Chem rockets can't achieve the efficiency of jet engines because they carry their own fuel and oxidizer. Jets only carry fuel and thus need to propel less weight. Rockets also must generate enough thrust to support the entire vehicle weight. Jets normally fly at thrust-to-weight ratios below one, by having wings that rest on the surrounding medium (air, lift). Rockets must also propel their payloads under these conditions to ~330,000 ft. Commercial airliners reach cruising altitude at 35-40,000 ft. The climb gulps fuel, but the following cruise sips it; rockets are climbing the entire time. This is all scraped from undergrad propulsion, but I think it's right.

One solution is to combine propulsion methods, to use airbreathing propulsion for atmospheric flight and rockets beyond. This could be either a combined-cycle engine (turbine with a rocket in the spindle), or something like SpaceShipOne/White Knight, where a jet-powered platform brings a rocket-ship to altitude. Chemical rocket costs aren't just limited by rocket makers trying to maximize profits on limited launches. They're inherently less efficient than airbreathing propulsion, but aren't limited by the atmosphere.

(nt)

Did anyone else notice the story submitter's alias links to a sex toy shopping site?

It's only accepted as long as infighting between developers continues to waste energy on all sides. A war of attrition that's characterized open source for so long that no one knows any better (1984, war is peace). A "benevolent dictator" should roundup the sound guys and stop their fucking around. Mark Shuttleworth shaped Ubuntu up to be the ONLY decent desktop linux distro, Guido van Rossum made Python a uniquely usable and efficient programming language (ditching backwards compatibility with the 3.0 release), and Steve Jobs carried Apple out of the gutter. So many open source projects flounder without strong (and sometimes arbitrary appearing) direction.

Fantastic investment when the extent of enemy combatants' airpower are RPG's that can't hit anything above a few hundred feet, and much of your population has no running water.

Huh?

How many meetings do you have?
This always gets a laugh, valuable when potential engineering hires usually seem quite dry. Meetings usually waste time, and their answer will give you a better idea of how much real work you can actually achieve.

What's your relationship with academia?
This question is good if you're interested in more researchy-work, or have grad school on the horizon (or in your past). Companies that associate with universities tend to do more serious research. If you plan to attend grad school, working for a company connected with academia will get you a letter of recommendation appearing much stronger to the professors who handle PhD admissions.

Is there a dresscode?
You'll probably know the answer to this beforehand, but some companies aren't so clear. The aeronautical engineering field is generally business-casual, but I've interviewed at two aero companies where anything goes. For some people, this can be a significant workplace comfort issue and indicative of overall work environment.

How selective are you with tuition reimbursement?
Most engineering companies will compensate you for taking courses at a nearby university (or online). Some companies only pay for courses related to your work, others will let you take courses in anything. It can be a nice perk to finally take that astronomy or life drawing course you couldn't squeeze in during undergrad.

Well, I work in a team engineering environment where everyone already HAS Word and KNOWS Word, and no report is a solo effort. I can't force everyone to spend weeks learning my cool pet app/language and let other projects fall by the wayside. These people aren't programmers. I don't know, is lost productivity due to cost of switching rational enough for you? Not everyone is a contract programmer working from home, which is something a lot of Slashdotters seem to miss.

Oh, and I've run linux for seven years (Mandrake, Slackware, Gentoo, then Ubuntu), most recently for six months as my only OS - until I switched to Mac. Before OOo (which I use at home without issue), I used StarOffice in high school to write my chemistry reports. The lack of understanding from FOSS advocates, and their presumptuous attitudes impedes their attempts at inroads more than the quality of their software. New solutions MUST play nicely (more like FLAWLESSLY) with existing solutions if there's to be ANY change, unless the existing solution is obviously flawed to users. Most of the time, it isn't. Corporate inertia. It sucks, but that's the real world.

Yeah, the Ribbon is much more efficient. The key was recognizing that context-sensitive menus reduce user workload in finding what he needs. There are two approaches to displaying functions in an application to a user:

1. Assume nothing, and display all functions in lots of menus. Very simple and straightforward, but user must dig through a lot of chaff to find what he needs. Repetitive access to frequently used items becomes tedious, but everyone gets a static interface.
2. Assume some things. It's known from common sense and usability studies that most users working on Item X probably would use Tools Y and Z. Likewise, he probably wouldn't benefit from Tools A and B, so those should be tucked away. It's strange to have a dynamic interface like this, and takes some training, but when done well it streamlines function access.

#1, the static interface, is traditional. #2, the dynamic interface, is the Ribbon, but also the Mac OS top task menu, and the toolbox in the Gimp. We're less used to context-sensitive menus in word processors, but when we realize that these have become fullblown page layout and formatting packages, it makes more sense. People aren't just typing letters in word processors, but also formatting newsletters, compiling engineering reports and writing technical PhD theses (with equations, charts, tables of contents, special characters out the wazoo...). These have blossomed into powerful apps for combining and organizing text, mathematical, graphics and tabular information, far more than the typewriters they originally replaced. With that current usage, a dumb interface with forests of menus or tabs doesn't make sense and totally slows down the project. The application should, and can, take care of the user's needs a bit more, and with the Ribbon in Office 2007 it's worked splendidly.

I keep Word because I still need to format documents. Notepad isn't appropriate for a 100+ page document with a table of contents, figures, equations, tables etc. Is there a more convenient way of formatting a complex technical report that doesn't involve some kind of word processor? It doesn't matter if it's being printed, organizing such a body of work and conveying the information clearly requires more than a text editor.

Is that so? Good for him.

Ubuntu, Apple products and the Python programming language have all stood out with their exceptional usability because of their "benevolent dictators." When everything's decided by committee (even loose ones like in FOSS), every drastic but beneficial change will be pecked down by the naysayers. Something like Python 3's intentional backwards incompatibility, done for the sake of a vastly cleaner language syntax would never had made it without Guido's spearheading of the effort.

Are they actually asking for money now? I've just skimmed their site, and the closest I've found are that they let you contact them about "accessing" the technology. There's an Investor Relations page, with numbers that are four years old and that doesn't seem to be linked from the main site any more. There doesn't seem to be any clear way to join the project as an investor though. If they're trying to scam people, it's a modest effort.

My guess is that the company fervently believes they've worked out free energy, but only out of some hazy measurements that they haven't yet nailed down. They're seeing the mirage of perpetual motion in some device they can barely analyze because their equipment sucks and because they lack experience. They'll improve their instrumentation eventually, work out the kinks, and quantify that it's not outputting more energy than that input, and move on.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Until, that is, it's understood. They don't understand what they've done and haven't been able to quantify anything, they think it's something impossible (read: magic), but eventually the truth will emerge and they'll drop it.