Nasa’s new laser propulsion could get humans to Mars in 3 days

[jamahir]

so by just using solar , star light,micro nukes or laser we can reach mars and beyond in almost days----that's all, what i understood--------- a question why are we so hell bent on reaching moon and mars, could not we just use those aforementioned things like laser or solar light to fix energy crisis on Earth------green energy-----laser for jet engines,cars,ships,cooking-------------------

good question and basic question.

about laser, the long post of mine has link to a usa government project ( nif ) whose goal is to achieve nuclear fusion for power generation but without including nuclear fission reaction as a catalyst... the desire here is to have practical and safe nuclear-powered electrical generation but without the huge, toxic, polluting and generally dangerous fission reactors of tradition that use fissile uranium or plutonium... we are regularly seeing the fate of the fukushima nuclear plant.

in the nif project, whose general process is called 'inertial confinement fusion' ( icf ), many big lasers are fired onto a very small hollow gold-plated metal container called hohlraum in which is sitting a tiny ball ( termed a pellet ) of fusion fuel... the fuel is mix of deuterium ( also called hydrogen-2 ) and tritium ( also called hydrogen-3 ) and are stable and safe... when hit by the lasers for the tiniest of time, the hohlraum generates x-rays in all directions i suppose but specifically the x-rays within its interior hit the tiny fusion fuel pellet and cause the pellet to compress and explode in a fusion reaction that replicates the sun's process... the nif project wants to try this experiment again and again until they have perfected it and are able to attach a water boiler ( or a gas container too, i suppose ) so that they heating of the water creates steam ( or drives the gas ) which then can turn turbines and create electricity.

you may point out that the lasers need electricity in the first place for the entire process to work... at the moment the nif project is a huge facility and the lasers need lot of electricity... what nif wishes is to get the lasers ( or redesign them i suppose ) so that they don't need lot of electricity to operate and that more electricity is generated by the system than consumed by it to operate.

perhaps a rethinking can achieve a table-top icf fusion electrical generator, maybe using laser or maybe microwave ( after all microwave also heats - we have microwave ovens )... perhaps instead of a water boiler or gas container, what could be used is a 200-year-old technique called 'sterling engine'[1], which would remove the need for a extra turbine arrangement... this is just my simplification.

about solar power, a newer idea is the 'solar wind power tower' which uses a tall and broad hollow tower and sited generally in a sun-drenched place... below is the idea and workings from a design by the company[2][3] most prominent in this research :

One potential solution is taking shape in the Arizona desert. Known as the Solar Wind Energy Tower, it is the first hybrid solar-wind renewable energy technology in the market.

This tower will really be a wonder of the modern world, as at the peak operation this tower can generate 1,250 megawatt-hours. That’s approximately equivalent to the power output of wind turbines spread over 100,000 acres.

Science behind: The Company’s hybrid solar-wind downdraft tower works by spraying water in at the top, which makes the air heavy and results in powerful natural downdraft wind. This wind hits turbines within the tower at significant speed resulting in spinning 120 turbines which consecutively spin generators to produce massive amounts of electricity.

Some of the features of Solar Wind Energy Tower:

It would stand nearly half a mile (0.8 kilometres or 2,250 feet) tall and it would be even taller than the new Freedom Tower in New York (1,776 feet).

It could generate as much power as the Hoover Dam.

Best part is, this power plant does not have any operational limitations in terms of time or weather and it runs continuously day and night.

This power plant is operated with virtually no carbon footprint, fuel consumption, or waste production.
​

this is really a reworking of a ancient technique[4] used in western south asia, west asia and africa for a traditional method of air-cooling of houses and other buildings... the idea behind the technique is to use the creation of high-pressure wind due to creation of difference in heat :

the wikipedia article mentions pakistan, afghanistan and iran as having this ancient technique... perhaps you ( mentee ) and some of the other tagees have seen this.

now one side effect can be that instead of that water-using huge solar-wind tower in the desert, and the trend ( and correctly so ) towards decentralized electricity generation ( at house level or neighborhood level ), why not employ the above ancient technique with efficient turbines to generate electricity?? just a idea.

as for public transportation, we should discard the idea of personal cars and have a entirely public transport system with buses for mass-transport and all the remaining few components... and the fuel technology can be the "salt water engine" that powers the quant sportscar[5]... imagine if instead of a petrol/diesel based fuel system globally we turn to salt water which is found so plentifully on this world in the seas and oceans... the designers of this car present the car only as a demonstration of the technique and they want to create such engines, bigger, that can power ships and aeroplanes ( which you had asked about ) :

Sports cars may not have the best reputation for being environmentally-friendly, but this sleek machine has been designed to reach 217.5 mph (350 km/h) – using nothing but saltwater.

