How exactly are radiators that can radiate tens to hundreds of kilowatts per square meter supposed to be mass-prohibitive but solar panels that generate a couple hundred watts at best per square meter not mass-prohibitive? Okay, they're not exactly the same, solar cells are inherently going to be heavier than whatever minimum thin aluminum sheeting is needed for radiating, but the heat pipes leading up to it will be heavier than solar power booms... regardless, I can't see how solar wins this competition.

I assume because sunlight is only 1kW/m at Earth, less at Mars, and of that you only capture a few hundred watts (using very good, ridiculously-expensive spectrolab cells, otherwise only 150-200W or so, assuming full coverage), and space-borne solar panel booms aren't as light as one would desire? If you envision thermal radiators in place of solar panel booms, which can radiate a *lot* more heat per square meter than the couple hundred watts of a solar panel boom, then you can see how a nuclear reactor has the potential to have a much better power/mass ratio where cooling is the reactor's limiting factor (which in most cases it's expected to be)

My personal "dream rocket" is to combine a dusty fission fragment rocket with the nuclear lightbulb concept. You have a subcritical fast dusty core which achieves criticality via a spallation neutron source rather than a moderator, using a compact linear accelerator powered by the reactor's fragment deceleration grids (no Carnot losses). The core radiates intensely in the mid-IR range. The core is suspended electrostatically in a fused silica chamber, which while it will steadily blacken in the visible from neutron radiation, is resistant to blackening in the infrared, and can tolerate quite high temperatures. Outside of the core are mirrored aluminum walls. The particles of nuclear fuel in the core being a fine dust, their ability to radiate quickly is extreme; if the process is designed suchly that they tend to radiate and absorb in different bands (a strong reverse greenhouse effect) then you can have ridiculous optical power output despite the radiative temperature only being in the infrared.

Such a craft could operate in several different modes.

1) Clean airbreathing: Air is shunted into the engine between the transparent chamber and the reflector. "Starter" microwave beams (powered by the deceleration grids) help ionize a thin sheath of air to plasma, making it more opaque to IR, allowing it to heat even more, generate even more plasma, absorb even more IR, and so forth. The superheated air exits out the rocket nozzle.

2) Rocket: Hydrogen or other fuel is shunted in instead of air; otherwise, the process is exactly the same. #1 and #2 can be hybridized, and also get a little more boost from any combustion that occurs in the process.

3) VASIMR-like: Only a low flow rate of fuel is injected. The low flow rate and high degree of ionization allow it to reach a much higher temperature and be directed out of a magnetic nozzle rather than being in contact with the physical nozzle.

4) Fission fragment rocket: The bottom of the core is opened up and fission fragments leave the rocket freely. This is of course dirty and low thrust, and would only be useful in space, but would yield absurdly high ISP while still achieving thrust levels comparable to today's ion engines.

5) Photonic rocket: If you want to go really extreme, you could simply just radiate the intense IR beam from your core running as hot as you can get it without melting the silica chamber or mirrored reflector. But I'm not sure if you'd actually get better performance, as you wouldn't be tossing your waste (thus lightening up the craft), and 3/4ths of the energy is already in the fission fragments. On the other hand, if you're willing to accept even less thrust, the simple decay of any short-lived isotopes inside the core will provide some thermal output even when your reactor is not engaged.

Another neat part of this is that being a fast reactor, it could breed its own fuel. So mined natural offworld uranium or thorium could be purified and milled into appropriate dust and then injected into the reactor; with time it'd breed into the fuel needed to power the craft. No need for offworld centrifuges or anything like that. Another capability would be to work around the anti-nuclear crowd on launches: if you face too much opposition you could launch your craft loaded non-fissile fuel, just natural uranium or thorium, and then mount it to a (very) large space-borne solar power source. You could then breed your fuel in space using the craft's linear accelerator. Of course, it'd be far better to just load it with fissile fuel on earth and then ascend in airbreathing mode.

A fission fragment reactor is expected to produce no waste when operating in fragment rocket mode excepting what fragments you decelerate for power generation. When operating as a closed system (with all fragments decelerated), the waste will still be low, as with any fast reactor, assuming that fragments are decelerated in an area well exposed to the core's neutron flux.

This is not the only "nuclear lightbulb" concept, but it avoids the problems with all of the others. It uses a practical, proven way to keep the fuel from contacting the "bulb" (electrostatically repelled dust) rather than a lot of hand-waving, and neutron blackening is not a problem due to the use of IR rather than visible or UV light. Dusty fission fragment reactors have been researched and simulated; however, that which was simulated was a slow reactor with a water moderator, not a fast subcritical reactor. So I can't say how well that aspect would play out. Also I've done no simulations on the rate of absorption of air or various fuels to absorb the IR on their way out of the rocket. I have little doubt that some configuration would work in that regard, but it's not something I've calculated out.

Not true. Look up MPD thrusters. The thrust to weight ratios are incredible, the only limiting factors are cooling rate and power supply. If we're proposing an "infinitely powerful battery", then that takes care of the bigger challenge. A MPD thruster with such a battery and, say, an isotopically pure diamond radiator, could conceivably lift off from the surface of a planet.

Considering that nuclear power is the safest form of power the world has ever known, I'd say it's worthy of recognition for offsetting carbon more than anything else. To borrow a phrase, "It's the energy density, stupid."

There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.

In fact all forces should get weaker with distance faster in an expanding space than in flat space.

