Re: Electrogravitics is Reality!


tomcat wrote:
William Mook wrote:
This is pure fantasy with no basis in reality -

Waveriders are a concept for efficient supersonic transport aircraft
that operate at one speed - the speed where the supersonic wave
produces least drag. Travel at a different speed, and the drag rises
again. They are therefore unsuitable for flights at speeds
considerably below or above that efficient speed. Variable geometry
can allow a range of speeds, and that has been studied, and there are
shapes that allow a range of efficient speeds - but that range is
limited compared to a rocket launch where youhave to go from 0 mph to
18,000 mph - putting it on a rocket increases structure weight, and
with chemical rockets, its not much of a benefit.


My 'vision' a cargo hauler spaceflight with a brief R&R at Lunar City
is . . . fantasy. But it does have a basis in reality.

No it doesn't. Well, we do live on a planet called Earth and it is
orbited by a moon, and we can build things called rockets to access it
from Earth. But that's about it! sheez.

The cargo
hauler (waverider) is buildable and the Moon can be developed as a
mining camp and way station.

Yeah, and we can invade Iraq, and build infrastructure to take their
oil, and they'll greet us a liberators. That's fantasy too.

These are doable things, not fantasy.

We can develop off-world resources, no doubt about it. But a waverider
shape and He3 do not hold the key to doing this.

Yes, waveriders were discussed as re-entry vehicles, and as the second
stage of a three stage moonship by Hawker aviation with a nuclear third
stage, but they aren't compelling unless you want a long long cruise
through the air. So a ballistic transport system or an earth based
maglev launcher might sport some sort of waverider geometry. But its
improvements in propulsion that will get you to the moon easily, not
waverider geometry.


Actually, everthing needed already exists.

That's right, and they're NOT the reason we're NOT doing it. Which is
my point.

Waveriders exist. Maglev,
if you choose that route, exists.

Electrogravitics doesn't exist.

SSMEs and SRBs exist.

SRBs increase cost, increase danger, and are a bad idea. They were
added because Niokol needed to keep a plant open for the Army, and the
Army didn't want to pay for it.

It's all
there,

We do have the technical means, and for the past 50 years have had the
technical means to develop off-world resources. Those technical means
have nothing to do with the technologies you mention, or the
psuedo-science of 'electrogravitics.'

it just has to be put together.

The issues are more complex than you understand in your weak defense of
your fantasy.

Its easier to pick up He3 from gas wells on Earth than go to the moon
at present. The Earth at present produces enough He3 to provide 10% of
the Earth's entire energy budget - IF WE KNEW HOW TO FUSE IT. But we
don't! so we can't! So, going to the moon to pick up He3 doesn't make
much sense until we do and make use of all the He3 we aren't using on
Earth. Storing He3 makes sense if you're optimistic about this stuff,
and when He3 can be used, you'd have more money than anyone to do
whatever you wanted.

Successful fusion of He3/Deuterium has been done

No it hasn't! To be successful you have to achieve Break-even, that
means you've got to achieve the lawson criterion - which no fusion
reactor has achieved. Sure, fusion has taken place in certain test
reactors but more energy is absorbed than generated by these designs.

at the University of
Wisconsin. I am of the belief that it produced 70% more electricity
than it consumed in maintaining it's magnetic bottle.

But not more ELECTRICAL enegy in total than consumed by the ENTIRE
apparatus.

This is why it
has be hearlded as the savior of the Earth,

It would be if it achieved break-even at a price per watt less than
that of a coal fired plant. THis is unlikely given the massive
quantities of CIRCULATING energy you need in ANY sort of plasma fusion
device.

a clean method of producing
mega amounts of electricity.

Rot. The device CONSUMES more electricity than it produces. That's
what it means NOT to have achieved breakeven. 70% of the magnetic
bottle leaves 30% that must come from somewhere else - and then you've
got to HEAT and COMPRESS the plasma - and that takes even MORE energy.


It may not have been really big news because there is so little extant
He3 fuel avilable.

There is enough He3 EASILY available from natural gas ALONE to provide
10% of the ENTIRE planet's energy needs. He3 Fusion occurs at about
the same temperature as another aneutronic fusion fuel - Protium/Boron
11. SO, any reactor that fuses He3 cost-effectively to produce massive
amounts of electricity, Protium is regular hydrogen, and Boron 11 is
VERY abundant on Earth - in Borax. There's enough Boron 11 on Earth to
provide for 20 times our current industrial needs for centuries. Borax
is already mined, all we have to do is extract the Boron 11 from it.
THIS IS ANOTHER REASON YOU FANTASY IS TOTALLY USELESS.

