Shpaget

Can't blame me for trying to nick it, can you? XD

What end? It's a ring. Gravity always pulls towards the center of the planet (and the ring).

Gravity pulls down, not sideways.

What is spinning this generator?

And what mechanism do you propose that would extract it / convert to something that can be turned into something useful?

The video is a mashup, not chronological and some cuts are even mirrored, so all bets are off concerning the realism. That being said, I haven't noticed the inconsistencies in the wheel turning direction. Care to point out the time stamp?

But that's not Mars.

If that fails, you may want to look into higher powered LEDs. Ebay is full of 3W, 5W and 10W ones. Or if you feel a bit more adventurous, there are those tritium glow sticks.

No multimeter is able to measure transient current in sub millisecond period. Even if it was, humans can't read it. But, since you say you have a scope, you can measure the voltage drop across a series resistor and calculate the current that way. Keep in mind that repetitive high current can slowly degrade the LED and destroy it after a while. It mey survive your testing, only to die on you the next day.

I don't remember us ever having a serious discussion about the issues of heating on Mars. We did have multiple discussion about the issues of cooling down and getting rid of excess heat regarding satellites and probes (not to mention all the space warfare stuff).

The smallest engine put in a manned aircraft that I know of would be the 18 hp one in Burt Rutan's weird looking (which design by Rutan is not weird??) Quickie. Your 21,8 hp engine is cutting close, unless you have a very lightweight airframe. Quickie is only around 110 kg empty.

Keep in mind that these LEDs have a wide viewing angle, meaning, meaning their effective range as a flashlight will be limited. Unless you populate entire rim of the glasses with them, I doubt you will get any usable light for outdoor illumination. They may be usable for desk work, if that's your thing. However, unless you shield your eyes from them, they will shine into your eyes making it much harder to see the less illuminated areas. Sure you can overdrive LEDs, keep the pulses short and check the datasheet for how hard you can overdrive them. If you are talking about 5mm LEDs, 1 A is probably too much. For example, this LED has absolute maximum rating for continuous current of 25 mA and peak current of 100 mA for 10% duty cycle and <0,1 ms pulse width. Forgot to mention, be careful with UV.

You still haven't told us what you want those LEDs to do.

But when beta particles slam into shielding they generate gamma rays.

Any more guesses regarding the short launch window? IIRC, CRS-7 (the one that blew up while carrying the docking adaptor to the ISS) also had instantaneous launch window.

Sure, Jupiter is a lot smaller than a generic star, but it's also a lot closer to Kuiper belt, not to mention the main belt. If they come too close to one of the stars, they could get perturbed. It really depends on the distance between the stars. There are some really funky orbits out there, one example of them being out close neighbor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(469219)_2016_HO3

In contact binary, and even a few AU separated stars, wouldn't the gravitational pull be the same as with a single star of equivalent mass at the barycenter? At the Oort cloud distances, tidal forces would be negligible, just like in our system the presence of Jupiter does not interfere with the formation of Oort cloud, or even Kuiper belt.

Non sequitur? Anyway,I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned already. https://youtu.be/KKdzhPiOqqg And a bit more about it by Dave from EEVBlog https://youtu.be/yNQCaSNIrEM?t=15m27s

The barge doesn't move a lot relative to the launch site. And is powered and maneouverable and the booster has guidance. The explanation is not satisfactory.

What's the deal with the instantaneous launch window? Those ten sats are bunched up after separation and each has to adjust its own orbit anyway. Is it due to plane change caused by Earth's rotation? But, even in the worst case scenario - polar orbit (which happens to be the case with Iridium NEXT) the change in plane is only 0,25° per minute, surely they can manage such plane change.

Without going into your calculation, since you haven't provided it, unless you plan on forcing your colonists to haul all that stuff by hand, the difference in weight is irrelevant. The mass is the same on Mars, Earth and in space, and for space travel, mass is all that matters, not weight.

If you have the go ahead from your boss, go to the IT department (I mean physically walk over there) with the list of sites you need and don't leave until they have whitelisted them. It's a 10 minute job, they can afford it, especially if you have already made the request multiple times and they haven't acted on it.

Guess he's a huge fan of Kim Stanley Robinson.

We can call it VIP - Venus Ice age Prevention and pitch it as a planetary rescue project. The greenies will love it.

As if mining wasn't a problem in itself. How do you propose to get rid of all the acid? There is not enough of baking soda in the world