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I am thinking about Venus and Asteroids. #1, if Venus has life in the clouds then I would think anything like this has to be paused or ended. #2, no life than OK. The ability to Aerobrake is getting better, various alternatives are becoming considered, tested, actual. Query: "Orbital year length for Venus"

As near as I can tell from what I read and what I understand about the physics, for the old fission device design, the bigger the ship mass, the higher the Isp, and the easier it is to smooth out the force pulse with big shock absorbers and springs between the pusher plate and the rest of the ship. At 1000 tons Isp was near 1000+ s, with 4-5 KT fission devices at 1 per second. 5000 s at 5000 tons, etc. It was really hard to hold the ship acceleration down to the 2-4 gee range, in the smaller sizes. Those devices had an inert mass adjacent to be vaporized, and were shaped charges in the sense that the energy delivered was in two spikes oppositely directed, not omnidirectional. It's a change in the shape of the neutron reflector that does that. What struck the pusher plate was both the blast of energy, and the blast wave of vaporized inert material (otherwise there is NO blast wave in the vacuum of space). You use lower yields down in atmospheres, where there actually is a blast wave, when launching these things. I would think the higher energy conversion efficiency of fusion vs fission alone would lead to higher Isp out of pulse drives that use fusion devices, but the higher yield puts a lower bound on ship size, in order to absorb the pulse with technology we know how to build. Just as a wild educated guess, probably larger than 20,000 ton ships. You don't build a whole fleet of these things, just a couple to a single handful. They require lots of fissionable materials, which

For Terraformer ... It is good to see you back active in the forum. Void and SpaceNut have been experimenting with AI. You know what you have in mind for a spiral habitat and Calliban and Void seem to know what you are talking about. Please ask ChatGPT or Gemini or any of the new AI systems with drawing subsystems to create an image of what you have in mind. If you don't want to try that, draw something on a piece of paper as Calliban has been doing, and take a picture of that. You can store images on the forum, if SpaceNut gets around to asking Mr. Burk to restore that capability. The image server is running but it needs the correct database password. You can help by just asking for your image to be stored. (th)

In September of 2026, RobertDyck has resumed work on his Large Ship proposal. This work caused GW Johnson to once again think about the Project Orion nuclear fission powered space craft that was designed during the post WWII years when the talent was available and when public enthusiasm for nuclear power was high. There are two editions of a book about Project Orion by the son of Freeman Dyson. There may well be more references available. GW Johnson has a copy of the first edition, and I have a copy of the second. The second edition has additional reference material included. **** In September of 2026, GW Johnson has been thinking about how fusion might be added to the mix. The original Orion design featured only small fission explosive devices, but a great deal of work has been done since then. GW seems to think that the Orion ship design could be adjusted upward in scale so that fusion could be included in the power equation. That would cut down on the amount of fissionable material needed for a flight (in proportion to ship mass). This is a case in which scale really does make a difference. The original Orion design was validated with a test flight using ordinary chemical explosives. The Earth has a stockpile of highly enriched Uranium and Plutonium that could be productively used for a flight out into the Solar System. (th)

Post #23 is from April of 2026. Today's LinkedIn contained a reminder of the technology, so I asked Google for an update. It appears there has been progress on several fronts... AI Overview Yes, rotating detonation engine (RDE) technology has progressed rapidly with major defense partnerships, successful new fuel testing, and expanded testing infrastructure since the record-breaking April 2026 trials. Several breakthroughs and industrial developments occurred across multiple organizations: Major Corporate & Defense Developments Venus Aerospace and Lockheed Martin Partnership: On July 21, 2026, Lockheed Martin and Venus Aerospace formed a joint technology development agreement. They are integrating Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) systems into next-generation military long-range precision fires to improve range and speed. L3 Harris Missile System Tests: In May 2026, defense contractor L3Harris completed highly successful testing of two RDE prototypes at Purdue University's Zucrow Laboratories. One test successfully demonstrated a full-scale engine operating seamlessly across an entire mission flight range for air-breathing missiles. Massive Scale-Up Capital: In July 2026, Venus Aerospace secured a $91 million Series B funding round backed by Lockheed Martin Ventures and Airbus Ventures. The funding shifted their primary focus toward manufacturing and full-rate production for defense and space markets. Infrastructure & Fuel Milestones New Advanced Testing Infrastructure

Well, you probably win that one, but I had to try. Still, maybe someday ride a cold current south with fresh water, submerged, and a warm current north. But yes not good enough. https://www.britannica.com/place/Atlant … /Hydrology However, I will note that many "Fossil" aquifers are being drained dry, so the replacement is either by shipping or desalinization. Without water a lot of places lose value. But yes it is an uphill battle. But this comparison is a bit better, perhaps: Quote: Copilot Search Branding Like Dislike Desalination of seawater is generally expensive, with costs ranging from $0.40 to $3.00 per cubic meter depending on technology, scale, and energy efficiency. Overview of Costs Desalination involves removing salts and impurities from seawater to produce potable water, primarily using Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation. Large-scale modern RO plants can produce water at $0.40–$0.80 per cubic meter, which is competitive in water-stressed regions, but still higher than conventional freshwater sources, which often cost $0.10–$0.50 per cubic meter ampac1.com ampac1.com +1 . Small-scale systems, such as those for islands or resorts, incur higher per-unit costs due to reduced economies of scale bestamembrane.com bestamembrane.com . Factors Driving Expense Energy Consumption: RO systems require 2.5–6 kWh per cubic meter, with energy accounting for 40–50% of operational costs. Thermal methods like MSF consume even more energy, up to 25 kWh/m³

