yes, but that was lifting a much larger mass, and it was fighting air pressure in front of the rocket, and it throttled back part way through to avoid too much friction
Hmm. Maybe, this isn't such a crazy idea, if...
Bear with me.
The tube slopes upward and ends at a high altitude where the air poses little frictional resistance, say 10km. There is a cover over the top end preventing the thin air entering. At ground level, it is also sealed by a door, and large...
You mention "radial velocity" - so, did the video mean to say "radial momentum"? In a simple system of one star and one planet, would they have equal radial momentum around their shared centre of mass?
To enable the fission fragments to escape, yet allowing a critical mass, there could be multiple small sub-cores each with its own magnetic coils, which exchange neutrons to achieve criticality as a group. The obvious place for control rods is then between the sub-cores.
In that reactivity link I found a mention of submarine reactors that use a high proportion of U235. Wikipedia states:
"many designs use highly enriched uranium but incorporate burnable neutron poison in the fuel rods. This allows the reactor to be constructed with an excess of fissionable...
The NASA study quoted above uses a dusty plasma, and has two designs, one with a critical mass of Pu, and one with U238. In both, the moderator reflects back neutrons to achieve criticality. With no moderator, the mass of fuel would need to be greater, but I don't think it would need to be...
No, I'm not writing Sci Fi, I'm just being curious. I'm not an undergraduate student, although I was, years ago. Maybe a course would be a good idea, but I don't have time. I'm sorry if my questions appear random.
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Yes, controlling the reaction is basically what I'm asking about. Since the dusty plasma can be controlled by electromagnetic fields which can be rapidly altered, perhaps it could be compressed to the point of criticality, then very quickly expanded again before...
a dusty plasma design : https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/718391main_Werka_2011_PhI_FFRE.pdf
has nuclear fuel held in place by electromagnetic fields. It uses a very massive moderator around the fuel to slow and reflect neutrons back to the fuel, to enable continued fission. But, there is one kind of...
I suspect that Janus is right - by that time living in "ships" or habitats will be considered preferable to life on a planet, and they will make long trips between Kuiper belt objects to gather resources. In that scenario, a generation ship is not so far from what is already common.
Ball park probability - between 0 and 1. There are so many unknowns.
I can only conclude that living in space is a lot harder than we think. And don't forget that many of the worlds that could harbour life have stronger and deeper gravitaional fields, as well as thicker and deeper atmospheres...
Don't be disheartened. I think we will gradually colonise outward in the Solar System, using forms of nuclear energy as we move further away from the Sun. Then the objects of the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud will entice us out further. One day, some pioneers will realize they are halfway to...
Could we launch a set of relay probes at the same time, spaced out over the distance, to relay the signal? Since the power required is the square of the distance, doing it in two hops halves your total power needs. Ten hops cuts it by 90%.
They would need to be nuclear isotope powered.
The...