Tommygun

Ximrm, that thing is better than any lava lamp.

I would think mounting the engine might be the biggest problem. If you can imagine placing a 100kg moist block of clay on the floor and then try pushing it across the room with a toothpick. No matter how deep or wide you make the mounts, the engine is going to sink into the Earth.

I wondering if with Majorana fermions you could get similar "benefits" of antimatter, but with a material that is safer to handle.

I have a quick question about Majorana fermions. When a Majorana fermion annihilates a fermion, does it release comparable amounts of energy like matter /antimatter? Will Majorana fermions damage other forms of matter?

Well it's not like the word comes up in everyday conversations and people who work in science or engineering should know better. Lajoswinkler, in fairness that "nucular" thing is a regional Southern accent. It's like telling some British people they are saying aluminum or scheduling wrong. I see it as nether right or wrong, it's just the way some parts of the world pronounce things.

From what I have read it's a weird American corruption of the word that started in the 19th century and just kept on going. It's not seen much outside of the US.

I thought the confusion is between Centrifical vs Centrifugal Force. Centrifical is a corruption or misspelling of the word centrifugal. I think that may have lead to more confusion that centrifugal force doesn't exist, at least in part?

That's right I had forgotten about those. .........Maybe they crap out processed fuel rods when they are done.

Theodore Gray may have a more organic solution. It's a thermal lance made from bacon and pure oxygen. http://www.popsci.com/bacon "Radiosynthesis" like photosynthesis/chemosynthesis maybe?

I can see it now Tom Cruise blowing up giant candy colored Borg cubes as the try to invade Earth. If he destroys enough of them, he gets a power up that lets him travel back in time if he later gets killed by an evil cube invader. Just fill the screen with lots of Michael Bay explosions and lasers .....

I would think trying to eject a protective cover inflight could end up hitting the rocket behind Dream Chaser. You may be better off just having the ground crew walking the runway before flight to get rid of any FOB.

I know very little about SNC vehicle. Does anyone know if SNC Dream Chaser is maneuverable enough to safely land at an international airport that are usually surrounded by a dense urban city? Lifting bodies from what I have seen are not as forgiving as something like the US shuttle and they both get one shot at landing. Unless Dream chaser has a landing engine that gives it a go around ability.

Wow, I had no idea Legos had been around that long. Well I live along the coast of California, so far every eclipses but one in the last 25 years has been blocked by coastal clouds. So will see....or not.

Have they said if this is for deep space or for orbital purposes? If it's for orbit, I hope they have a plan for "end of life" that's better than just aim it at the southern Atlantic.

I was just about to also suggest Project Longshot as a reference. It is probably one of the more realistic proposals for an interstellar mission to the Centauri system. PROJECT LONGSHOT: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Project_Longshot

Look up digital model trains and then have your wife hide your credit card and 401K password from you. Digital model railway control systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_model_railway_control_systems http://www.zimo.at/web2010/newsletters/ZIMO%20Newsletter%202011%20Januar_EN.pdf Personally I would like to see small working metal jet engine kits. Just something that works on a test stand. I have seen people make them from old soup cans and run them on propane, so a kit should be doable. Yes they would need supervision, but I had a gas powered propeller driven flying saucer like toy as a kid that could chop fingers off. You threw it into the air and it went where ever it wanted to. The 70's where a fun time for kids.

Don't the two 75kg loads normally stay in orbit?

Well good job, now looking forward to the science to come out of it.

Some kind of seismic reflection experiment could be used for the six 25kg Entry Mass Balance Devices.

I like the interior sounds.

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the atmosphere would get pulled off by the gas giant's gravity first and then Earth might be pulled apart like Comet Shoemaker Levy did by tidal forces before it even hits the gas giants atmosphere. But Earth is a lot denser than a Comet, so I'm not sure how bad it would get.

Space tornado, they could get a third Sharknado movie out of this.

Will this be the first major use of Liquefied natural gas as an engine fuel?

I'm curious, are the Monolith's proportions 1 by 4 by 9?

Would this propulsion system be a Pulsed plasma thruster or Hall effect thruster?