The University of Wisconsin used government nuclear
spinoff He3, of which only a few pounds exist.

He3 can be made in a fission reactor. Since there's plenty of He3 on
the lunar surface it has become a buzzword for space enthusiasts - a
wet dream of the type you related that a) has no economic basis, and b)
no technical basis. The NASA scientists who floated this balloon
figured into their program billions of dollars to make a He3 reactor a
reality. This is the sort of pseudo scientific excess that space
enthusiasts have been tarred with since the 1960s - and it has hurt any
real prospect of development. REAL space enthusiasts would have made
damn sure that Iridium succeeded and that Teledesic wasn't stil born
and that the design of the space shuttle wasn't politicized to the
point of making it useless, that the Apollo hardware wasn't trashed,
that Apollo lunar exploration and basing schemes were carried out, and
would have promoted plans to build a space tourism module around the
Shuttle's laboratory module, made sure money was spent on launch
infrastructure to maintain low costs and reasonable launch rates. REAL
space enthusiasts would push for a change in the OST, and in missile
and nuclear proliferation control regime, and the elimination of
cost-plus contracting for civilian and military space launch and a host
of other practical things that would pay IMMEDIATE benefits and create
a real honest to God space industry on this planet that had a shot at
building on these successes to create a lunar hotel and a city on Mars
and all the rest.

If He3 can be 'efficiently' collected from natural gas then this is
great.

What good is it unless we can fuse it more cheaply and efficiently than
Boron 11, which occurs in great abundance on this planet?

But, the Moon and other Outer Space bodies are loaded with it.

The moon's surface in certain regions is loaded with it. I read the
original NASA brief on the subject. Its all a wet dream of people who
have no capacity to push policy makers think that they can make things
happen by exaggerating science into pseudoscience. In the end, they
avoid doing the hard tasks immediately before us,

It does have to be strip mined and cooked at 600 deg C; actually 900
deg C is cook off the oxygen.

I know. That's not the point. IF we can get $200 billion per year
worth of energy by spending $0.15 billion per year extracting He3 from
natural gas, and we aren't doing it, what makes you think we'll spend
$100 billion per year extracting $1,000 billion per year of He3 from
the moon? And why would we do that anyway if we can spend another
$0.22 billion per year in the Borax industry and generate $18,000
billion in energy with Boron-11 reactors? (which are nearly identical
to He3 reactors)

So, mining and processing are required.

Duh. Your fantasy avoided that point.

Can't just shovel it into the hold and rocket back to Earth.

I know - that's why I *** on your fantasy on that account.

Um... what evidence do you have that there is anti-matter to be had in
the van Allen radiation belt? If so,how much? If there is anti-matter
in the Van Allen belt, how would having a bottle trap any? How do you
figure the amounts? What is the sweep area, sweep speed, and density?
I know nothing about this, but if you're picking up 5 billion dollars
worth of energy - at 100 MJ per dollar that's 500 million billion
joules of energy - that's 5.5 kg of anti-matter - or the equivalent of
82 million barrels of crude oil.


NASA thinks it's there

WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE THAT THERE IS ANTI-MATTER TO BE HAD IN THE
VAN ALLEN RADIATION BELT?

and are getting ready to try and collect some.

WHAT EVIDENCE TO THEY HAVE THAT THERE IS SOME? WHAT IS ITS DENSITY?
WHAT IS THE TOTAL AMOUNT? WHAT IS ITS SOURCE? WHAT IS ITS LIFETIME?

I wish them success. This could be a really big energy find!

Anti-electrons produced by compton scattering of high energy particls
and or photons in the van allen belt that might live a few minutes and
be collected by a careful scientific experiement is not a BIG energy
find! Sheez. This is another pseudoscientific wet dream by a few NASA
researchers who hope to take advantage of the current public concern
over energy prices.

You'd encounter the inner belt at about 1000 miles and be through it in
3000 miles. The outer belt would be hit in about 9000 miles and you'd
be through it by about 12000 miles.

At 1 gee constant acceleration (starting at 2 gees accelerating force
on the Earth's surface and falling off as 1/r2 distance - giving a
geometrical acceleration of 1 gee) - you'd hit the inner van allen belt
in about 9 minutes and be through it 7 minutes later. Continuing at 1
gee you'd hit the outer van Allen belt 28.6 minutes after lift off and
be through it in 4.4 minutes.

Your total collection time is 11.4 minutes. 684 seconds. That's how
long you have to collect 5.5 KILOGRAMS of anti matter.

