Green Baron

A lot of even basic questions are open, technology to be yet invented, until artificial fusion for energy comes into being. It can't be compared to a relatively "simple" thing like a rocket where the fundamental science is clear. In a (printed) interview i read lately, project scientists expressed the opinion that it will still take decades until fusion is a thing, maybe >2050 until the first reactor is making watts. More money will likely not accelerate things at this stage. Iter is doing progress now since 2015, when the heads were exchanged www.iter.org . The very high complexity has slowed iter's progress in the past, and the construction of the "blanket" that covers the inner part of the reactor from the plasma is still making "theoretic" trouble. The Wendelstein design is a test carrier, not meant to go productive. It has shown that it is indeed possible to confine a high temp/pressure plasma and do things. A Chinese team is proposing a machine that could be started earlier (CFETR), but needs additional heating in comparison the self sustained plasma in the other designs. The American proposed SPARC project is seen as a slight overstatement in the scientific community, from what i read. The effects of high temperature superconductivity may be overrated at the current stage of knowledge. The CFR project, proposed by Lockheed Martin, lacks a factual basis (yet). The highest chance of success could probably result from an ITER/CFETR collaboration, but we may know more in 15 years or so :-) The Chinese CFETR may be the first that pushes watts into the cables. In principle Stellarators (Wendelstein) and Tokamaks (Iter, cfetr) are seen as the most promising designs. So much to the luddite.

And the one below me will do that "giant leap" thing :-) Who's fastest ?

The high speed ferry "Benchijigua Express" between Tenerife and La Palma tried to make fast in the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma last night, but had to turn back to the open sea because of wind and wave. Both stood right into the harbour entrance and prevented safe maneouvering. Passengers and Crew spent the Christmas night on the sea. https://elapuron.com/noticias/sociedad/121742/los-pasajeros-fred-olsen-pasan-la-nochebuena-bordo-al-no-poder-atracar-la-palma/ The ship was able to berth this morning.

I cannot exclude a meteorite and i do not pretend to be right, but that doesn't look like a blast from an impact to me, just like a ubiquitous landslide, maybe triggered by frost (speculation). Some plants are still upright, just displaced on a piece of soil, a typical picture, nothing seems to be visibly broken or torn from an atmospheric blast. Also, there seems to be a visible surface exposed that could speculatively be interpreted as the boundary at which the mobilization took place. But i should never judge geology from afar or even from a picture, i was once told :-) There is some probability that, if it really was an impact or blast of sorts, there could be satellite data about the atmospheric path or a plume of a stratospheric explosion somewhere.

Oh, somehow good feeling to see it happening to the cracks too

That's harsh for private people. Hope you get out cheaply.

.... and count to 1063.

That is very annoying indeed. But why do courts accept suits without merit ? I think (but don't know exactly) that courts in Germany first check if a suit has any chance and is somehow founded before accepting it for trial ...

One would have to go deep to bore any more tunnels under European Cities for example. And the way to the surface is blocked by water-, waste-, power-, district-heating-lines, subways, tunnels, buildings, crossings, maintenance etc, in short, what makes up a city. The speeds he wants to achieve are impractical for the short distances in those cities. You'll clutch to a handrail even while a subway accelerates to ~50-60km/h. For a more distributed city or his personal way from home to office it may be ok, but not for modern day mass transportation of 40,000persons/hour/line/direction and stops every few hundred meters.

(65 is the class)

Thanks :-) ... and it is a prime factor of 2018.

Yet another modelling of the Chicxulub impact, right in time for christmas. link and link tl, dr: big boom and splash. I wouldn't take the play with numbers too serious until real world sediments are found for confirmation.

Fusion drives are better but >>30 years away.

The hunt for easter eggs brings me back to the game from time to time :-) Do you know the mods ScanSat and eventually a waypoint manager ? They can help you finding these anomalies through "in game research" if you like it that way. Edit. Oh, i didn't know there are no mods for console ... sorry.

Absolutely ! With a geoscience background, I am really looking forward to sending real people to places. Probes are nice for collecting basic data for interpretation but can by no means replace well equipped and prepared human specialists. For Mars for example i actually think that chemical rockets with their high thrust are the better choice, because they minimize travel and so exposure time as well as time in microgravity for the crew in comparison to low thrust nuclear rockets, and so minimize the health risks. But i don't see people flying to Mars in the next 2 decades, maybe longer. And by then things may look different.

Who is the first to fail to resist the urge to tread on it and disturb the maybe billion year old surface ?

It wasn't meant as a challenge initially, just as a "lure" for the colleagues who asked lately "how do i start coding". Nice to see you guys biting :-)

I'd say, apart from the 3-4 real big ones and dropping of bombs, nuclear accidents don't actually leave much of a visible trace. Additionally waste disposal, civil reactors and connected material, military equipment and other radiating stuff will still be a problem in a long time, when humans will not be there any more. The technology is too difficult to handle technically and socially and meanwhile simply outdated imo, can be easily replaced by renewable energy on earth if there was the will. A common effect that can be observed in everything that is hard to quantify or touches politics/lobbyism, that cemented opinions remain, well, that :-) I must admit, when i was younger i found all that stuff much more fascinating than today. As a student i worked for a heat treatment company between semesters and i have seen how safety is interpreted when it comes to time and money. ----------- If i get it right, the main reasons why NTRs aren't in use now are probably political/social, technological progress since then may also play a role. For now, there is no need to develop an updated version as nobody is going past LEO any time soon and chemical launchers with the necessary oomph are on the horizon and can be realized for much less and in a much shorter time, if development isn't completely messed up. Also, for those who like to colonize, i find the research of other subjects much more pressing than power conversion, like nutrition, health, raw materials, maintenance, shielding, blabla. All subjects that lack a solution much more than propulsion or energy supply, or not ?

Idk, maybe there is a contribution. Apart from that, afaik, discussed sources are comets, asteroids, shattered moons, this sort of things. Edit: the paper is open. Maybe you can find a reference that sheds light on the ring formation processes and make us clever :-) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103518302999?via%3Dihub

Saturn's Rings might be gone in 100 to 300 million years. They are "raining down" on Saturn's equator. link It also has implications on their history, they must have formed long after the planet, maybe through a "dramatic" event or events, and they were much larger and brighter before our time.

A quick paint over ... see ... ready ... :-)

You keep saying that, but in my opinion it is not true. Solar panels can generate similar power/mass at Mars, last longer, need less maintenance, and do not leave a poisonous heritage for billions of years (43kg U235/unit: 700My halflife). If you say manned missions then there are the ones who clean them (should it be necessary at all and if it can't be done constructively). In my opinion this is rather a political decision then a technlogical one. And, btw. solar panels are fabricated fully automated. Do more solar panel workers die in parking lots than others ? If there is anything to that argumentation "people die everywhere" this must be case.

Already included. Lifetime in LEO of solar power units (>20 years) is up to multiple times of e.g. a kilopower unit ("10 years or more").

Yes, dusting them is the only periodic (once a year here) maintenance they need. Which could be partly achieved with a repellent surface and electrostatic.