Its radical drive system allows the 5,070lbs (2,300kg) Quant e-Sportlimousine to reach 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 2.8 seconds, making it as fast as the McLaren P1.

After making its debut at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show in March, the saltwater technology has now been certified for use on European roads.

The 920 horsepower (680 kW) Quant e-Sportlimousine uses something known as an electrolyte flow cell power system to power four electric motors within the car.

It works in a similar way to a hydrogen fuel cell, however, the liquid used for storing energy is saltwater.

The liquid passes through a membrane in between the two tanks, creating an electric charge. This electricity is then stored and distributed by super capacitors.

i and another member had posted about this car in a thread many months ago and some members, the usual fool bunch, were saying "oh, look up electrolyte flow" as if they had thought up of this car idea 20 years ago but didn't care to follow it despite being geniuses about it... why do some pdf members have to be so superficial, arrogant and worthless??

anyway, one person who has become famous in city design/re-design is enrique penalosa[6], a former mayor of bogota city ( capital of columbia ) and also a candidate in the 2014 columbian presidential election in which he contested on behalf of the 'green party'... this i think is his most famous saying :

"An advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars, rather it's where even the rich use public transportation"

three more of his sayings :

"If you base progress on per capita income, then the developing world will not catch up with rich countries for the next three or four hundred years"[12]

"We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality."[13]

"All this (Bogotá's) pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We’re telling people, 'You are important'.

---

@Levina @Zibago @django @Hamartia Antidote @Madali

---

[1] Stirling engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Half Mile High Tower in the Desert Could Generate as Much Power as the Hoover Dam - Industry Tap

[3] Solar Wind Energy | A bold new approach to overcome the current limitations of conventional wind energy sources ( the company website )

[4] Windcatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The sports car that runs on SALTWATER: Vehicle goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.8 seconds - and has just been approved for EU roads | Daily Mail Online

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Peñalosa

 

[NP-complete]

Radiation pressure again
So radiation exerts a little pressure upon the surface on which it incidents. How much is that pressure? To get an idea think about how much light has ever pushed you ? This idea pops up time and again to put that little push by light to good use. I hope they succeed one day but look at the equation,

we get the pressure after dividing the incident energy per unit area by the speed of light!! And they want to do something with this minuscule quotient.

 

[JohnyD]

dead or alive? in one piece or pieces?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

good question and basic question.

about laser, the long post of mine has link to a usa government project ( nif ) whose goal is to achieve nuclear fusion for power generation but without including nuclear fission reaction as a catalyst... the desire here is to have practical and safe nuclear-powered electrical generation but without the huge, toxic, polluting and generally dangerous fission reactors of tradition that use fissile uranium or plutonium... we are regularly seeing the fate of the fukushima nuclear plant.

in the nif project, whose general process is called 'inertial confinement fusion' ( icf ), many big lasers are fired onto a very small hollow gold-plated metal container called hohlraum in which is sitting a tiny ball ( termed a pellet ) of fusion fuel... the fuel is mix of deuterium ( also called hydrogen-2 ) and tritium ( also called hydrogen-3 ) and are stable and safe... when hit by the lasers for the tiniest of time, the hohlraum generates x-rays in all directions i suppose but specifically the x-rays within its interior hit the tiny fusion fuel pellet and cause the pellet to compress and explode in a fusion reaction that replicates the sun's process... the nif project wants to try this experiment again and again until they have perfected it and are able to attach a water boiler ( or a gas container too, i suppose ) so that they heating of the water creates steam ( or drives the gas ) which then can turn turbines and create electricity.

you may point out that the lasers need electricity in the first place for the entire process to work... at the moment the nif project is a huge facility and the lasers need lot of electricity... what nif wishes is to get the lasers ( or redesign them i suppose ) so that they don't need lot of electricity to operate and that more electricity is generated by the system than consumed by it to operate.

perhaps a rethinking can achieve a table-top icf fusion electrical generator, maybe using laser or maybe microwave ( after all microwave also heats - we have microwave ovens )... perhaps instead of a water boiler or gas container, what could be used is a 200-year-old technique called 'sterling engine'[1], which would remove the need for a extra turbine arrangement... this is just my simplification.

about solar power, a newer idea is the 'solar wind power tower' which uses a tall and broad hollow tower and sited generally in a sun-drenched place... below is the idea and workings from a design by the company[2][3] most prominent in this research :

this is really a reworking of a ancient technique[4] used in western south asia, west asia and africa for a traditional method of air-cooling of houses and other buildings... the idea behind the technique is to use the creation of high-pressure wind due to creation of difference in heat :

the wikipedia article mentions pakistan, afghanistan and iran as having this ancient technique... perhaps you ( mentee ) and some of the other tagees have seen this.