How big is your sweeper that you use to fill your magnetic bottle? 1
sq ft ? 10 sq ft? 100 sq ft? 1000 sq ft?


The 'sweeper' is an interesting problem.

No, the interesting problem is WHAT EVIDENCE is there that there is ANY
anti-matter? What form does it take? How long does it last? What is
its source? What is its rate of production? What is the amount
available? WHat is its density?

THEN, IF *ALL* OF THESE INTERESTING PROBLEMS ARE RESOLVED - in a way
that suggests there is a big energy find there - THEN and only THEN do
we need to trouble ourselves with how to collect store and transport
it.

Now, we don't need enough antimatter to run our industrial
infrastructure on Earth. No, we only need about 100,000x more anti
matter than we can make on Earth today with accelerators like CERN.
Why? Because we can use anti-matter as triggers for inertial
confinement fusion reactions - So, even a small amount of anti-matter
compared to our total energy needs would be interesting.

SO - ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION and quit your pointless mental
masturbation! Skeet skeet.

Perhaps forcefields of some
kind.

<sigh> Jesus, you're an ***! Oooo... forcefields - lol. Gawd,
why am I wasting my time with you JERK!

I wonder what NASA has up their sleeve.

Nothing! They're a civilian space agency and their plans, and findings
and everything else - not directly related to missile and nuclear
defense - is PUBLIC RECORD. This is another thing that irks me about
space enthusiasts - SO CALLED - the average American feels NASA doesn't
really carry its weight in terms of what it produces versus what it
costs. Pseudo enthusiasts having no critical ability to understand or
analyze ANYTHING related to space, believe NASA has something up their
sleeve. BLEH! That's worse than the damned forcefield comment. It
makes me want to go take a shower after reading it. Yech!

If anti-matter is so dense you can sweep up 12 pounds of it with
something smaller than your typical ranch house as you fly through it
on your way to the moon - then there's more energy in the van Allen
belt in the form of anti-matter than exists in all the He3 on the moon.
After all, you're collecting 82 million barrels of crude equivalent in
the form of anti-matter in the 12 minutes it takes to fly through the
van allen belt - and you're waiting a week and a half on the moon to
collect your He3.

That much anti matter circling Earth would mean spacecraft flying
through a van Allen belt with THAT much anti-matter would vaporize in a
matter of minutes! You'd notice the flash!


Especially if you were inside the spacecraft!

There are spacecraft orbiting in these regions NOW! They'd glow like
searchlights in gamma ray spectrum even if a very tiny bit of them were
being eroded away by anti-matter. THEY DONT - so that suggests a LOWER
LIMIT - which is likely TOO LOW to be of PRACTICAL BENEFIT. Though,
I'd like to see the thinking of the SCIENTISTS by having a POINTER to
REAL DATA - so I could look at it. You don't need much anti-matter to
revolutionize the energy picture of the planet - not using antimatter
directly, but using anti-matter as a trigger for aneutronic fusion
reactions like He3 or B11.

Since the Van Allen
Belts have been penetrated by ordinary spacecraft it must not exist in
densities that require special shielding.

DUH! That's just what I said! Its not just sheilding, we just don't
see the gamma ray emissions from spacecraft orbiting IN those regions.
So, there CANNOT BE that much - not enough to be practically useful -
AND NOT ENOUGH TO SUPPORT YOUR FOOLISH FANTASY OF COLLECTING 12 POUNDS
OF THE STUFF ON A BRIEF FLIGHT THROUGH IT! Hell, your spacecraft would
fry as it hit the stuff you DIDN'T collect. Sheez.

One possibility is that
'sweeper' will be in orbit and constantly 'sweep' until enough is
collected then a spaceship will go in and collect the antimatter
'honey' a lot like bees collecting pollen.

If there isn't enough there to be of practical benefit there's no
point. If there is, then obviously a special spacecraft would be
designed to harvest it. Those who paid for that wouldn't want you
traipsing through their collection volume and taking *** away from
them. That's the other point I had about your fantasy.

Why fool with He3 at all? We know how to turn anti-matter into energy.
We don't know how to do it with He3 yet.

This, I believe, is false.

I know you do. That doesn't make you right. It just shows the depth
of your ignorance.

See my remarks above on He3 fusion at the
University of Wisconsin.

