Recent content by YetAnotherBob

There is a way to get 'negative temperature'. But it isn't really what is sounds like. It's a quantum effect that sort of cancels temperature. It's supposed to be hard to actually do.

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...

Looking back at History, most colonies were village level for a long time. That means there may only have been ten or so children in any given village. Any colony of fifty or more is large enough for that. School will probably be home schooled. Teachers may be just a computer with Mom hovering...

It's a semi-solid, make that like molasses. It's still subject to tides. those have a slowing action until the planet is tide locked. So the earth is slowing down because of tides. Both solar and lunar. It is complicated by the mass above it and is a complex thing to actually calculate.

They use telescopes, obviously. Those are historically, Optical, since the 1950's radio wave and most recently, Infrared and ultraviolet, along with limited x-ray and now gravity wave devices. Quite a lot has been learned too. One problem is that the farther away you look, the less you are...

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...

AlienLifeForm, The problems you allude to come from the beam intensity. Simply widening the beam target solves this problem. But that drastically lowers the power available. Another solution is to simply include a system to chase away birds or insects from the working drone. To power a rocket...

Microwaves have been used to transmit power since the late 1970's. In 1979, NASA powered a 100 W light bulb on the Big Island of Hawaii from a radio transmitter located on an island a bit over 75 miles away. this was done as a part of a feasibility study on the technologies for Solar Power...

SpaceX is working towards a manned landing by 2024. They have the benefit of a contract for doing that, though the current lawsuits are trying to stop anything from being done. But they do not stop any work from being done, they just keep NASA from paying for it. Rockets continue to be built...

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...