now one side effect can be that instead of that water-using huge solar-wind tower in the desert, and the trend ( and correctly so ) towards decentralized electricity generation ( at house level or neighborhood level ), why not employ the above ancient technique with efficient turbines to generate electricity?? just a idea.

as for public transportation, we should discard the idea of personal cars and have a entirely public transport system with buses for mass-transport and all the remaining few components... and the fuel technology can be the "salt water engine" that powers the quant sportscar[5]... imagine if instead of a petrol/diesel based fuel system globally we turn to salt water which is found so plentifully on this world in the seas and oceans... the designers of this car present the car only as a demonstration of the technique and they want to create such engines, bigger, that can power ships and aeroplanes ( which you had asked about ) :




i and another member had posted about this car in a thread many months ago and some members, the usual fool bunch, were saying "oh, look up electrolyte flow" as if they had thought up of this car idea 20 years ago but didn't care to follow it despite being geniuses about it... why do some pdf members have to be so superficial, arrogant and worthless??

anyway, one person who has become famous in city design/re-design is enrique penalosa[6], a former mayor of bogota city ( capital of columbia ) and also a candidate in the 2014 columbian presidential election in which he contested on behalf of the 'green party'... this i think is his most famous saying :



three more of his sayings :



---

@Levina @Zibago @django @Hamartia Antidote @Madali

---

[1] Stirling engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Half Mile High Tower in the Desert Could Generate as Much Power as the Hoover Dam - Industry Tap

[3] Solar Wind Energy | A bold new approach to overcome the current limitations of conventional wind energy sources ( the company website )

[4] Windcatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The sports car that runs on SALTWATER: Vehicle goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.8 seconds - and has just been approved for EU roads | Daily Mail Online

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Peñalosa

Well Lockheed Martin is trying to make a fusion device that could fit in the back of a truck using lasers as the ignition source. I do wonder if once the device is disconnected from the laser's power source whether it can it be restarted on its own.

I was never a big fan of the traditional steam turbine way of generating electricity so using a Sterling engine is fine with me.

Your diagram of using subterranean routes to cool air has been gaining popularity in home cooling in the last fifteen or so years...except a liquid is used. Making the assumption that the ground below the surface is unaffected by atmospheric temperature (and stays at ~13C); water (or some liquid) is piped down to a maze of pipes to cool off and then circulated back up to exchangers that cool air pushed passed them.

As for ditching personal cars..I can see a future where cars will be so automated (and expensive) that most people will not waste money purchasing them. You will either schedule a certain place to be picked up or wait at a particular place. The vehicle will pick up others too like an elevator ride. This will be the new definition of Mass Transit.

 

[Mentee]

good question and basic question.

about laser, the long post of mine has link to a usa government project ( nif ) whose goal is to achieve nuclear fusion for power generation but without including nuclear fission reaction as a catalyst... the desire here is to have practical and safe nuclear-powered electrical generation but without the huge, toxic, polluting and generally dangerous fission reactors of tradition that use fissile uranium or plutonium... we are regularly seeing the fate of the fukushima nuclear plant.

in the nif project, whose general process is called 'inertial confinement fusion' ( icf ), many big lasers are fired onto a very small hollow gold-plated metal container called hohlraum in which is sitting a tiny ball ( termed a pellet ) of fusion fuel... the fuel is mix of deuterium ( also called hydrogen-2 ) and tritium ( also called hydrogen-3 ) and are stable and safe... when hit by the lasers for the tiniest of time, the hohlraum generates x-rays in all directions i suppose but specifically the x-rays within its interior hit the tiny fusion fuel pellet and cause the pellet to compress and explode in a fusion reaction that replicates the sun's process... the nif project wants to try this experiment again and again until they have perfected it and are able to attach a water boiler ( or a gas container too, i suppose ) so that they heating of the water creates steam ( or drives the gas ) which then can turn turbines and create electricity.

you may point out that the lasers need electricity in the first place for the entire process to work... at the moment the nif project is a huge facility and the lasers need lot of electricity... what nif wishes is to get the lasers ( or redesign them i suppose ) so that they don't need lot of electricity to operate and that more electricity is generated by the system than consumed by it to operate.

perhaps a rethinking can achieve a table-top icf fusion electrical generator, maybe using laser or maybe microwave ( after all microwave also heats - we have microwave ovens )... perhaps instead of a water boiler or gas container, what could be used is a 200-year-old technique called 'sterling engine'[1], which would remove the need for a extra turbine arrangement... this is just my simplification.