Yes, YOUR OWN REMARKS say that university hasn't achieved break-even!
This is just the FIRST milestone! ONLY 70% of the ELECTRICITY needed
by the MAGNETIC FIELD has been generated AS HEAT in the fusion
reaction. This didn't count the energy needed to compress and heat the
plasma or form the plasma in the first place. This doesn't count the
cost of the system. This doesn't count the efficiency of converting
the heat liberated to useful electricity. or the cost of that. SO YOU
ARE WRONG! WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO TURN He3 INTO USEFUL ELECTRICITY. We
know how to fuse all sorts of nucleii - but the processes we use
consume more energy than is released (except for a hydrogen bomb)

Now, when you take costs into account its not clear that fusion
reactors will be a great boon. Coal fired plants cost about $0.50 per
watt to build, and operate 8,000 hours per year. It takes about $0.16
of coal to feed a watt of generator for that many hours, and there's
about $0.03 of maintenance done on the generator. So, one watt
operating 8,000 hours, generates 8 kWh of electricity. The total cost
is;

$0.05 - time value of money (on the $0.50)
$0.03 - maintenance/operations
$0.16 - fuel
------------
$0.24

The electricity produced is;

1 watt x 8,000 hours = 8 kWh

TOTAL COST:

$0.24/8kWh = $0.03 per kWh.

Now it costs something to transmit it, and capital costs can be higher,
and fuel costs are definitely higher than the numbers here, since
they're about 18 months old.

Anyway, a conventional nuclear reactor costs about $5.00 per watt and
it has trifiling fuel costs -lower maintenance costs, higher operating
costs - a little lower overall; - decomissioning costs of about $0.12
per watt-year of operation

$0.50 - time value of money on the $5.00 capital cost
$0.02 - maintenance and operations
$ - - fuel costs (less than 1/10th cent)
$0.12
-------------
$0.64

Operating the same 8,000 hours per year, producing the same 8kWh of
energy;

$0.64 / 8 kWh = $0.08 per kWh

So, even if there's NO fuel costs because of HIGHER CAPITAL COSTS and
costs of decommissioning - conventional fission plants have a higher
cost for energy.

WHY NOT SPEND MONEY DOING RESEARCH TO LOWER THE CAPITAL COST AND
INCREASE RELIABILITY OF FISSION PLANTS BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE?

Its an important question to ask.

NOW - let's talk about our HYPOTHETICAL He3 fusor. Energy density
limitations of plasmas, combined with Lawson Criterion needed for
fusion - combine to make costs of these systems, once they're achieved,
around $10 per watt. If you're charging OIL prices for He3, to pay for
your space program wet dream - skeet skeet - then you're going to be
charging DOUBLE THE FUEL COST of coal. You don't have disposal and
decomissioning problems. You DO have maintenance problems with high
energy plasmas in close proximity to superconducting coils and whatnot.
So a strawman design would be;

$1.00 - time value of the $10.00 in capital cost for the fusor
$0.03 - maintenance cost of the fusor
$0.32 - fuel cost of the fusor (price of oil)
---------
$1.35 - total cost per year per watt

8,000 hours of operation again

$1.35 / 8 kWh = $0.32 per kWh

To be cheaper than coal fired plants you'll have to reduce the cost of
your He3 to be less than the cost of coal by heat value, which cuts
your revenues in half - and you have to make a fusion reactor that is
1/20th as much as the expected price of a fusion reactor.

Of course, Boron 11 will be dirt cheap by comparison, as would He3
captured on Earth, and so your moon mine fantasy goes away. But, we DO
have a revolution n energy IF;

a) we knew how to fuse aneutronic fusion fuels and
b) could do it at a price less than the cost per watt of a coal fired
plant.

We don't know how to do that yet. The fact that we've spent 50 years
and tens of billions of dollars on the problem and haven't resolved it
yet - suggests these conditions may NEVER be met.

And, with antimatter, collection is the problem.

With anti-matter the problem is availability.

And, while a few thousand anti-protons have been captured in penning
traps of late, there are no magnetic bottles that I would trust to hold
the 82 million barrels worth of energy! That'd be quite a pop if it
ever went off - and would pose a helluva threat if someone decided to
set it off in anger.. So, don't count on being welcomed back to your
home planet with it without some serious paper work being done.

NASA are the R&D people.

No they're not.

That is why their budget is fairly large

Their budget - like military bases we don't need - is a political
football and there's just enough money to pay everyone, and very little
left over to do real science. Ever hear the term 'NASA Science?" Just
wondering.

