propellant cut off, and then adds back in 10k kg in dry mass for reusability.  This slows down the first stage velocity, but the higher performance 2nd stage can make up the velocity and still add mass for reusability.

A hydrogen rocket doesn't help that much when lifted off the ground.  It gains the most advantage as a second stage.  The Apollo Era Saturn V did this.

This isn't a mission to the moon though, as the Saturn V fulfilled a different set of parameters.

Note that the entire rocket now weighs 37900 kg less.  The higher ISP lets us economize on the use of propellant.

Update:

A couple ideas occurred to me since I posted this ditty.  One, that you could add propellant back into the first stage, while keeping everything else constant.  That gives the rocket the same mass it has at present.  Two, with the extra mass added in, you could use that for reusability of the first stage.

One problem, though.  There's not enough mass.  A proposition to solve that problem would be to make it an airbreather on the way down.  That would enable the use of more propellant so as to execute a reverse trajectory on the way down.  That may be an oversimplification, so take that under advisement.

As for the second stage, you may have the same problem, with the same proposed solution.

Op-Ed: Humans evolving into bigger idiots? Stanford professor thinks so

digitaljournal via Free Republic

Alternet.org reports:
...Crabtree argues that “human intelligence may have actually peaked before our ancient predecessors ever left Africa...Genetic mutations during the past several millennia are causing a decline in overall human intellectual and emotional fitness...Evolutionary pressure no longer favors intellect, so the problem is getting exponentially worse.”

The Idiocracy has arrived 500 years earlier than expected.

Things really do seem to be doing downhill.

SR-71 "Blackbird" Spyplane, MAB part 5

Part 5 of a series.

Another brainstorm.  You know, the visuals of this thing is a lot like what I'm imagining for the MAB ( Microwave Air-Launched Booster).  The delta wing could be where the two big engines would be for the airbreathing booster, which is powered by microwaves.  The delta wing part itself would also hold the heat exchangers that would convert atmospheric air into superheated reaction mass that would power the aircraft.  The center part would hold the S4B type LH2/LOX powered conventional rocket that would take a payload to orbit.  All components would be reusable.

The SR-71A's mass would be about half the mass of the entire assembly.  It would fly about the same speed, perhaps a bit faster, and would fly at about the same altitude.  It would be air launched from a Stratolaunch type vehicle.  The entire mass of the assembly would be less than that of Stratolauncher, which will launch a Falcon type rocket to orbit.

Wikipedia: SR-71A specs ( Updated )

Update:

Can't find part 4, so it must be a link up above which is forms the basis of this concept.  Part 6 is here.

Next Big Future: Spacex will make Methane rocket for Mars

Next Big Future: Spacex will make Methane rocket for Mars: Flightglobal - SpaceX intends to build a methane/liquid oxygen (Lox) engine, said founder Elon Musk, in a shift away from the highly refined...

Comment:

There are some interesting comments in that section.  Musk has his critics and he has his supporters.

As for me, I think that his ideas could use some refinement.  A reusable rocket could be possible, but not the way he's going.  Very presumptuous of me to say, but there it is.

One expert from the Space Show said that you needed to add 40% to the mass of the rocket in order to make it reusable.  That's a show stopper.  Mass is the big enemy here.  You have to reduce mass.

Interesting read on tax deductions

This wasn't a big issue for me in the recent campaign.  As noted in the following article, Romney mentioned how he could pay for his rate reductions by capping deductions.  For the purposes of this post, I won't rehash the election.  Let's just look at what may be possible today.

1.  Eliminating all itemized deductions would yield about $2 trillion of additional revenue over ten years if we cut all rates by 20 percent and eliminate the AMT.  [comment:  Basically, this was Romney's proposal.  ] 
2. Capping deductions would generate less additional revenue, and the higher the cap, the smaller the gain.
3. Limiting deductions to $17,000 would increase revenues by nearly $1.7 trillion over ten years.
4. A $25,000 cap would yield roughly $1.3 trillion and a $50,000 cap would raise only about $760 billion.

Since Romney lost, #1 is off the table.  Number 3 and eliminating the AMT would do two things:

1. It would make the tax code "more progressive" since it would affect the wealthy more.  
2. The AMT brings middle income taxpayers into higher tax brackets.  Therefore, eliminating helps middle income taxpayers.

Number 4 would yield less revenue, but nearly as much as Obama is demanding.  Evidently, you can do this by keeping the Bush tax cuts and making them permanent.

Overall, I don't think this is much worth arguing about.  That's because my position is that revamping the tax code isn't going to make much difference in terms of creating jobs and economic growth.  What does matter to me is that the code should not become the ridiculous mess it once was and Obama is threatening to make it yet again.

Raising tax rates as Krugman indicates will only lead to more loopholes.  There's no way that the rich will pay 90% tax rates.  That's not going to happen.  It didn't happen in the past even though the top rate was that high because all kinds of loopholes were added.  Raising rates should be a non-starter.

One more thing I thought about.  You could raise the allowable deduction for charitable donations.  In fact, you could make this very generous so as to allow the upper income people to put their money where their mouth is and actually help people with their money.  That is, to stop the stupid rhetoric of "please tax me".

Update:

Not everybody likes this.  Could it be part of a negotiation?  A negotiation has a starting point.  It isn't necessarily the end point.

Thoughts are transient things, but so are a lot of things

Better make a note of an interesting thought before it gets away.

Just prior to this post, I was reading about Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church.  It is said to be the biggest church in the United States now, or something similar to that.  There's criticism that I've seen a number of times about his ministry.  Osteen replies something to the effect that he wants to be positive.

That reminded me of something.  When I was a kid, my parents took me to Sunday services which included an old time fire and brimstone type sermon.  This turned me off to religion for decades.  Now that I am a bit older, I realize that a youngster is not prepared to deal with such a blistering torrent of truth about human nature.  A kid just doesn't have the experience of the world yet to know that this is really where the human experience is like.  People are not nice sometimes, you know.  Or perhaps, I don't need to tell you.

So, I can relate to those who criticize Osteen.  I can also relate to Osteen.  I can understand why he doesn't go fire and brimstone.  People can't handle it.  They want to believe that everything is goodness and light.  If you lay that fire and brimstone on them, they will get turned off and they will leave.

You can also relate that to the recent election.  Romney didn't go fire and brimstone on Obama.  But Obama did that to Romney.  I figure that Romney felt the way that I think Osteen does----that people really can't handle the truth about this President.  So Romney went bean bag.  He went soft on Obama, while Obama creamed him.  The people wanted to believe that Romney was bad and that Obama is good.  Now, if Romney did go negative on Obama like he should have, it may have backfired.  That's the risk one takes when one tries to tell the truth.  If you tell the truth, it may not be accepted.

What we may have here is a bias against the Republicans and conservatism in general.  Hence, Rush Limbaugh can say "we lost the country".  But the truth cannot be lost.  It can only not be seen.  Truth exists.  You should never withhold truth.  If somebody will not accept what you say, that is a problem with themselves.  It is like my youth.  I had to learn about the truth through experience.  If he laid out the truth and events showed the way he said was the truth, the people would have turned to him for leadership.  An example?  Churchill during World War II.  Churchill warned about Hitler only to be shouted down.  As events showed later, Churchill was right.

The moral:  A leader doesn't lie to his people.

He that has an ear, let him hear.

Do you think Obama is telling us the truth?  If so, why is there a bit of disquiet in the land?