Recent content by YetAnotherBob

Any Mars Colony will hatectve to dig in, for radiation protection if nothing else. even gardens will be mostly underground with sunlight coming in through mirrors and windows. There will need to be some good power supplies and probably robotic maintence as well. We probably don't appreciate...

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a statistical averaging observation. It is generally stated as Entropy always increases to a maximum in any closed system without the application of outside work. This came from the study of heat engines, chiefly steam engines, well over a hundred years ago...

I've seen reports and articles that propose using high thrust light sails. Those reports generally ignore the absorbed light. Thermodynamics has defeated a great many wonderful designs in the past and it appears to be continuing the trend. Breakthrough Starshot is planning on it's star wisps...

E= MV*2 convert km/h to M/Sec, multiply kg by 1000 to convert to grams, there you are. So, 57,200,000,000 kg * 48000 km/sec * 1000 m/km /3600 s/hr gives kg-m/sec^2 That's roughly 8749.5 Megatons, roughly the same as half the US arsenal or a quarter of Russia's total bombs. It will create...

Space X is actually doing quite well with it all. The first few Falcon Nine's as I said above crashed on landing. We just had another crash on landing this week. Rockets actually take a lot of abuse. This weeks Falcon Nine had flown (If I recall correctly) six times previous to this. It most...

SpaceX is taking an experimental approach to the design of the Starship system. So far, SN 8 and 9 have crashed on landing. SN8 slowly, and SN9 at near terminal speed for a human in free fall. That's 30 and 120 MPH respectively.' The analysis isn't really out yet, but apparently, only one of the...

I'm not sure just what hybrid you mean. The most common hybrids I've seen are combined solid / liquid chemical rockets. Space Ship One used one of those. It burned rubber with oxygen. It makes for a nice compact rocket, though it doesn't have a great Specific Impulse. Unlike most Solid fuel...

The plans I've seen are that the elevator cars climb up the cable. They need some power source from above or below for this. Generally lasers or masers are considered. The cable is anchored at the top and the bottom. The bottom is anchored to the Earth, any large chunk of bedrock will do. The...

What will it take to stop SLS? The same thing it took to start it. An act of Congress. NASA has a directive from the US Congress, (House and Senate both) to build and fly the SLS and go to the Moon. NASA really has no choice in it. It's law. It will be Ironic if NASA finally lands with it's...

I am an Engineer. Magnetic systems use a magnetic field to connect two different bodies. In an electric motor those are magnetic coils in the Rotor and the Stator. The stator is stationary and the rotor rotates. That's how the motor works. There is some counter rotation in the body of the motor...

That is in the Program. What you are referring to is a Sabatier Reactor. It takes in CO2 and water and puts out Methane and Oxygen, though it takes around twice the energy to run it that you get from the fuel and oxygen when you burn it. Still, solar energy is 'free' and nuclear can run for long...

It's a question of scale and amount. The atmosphere expands somewhat in the daytime and contracts at night. The upper reaches where all this takes place is rather diffuse. Probably a better vacuum than most high or collage laboratories can get. But it's still there in a diffuse form. it slows...

Yes, but it's not like swatting. It takes a decade after all.

I haven't seen any six sided craters, but that only means I haven't seen them. I have seen explanations for such thing however. They result from things like the cells in a coffee cup when you pour in some creamer. Most of these phenomena result in a round shape. But when several round shapes...