If we wanted a NASA with balls and one that would do real significant
work in lowering the cost of opening the solar system, we'd fund it at
about $50 billion per year, and remove the current politically driven
oversight process - centralize their labs, upgrade the launch
infrastructure, reorganize United Space Alliance, and contractor
relations, and put it under the direction of the National Academy of
Sciences (as was suggested at the outset in 1957 - this was purposely
NOT done by Eisenhower BECAUSE he wanted an agency that was powerless -
he wanted a response to the Soviet Sputnik - NOTHING MORE. Kennedy had
a different view, but he was assasinated before he could make the sort
of changes suggested by REAL space enthusiasts. After his
asassination, Johnons with McNamara's help, made sure NASA was
powerless, ended all long term programs like nuclear propulsion, and in
1967 - after it was clear we'd beat the Russians to the moon, funding
was cut dramatically - and has never been more than 1% of the US budget
since.


and
they have such extensive research and test facilities.

They certainly do. And they do a lot of good work there. But, they
don't have the resources to really make good use of it, and they don't
have the political clout to demand the resources.

And it is,
moreover, a little scary to think of any significant amount of
antimatter bottled up on this planet.

Depends on the details.

The storage and use of
antimatter might best be done in Outer Space. Perhaps in orbit outside
the Earth-Moon system. Quite a ways out.

Then it will be of little practical benefit to people on Earth.

Bob Forward looked into this back in the 1980s. Penning traps holdnig
very small amounts of anti-matter, so small that if they popped they'd
produce less energy than a typical x-ray - could be designed as
triggers with really small fusion bomblets - and those bomblets could
produce pulses of plasma that could be used in MHD generators or
nuclear pulse rockets.

Finally, there is no lunar city hotel on the moon at present, and He3
doesn't just load itself. If you are postulating a date in the future
when such things as He3 mines and lunar hotels exist, why wouldn't the
people who are there charge you a goodly portion of your 45 billion
dollars to do all the work while you kick back? THAT makes the least
sense of all. I mean why wouldn't a woman own the interplanetary
supertanker and watch you while you bring her drinks and she cavorts
with the ladies? Sheez.


I am aware that things cost money.

Yes, paid for in the cost per kWh ultimately, if you're saying people
on Earth will pay oil prices for the heat value of He3. To be of
ECNOMIC benefit, you'd have to pay coal prices for the heat value of
He3 AND produce generators that cost less than today's best coal fired
generators.

In business you look at gross
profits, and net. I never said that the 45 billion dollars would be
net.

You wouldn't get that if you were competing against terrestrial He3 and
terrestrial B11

But to net 1 billion dollars per mission, every 3 or 4 months,
isn't too bad!

A wet dream fantasy. skeet skeet

It will buy pretzels and beer.

No, billions of people will have to give up pretzels and beer for
decades to learn enough to see if this wet dream has any possiblity of
reality. Meanwhile, realistic sober changes that can be made today at
zero cost - or little cost relative to this program - are being
ignored.

Why not just say you'll waltz into downtown Um Dasr, kick back with a
beer while someone loads your supertanker with 2 million barrels of
Iraqi crude that's just sitting in the ground there, and then you'll
cruise on back around the Horn and across the Atlantic, and unload your
oil in New York while you kick back there and collect $150 million cash
- no problem - ????

THAT'S EASIER AND TECHNICALLY MORE FEASIBLE THAN WHAT YOU HAVE JUST
DESCRIBED.


I'll build a supertanker for 2 billion dollars, upfront. One that can
ride any tidal wave it encounters. Any takers?

ANY TIDAL WAVE? Hmm.. Blech! Sorry bout that, you're just making me
sick with all your stinking bull***.

Even so, Arthur Clarke proposed building submerisble supertankers that
carry 3 million barrels or more and avoid surface conditions. That
would survive ANY tidal wave since its underwater. These super
submersibles could take the form of tanks that you tow behind a
conventional tug of tremendous power and use a variety of means to
maintain control of the supertanks underwater These could be dropped
off and empties picked up, so they'd double as storage tanks, and
'dock' with submerged pipelines - and not tie up valuable port space,
or even take up shipping lanes.

Hell, if you can build an interplantary cargo hauler and do all you
say, why not pick up a used supertanker and run oil from the middle
east? Thing is, interplanetary fantasies are not constrained by
reality yet, so they're fun to think about. But that doesn't feed the
bulldog or pay the bills son.


The waverider cargo hauler is not fantasy. It can be built right now
using current technology. Someone just has to do it.

Nonsense. I wasted good minutes explaining what a waverider was and
how its NOT suitable for a spacecraft capable of going from zero to
mach 23 or so. But to give you the benefit of the doubt, show me.
Put down some relevant numbers, and show me why the waverider is so
beneficial to the operation of a lunar cargo hauler system - if you
can.



tomcat

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