That seems like quite an assumption on your part, if I'm understanding you correctly. We can't just assume that all properties of spacetime are scaling evenly - if they did, then we'd perceive no effect at all.

But perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

Some pilots would probably still want the ability to override the limits in an emergency if they feel that they can handle the situation better than the autopilot (for example, if the plane is crashing and the pilot wants better control over where/how to bring it down). If so, then you should make it a possibility to disable the limits, have it such that only *ground* can disable the limits. This would of course impose a delay, but at least overriding the limits would remain a possibility.

Of course, a pilot may try to trick ground into disabling limits (such as pretending to be going down or pretending to have a malfunction), so ground would need as much data as possible to assess whether the situation is legit. Might be tricky... best would be to err on the side of caution and only remove limits if everyone is absolutely sure that this is appropriate, if there's any doubt the answer should be "no".

Not today. But maybe in the future. If you can develop a crazy-power-dense energy source and cooling system, you could probably do it with a MPD thruster. The research I've seen on MPD thrusters operating in pulsed mode yields crazy output relative to the mass of the thruster. But you can't run it continuously because it'd overhead and take way too much power. But who knows about the future? There's the potential for extreme heat conductors like isotopically pure diamond, maybe a some kind of fission fragment reactor with a deceleration grid for power...

(of course, if you have a fission fragment reactor, at least when you're in space itd be best just to jet your fragments rather than use them to power a MPD thruster...)

I hope they simulate propane too, not just methane. Propane has some really interesting properties as rocket fuel but have (like methane) never gotten much research. But now there's a big rush to research methane as fuel based on the concept of generating it on Mars - so propane still gets left in the dark.

Methane's ISP is only very slightly better than propane's - 364,6 vs. 368,3 at a 100:1 expansion into vacuum and 20MPa chamber pressure. But propane at around 100K (note: not at its boiling point, 230K) has far higher density (782 kg/m^3), closer to that of room temperature RP-1 (820 kg/m) then that of boiling point methane (423 kg/m^3), which reduces tankage mass and cost. 100K propane's ISP is of course better than RP-1's 354.6 in the same conditions as above. Plus, its temperature is similar enough to your LOX that they can share a common bulkhead, which reduces mass further and simplifies construction.

Hydrogen generally is the easiest fuel to synthesize offworld. Methane is generally second, and propane third. Hydrogen is often rejected as a martian fuel because of the tankage and cooling requirements. Methane can be kept as liquid on Mars with little cooling in properly designed reflective / insulated containers - but so can 100K propane, in similar conditions, but with significantly smaller tankage requirements.

It seriously warrants more research, I tell you what.

Wait until the SCOTUS tells states that immigration enforcement is a federal matter, and that states therefore cannot prevent illegal immigrants from voting or holding elected office. That's basically your joke come true.

Electric heaters are 100% efficient.

Heat pumps give you around 300-500% of the input electrical energy.

"We are pleased Roscomos wants to continue full use of the International Space Station through 2024 -- a priority of ours -- and expressed interest in continuing international cooperation for human space exploration beyond that. The United States is planning to lead a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, and we have advanced that effort farther than at any point in NASA's history. We welcome international support for this ambitious undertaking.

Yeah, that's basically "Go F* yourselves" in diplomatic speech.

And as it should be.

It's very inefficient to turn electricity into heat directly. If you wanted heating you'd be better off using a heat pump or other indirect means.

I think i can shed light on this subject, having several years experience in this field. New programmers and seasoned alike often make this mistake, either through carelessness or ignorance. When working to write good code, you must make sure to set good="yes" or good="veryyes." ive written code for 20 years now and this has only ever failed me in PHP. Apparently the language does not support "good" code.

Don't forget to check $_GOOD correctly.
You have to evaluate "veryyes" == $_GOOD like this:
if (("veryyes" == $_GOOD) !== false) {...}
otherwise
$_GOOD = "kindaSoSo" and $_GOOD = "sortaOk" will both cause "veryyes" == $_GOOD to evaluate to true. ... Gotta know your PHP. :-P

Sorry to the 90% U.S.ians here on /. for my upcoming rant, but bear with me please:

WTF? I mean, seriously, WTF??? Who in hell would think that what the world needs now is a small concealable commercially available *FLAMETHROWER* ?!??. This is so bizarly US american, words fail me.

When's the first one going to run amok with one of these? Who's gonna pay the medical bill of the first rampage victims with 80% burnt skin for life? The people who built this thing? ... I hope as soon as the first one falls victim to one of these, that these people get sued into next wednesday big-time USA style. Better would be they'd abandon the project alltogether.

Does anybody here know what a gastly cruel final effort weapon this is? Seriously folks. Even as a military weapon Flamethrowers are about as wicked as it can get - even hardboiled hardcore SS members would instantly surrender at the mere sight of the "Churchill Corcodile", a british tank with a flamethrower attached. Which shows they actually can, in rare cases, have a 'use' - if I may use this notably unfitting verb in this context - as a last ditch (no pun intended) effort in marginal scenarios, such as finally and once and for all bringing down a totalitarian regime bent on ruling the planet by ethnic cleansing and such. And communicating to members of such a regime that you're effing serious and now won't stop short of total surrender.

But a commercially available flamethrower for "normal" people? "normal" in double quotes(!!). Jebus H.B. Crickey, this is so sick words fail me. However, this guy pretty much puts the finger on the insanity.

My 2 cents.