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dansmithers

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Posts posted by dansmithers

    The 3D printing of Lunar Base Shackelton.

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    It can make walls with lots of empty cells for insulation, prepare ways for cables and pipes, do stairs, domes, pizza ovens and all sorts of wacky shapes with no additional costs.

    Since when? In the video it lays down a 2' by 4' bead of concrete. Not exactly precise. That's what happens when you scale a 3D printer: it's either very, very slow or ridiculously imprecise.

    This idea is an outlier, anyway. Most of what I was harping on was people saying "In the future, we could 3D print airplanes/cars/guns/any device with more than 3 moving parts."

    The 3D printing of Lunar Base Shackelton.

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by dansmithers

    Actually this is far incorrect. There have been experiments done in 3D printing houses using a combination of concrete for walls/floors and metal supports for overhangs. The projections from the half scale prototypes state that you could have a two story house meant for a family of four printed out in roughly 20 hours and a full neighborhood inside of a week if you have a good alignment between your gantry rails and the road in question. The best thing about the system is that generally speaking houses of wildly different designs, but of the same volume, take almost about the same time to print. No specialized materials are needed for any given home printed by the system. The concrete used is one of the super fast curing (sp?) types which contrary to popular opinion really isn't all that much more expensive then standard foundation concrete. You go to the same plant, you just request a different mix. They WILL have the necessary ingredients because it is mostly a question of ratios rather than adding or subtracting something special.

    I have seen this project as well. How much do you think one of those printers costs? Not to mention the fact that any house printed this way still needs to be insulated, roofed, floored, have windows and doors installed, plumbed, and wired.

    I could build a wood-frame shack in 20 hours for pennies on the dollar.

    EDIT: I understand the point of using 3D printing as we use it today, I just cannot see any firm using it when humans and and tools are cheaper.

    The 3D printing of Lunar Base Shackelton.

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    On topic, I think many people believe that 3d printing is somehow "better" or "more efficient" than existing methods of building things. For the most part, its not,and I'm really starting to get sick of all the hype.

    There is a reason we do not assemble everything from Lego blocks- it's inefficent, slower, and the materials are specialized. The same arguments stand against using 3d printing in any industrial setting.

    I wonder how much Jupiter atmosphere can be penetrated?

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    Since a tokamak can function while holding multiples of a star's core inside of itself, would it be possible, theoretically, to have something working on the same principle that can hold extreme heat/ pressure (such as Jupiter) on the outside?

    The plasma inside a tokomak is held in place by a magnetic field. Since the gas inside the reactor is ionized, this is easy. The atmosphere of Jupiter, by contrast is not (as far as we know) a plasma at these altitudes/pressures. In addition,such devices usually cannot operate without some leakage

    Centrifugal Force Question

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by dansmithers

    You don't have enough information there, unless you know something about the forces involved. For instance, put a ball on the end of a string and you can spin it around at arbitrary angular velocity (limited by gravity and the tensile strength of the string.)

    Ah-I thought that was all I needed. What would you need to calculate that?

    EDIT: Thanks Lajo!

    Could mars be habitable due to terraforming?

    in The Lounge

    Posted

    As far as your example off the EDF "terraforming" Mars:

    That was the earliest stage of terraforming (breathable{?} air) and it took 45 years at least. And Mars is still quite cold and mostly uninhabited (not to mention there is no plant life)

    As far as everything else:

    Mars has a supply of greenhouse gasses built in, but frozen. It's like a frozen pizza, except instead of "nuking" in the microwave, you actually drop a nuclear bomb on it.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Wwiii

    in The Lounge

    Posted

    @Rjhere: Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your viewpoint,) North Korea can't even feed its own population (causing mass famine.) Its kind of hard to start a war if your population is hunting/ farming for sustenance,

    Its kind of hard to start a war if your population is hunting/ farming for sustenance,

    your population is hunting/ farming for sustenance,

    farming for sustenance,

    But hat's what LITERALLY EVERY COUNTRY EVER does

    Energy converstations/theories

    in The Lounge

    Posted

    In a capitalist world, the standard environmentalist spiel of "be more efficient, and there'll be plenty to go around" just doesn't go. We are the consumers; we consume energy. The supplier does not tell us how much to consume, he adapts to our whims if he wants to survive.

    For this reason, I support clean coal, advanced nuclear fission, and carbon capture.

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