Hypography Science Forums: TheFaithfulStone - Viewing Profile - Hypography Science Forums

CraigD said:

Yeah, the OA part was always the sticking point for me too. I actually did a fair amount of research on this, and there were a couple of other points that made me rethink the "impossible on it's face" initial impression.

Most of the rocket scientist I know were telling me that the problem was in the power to mass ratio of the OA - that there was no way you could get enough power in a light enough frame to actually transport any payload any higher than about 180,000 ft or so, and that there was no way anything like that could get up to orbital speed.

If I had to guess, I suspect something like Buckypaper is what they have in mind for the skin of the thing. Lightweight, high tensile strength, and electrically conductive, and insulating.

I think to a certain extent they're sort of counting on "technology inflation" - wherein currently exotic things like carbon nanotubes and aerogel will be pretty common by the time they get ready to actually fly the thing. On the one hand, it's sort of bad engineering to count on advances in materials science to make your gadget work - on the other hand, it's not like the space elevator where they're saying "All we need is to achieve the absolute theoretical limit of tensile strength in CNTs and we've got ourselves a space elevator! Oh, and learn how to make a whole lot of them."

Ohhh.... can we talk about my favorite crackpot space theory?

Ladies and gentleman I give you the The Airship to Orbit (PDF Warning)

Reasons why this is right up there with giant octopi and Trunko for my all time favorite crackpot theory.

• It's WAY to dumb to actually work.
  
• It's not possible that they actually think this could work, right? I must have missed something. Because it's impossible on it's face.
  
• NO. It's totally dumb. Isn't it?

But, like most crackpot theories, there's the germ of a good idea in there. The rockoons are a (grossly inefficient, but romantic as hell) way to make rockets. It's perfectly possible to float to around 100,000 ft in a ballon, and once you're that high up, you're about 2/3 of the way to "space." (You're still well shy of orbit, but now you have a different problem.)

If I remember correctly, the idea was to paint this 8 mile long balloon lifting body with thin film solar cells and use ion engines (of some description - might have been Hall Effect thrusters, or some kind of idealized VASIMIR) to slowly, over a period of several weeks, accelerate to orbital velocity while moving upward.

Like I said, I'm 100% positive that this wouldn't work (mostly because ion engines are pretty flippin' heavy, and they produce VERY little thrust.) but it's one of my favorite goofball space theories.

Dd said:

Irony.

Ooop, there it is again.

tfs

We have consecutive term-limits for state legislators and Senators in my state, and it was the worst damn mistake we've ever made I think.

Eg: Corrupt state officials used to "sit" on their seats, and use those particular seats to work their nasty corruption - now, a corrupt senator from say.. the Northeast corner of the state needs to get elected to a wider office (like, say governor) to continue to receive his kickbacks. Furthermore, all of the people who used to hold lucrative state senate jobs now need to hold lucrative state bureaucracy jobs - so jobs like "Assistant Vice Administrator For Programs" which used to go to career technocrats or experts now go to political appointees. It also created an entire array of "charities" whose officers are made up entirely of ex-state officials, biding their time until they can either run again, or are offered a more "lucrative" state position by the next administration. After said person has finished the requisite "time out" from being a state senator, they are normally immediately elected as a state legislator (or maybe as senator again.)

In any case, the effect was that we expanded the "good ol' boy" system to include formerly "expert" positions like State Education Director.

Politicians are like zombies - they spread exponentially, and once they get their teeth into something, it's not long before it's zombified as well.

tfs

Battle School anybody?

Who else will save us from the buggers?

tfs