about solar power, a newer idea is the 'solar wind power tower' which uses a tall and broad hollow tower and sited generally in a sun-drenched place... below is the idea and workings from a design by the company[2][3] most prominent in this research :

this is really a reworking of a ancient technique[4] used in western south asia, west asia and africa for a traditional method of air-cooling of houses and other buildings... the idea behind the technique is to use the creation of high-pressure wind due to creation of difference in heat :

the wikipedia article mentions pakistan, afghanistan and iran as having this ancient technique... perhaps you ( mentee ) and some of the other tagees have seen this.

now one side effect can be that instead of that water-using huge solar-wind tower in the desert, and the trend ( and correctly so ) towards decentralized electricity generation ( at house level or neighborhood level ), why not employ the above ancient technique with efficient turbines to generate electricity?? just a idea.

as for public transportation, we should discard the idea of personal cars and have a entirely public transport system with buses for mass-transport and all the remaining few components... and the fuel technology can be the "salt water engine" that powers the quant sportscar[5]... imagine if instead of a petrol/diesel based fuel system globally we turn to salt water which is found so plentifully on this world in the seas and oceans... the designers of this car present the car only as a demonstration of the technique and they want to create such engines, bigger, that can power ships and aeroplanes ( which you had asked about ) :




i and another member had posted about this car in a thread many months ago and some members, the usual fool bunch, were saying "oh, look up electrolyte flow" as if they had thought up of this car idea 20 years ago but didn't care to follow it despite being geniuses about it... why do some pdf members have to be so superficial, arrogant and worthless??

anyway, one person who has become famous in city design/re-design is enrique penalosa[6], a former mayor of bogota city ( capital of columbia ) and also a candidate in the 2014 columbian presidential election in which he contested on behalf of the 'green party'... this i think is his most famous saying :



three more of his sayings :



---

@Levina @Zibago @django @Hamartia Antidote @Madali

---

[1] Stirling engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Half Mile High Tower in the Desert Could Generate as Much Power as the Hoover Dam - Industry Tap

[3] Solar Wind Energy | A bold new approach to overcome the current limitations of conventional wind energy sources ( the company website )

[4] Windcatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The sports car that runs on SALTWATER: Vehicle goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.8 seconds - and has just been approved for EU roads | Daily Mail Online

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Peñalosa

read it all, not trying to flatter you------but, you desreve a positive rating---where are all the resident think tanks of P.d.f

 

[jamahir]

Your diagram of using subterranean routes to cool air has been gaining popularity in home cooling in the last fifteen or so years...except a liquid is used. Making the assumption that the ground below the surface is unaffected by atmospheric temperature (and stays at ~13C); water (or some liquid) is piped down to a maze of pipes to cool off and then circulated back up to exchangers that cool air pushed passed them.

nice !!

many things are going back to simplicity and common sense... these things remind me of the technologies portrayed in the 'dune' books.

As for ditching personal cars..I can see a future where cars will be so automated (and expensive) that most people will not waste money purchasing them. You will either schedule a certain place to be picked up or wait at a particular place. The vehicle will pick up others too like an elevator ride. This will be the new definition of Mass Transit.

in other words, a automated minibus.

read it all, not trying to flatter you------but, you desreve a positive rating---where are all the resident think tanks of P.d.f

got one for my previous long post in previous page.

 

[Mentee]

nice !!

many things are going back to simplicity and common sense... these things remind me of the technologies portrayed in the 'dune' books.



in other words, a automated minibus.



got one for my previous long post in previous page.

BHAEA G THAT WAS YESTERDAY AJ KI BT KRO SAD HQ ETHAY RAKH

 

[Basel]

Is OP is talking about following thing?



LightSail sends back image of its giant solar sail | Daily Mail Online

LightSail Spacecraft Wakes Up Again, Deploys Solar Sail

LightSail sends back image of its giant solar sail | Daily Mail Online

 

[Indika]

we need this technology in Bangalore. hope it proves powerful enough to propel me in the traffic jam near Silk Board !

to move fast you need ideal conditions ie no traffic. In space you have no traffic.
By the time you can come to the sense of direction about one ways you will be out of bangalore.

Bangalore needs to extend the metro service.

Nah bangalore needs proper urban planning and good on road manners. In last 2 decades bangalore has gone to the dogs.

 

[jamahir]

Nah bangalore needs proper urban planning and good on road manners. In last 2 decades bangalore has gone to the dogs.

literally.

 

[Salik]

dead or alive? in one piece or pieces?

Massive body moving in light speed may not offer a safe journey. Instead we must work on beam technology to move objects far and near. We can start from single cellular objects. First we'll have to destruct and then reconstruct their nuclear structure.