No one else has responded Terraformer, so I will give it a try. A shell world with a double shell and "Gravity Drains", and a moon in orbit where volatile substances can be stored: Gravity Drains are there so that if a gas escapes, it may settle into the drains and then be pumped back into the shell. It is not guaranteed that an escaped gas will immediately leave a small worlds gravity well, especially if it exits a 1 millibar pressure. So, we may hope to recover much of a gas leak. We also want to avoid a atmosphere freezing to the underside of a shell. Or it's top side. Low pressure helps with that. So, an N2/O2 atmosphere of 1 millibar may or may not be enough pressure to lift the outer shell. If not then perhaps additional means of support are required such as a higher pressure or more gravity wells to support the outer shell over the inner shell. The sun's heat and also produced industrial heat might be able to maintain a non-condensing situation for each shell. Then if desired air vented from the lower shell into the upper shell might be a way to cool the inner part, then when the cold air settles into the gravity well, you can compress it back into the lower shell. This may need more work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIYRh8MlFC0 Quote: America Found Something Better Than Oil Underground AI Atlashade and ForgedOrigins I have to wonder if soon we will have Geothermal, Solar 40%+, Wind that is practical, Nuclear Fission, Nuclear Fusion, Natural Hydrogen, And power beamed from orbit. The arrogant Eloy in Europe and Canada will have destroyed the Industrial people as they demand that they should rule without having merit. (Not all of the people just the idiots running things in those places now). The Americas (Perhaps - Canada) prosperous from the Canadian border to the tip of South America. I am thinking that it is possible. As for Carbon in the Atmosphere, artificial wood from grass and Bamboo could pull it out of the atmosphere, and we can make structure for these new industries such as supports for solar panels from it. My point is you don't kill your old industrial horse and then hope to get a new one. You use all your horses and achieve a clean atmosphere faster. Ending Pending

One design I haven't seen for space habitats is the spiral/scroll. If the cylinder is wide and the ceiling heights low enough, you can have multiple levels that are all one contiguous scroll. E.g. a 10km diameter cylinder with 50m ceilings could spiral round ten times with the innermost part having 90% of the gravity the outermost has. 300km long scroll. Make it 100km long embedded in a suitable iceteroid, and you have 30,000km2 of area, all one curled up sheet. Enough for wolves..?

Just solving deceleration would dramatically cut mass ratios. No need to accelerate the ions much, since they're there to provide drag against a magsail rather than pushing it. I wonder if neutral particles could be launched and then ionised by the ship? Could a suitable magsail achieve drag against a stream of say oxygen?

I guess I can be an "Other Thinker". There is something I want to expose in this post elsewhere: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 56#p241556 Quote: >>>>>>>>>>>> I am coming to the conclusion that people achieve wealth either by appointment to it or by being useful to a productive task. Most Communists, Monarchists, and some religious institutions, and Universities, are more towards wealth by appointment. In order for an Unworthy person to have wealth appointed to them, first the wealth has to be taken from the people that it can be taken from, typically a Monarch is a taker, but also Stalin, Lenin, Mao, etc. were very similar to royal taking. However not every taker is a scoundrel. Those who are in such a system that are more worthy might assist a "Maker" such as Elon Musk in creating Wealth. That could happen in a university, for instance, even though I think that mostly they are "Takers". DEI is an example of the appointed "Taker". >>>>>>>>>>> I believe that this can be used in seeing societies as being ordered by contraction/extraction or expansion/creation. I will argue that some parts of the MAGA movement are of the expansion/creation nature, and that much of the rest of the world is of the contraction/extraction nature. It is very simply a situation where a part of a society in hierarchy becomes cannibalistic in that it feeds on the other parts, and does not create an offsetting benefit for that other part that they extract from. While Communists have claimed t

Formatting Update Received Understood! I will keep all future responses tailored specifically for your forum's parser settings: Headers: Using only 'h' headers without parameters. Tables & Lists: Structuring itemized data and tables using the 'list' command with asterisks. Math & Equations: Presenting all equations and mathematical variables in plain text. Colors & Text: Utilizing standard BBCode text formatting and colors. There seems to be some LaTeX formatting in your reply just above. Those bullets need to be rendered as 'list I apologize for that error. I will ensure that no LaTeX, standard Markdown headers, or invalid tag structures are used, and that all bulleted lists use the requested 'list' format. Updated Lightning Danger Summary Cumulus Congestus (Towering Cumulus): Rapidly growing vertical clouds that represent the immediate precursor to lightning-producing storms. Pyrocumulonimbus Clouds: Fire-generated storm clouds capable of producing dry lightning and triggering new wildfires. Electrostatic Field Spikes: Under fair weather, ambient fields sit around 50 to 200 Volts per meter. Pre-strike storm activity drives local fields up to several thousand Volts per meter. Visual & Tactile Signals: Sudden static build-up, St. Elmo's fire emissions, and a sharp ozone scent caused by oxygen ionization (O2 converting to O3).