p1t1o

Any links to the peer-reviewed abstracts?

Well "safe" is a fluid concept. Simply put, anything "closed cycle" is "safe" in that it wont spew particles of reactor fuel out of the exhaust (merely irradiated air is not necessarily harmful). On the other hand, even a closed-cycle gas-core engine is severely radioactive in its own right. In space, you can get away with just putting shielding between the engine and crew, on Earth perhaps not so much, and shielding is very heavy. A nuclear turbine can be closed or open cycle.

I was thinking that you'd store them under oil as well, to eliminate any further corrosion. Like how you store metallic sodium. Dont know about olive oil, mineral oil should be totally benign. Interesting article. Some stand out parts for me: I read this: "If you don’t learn anything else from this section, this rule should be it." ...in the tone of Baz Luhrmann a-la "wear sunscreen" And the hilarity (to my chemist mind) of "A weak soap (not detergent)". Detergents, surfactants and soaps are all words for the same class of chemicals. I dont really get the part where it says that its not worth cleaning badly corroded coins. Surely badly corroded coins already have little value and if you clean it, you might at least get to see more of what it actually is. Oh it does mention ultrasound cleaning - I have actually seen this work (lol a random lab-tech was cleaning her engagement ring in the lab sonicator) and it looked very effective, you could see it knocking lose tiny fragments of...whatever...from an otherwise clean-looking piece of jewellery.

Interesting. What about cleaning them under oil and storing them in the same way? Now that I think about it "cleaning them under oil" without damaging the coin might be easier said than done though.

Possible spoilers!

I think it might be more that amateur cleaning can remove material from the undamaged parts beneath the corrosion? Like cleaning your teeth with vinegar. I'd imagine that there are ways of cleaning old coins.

My favorite planet? Earth! Its waaaaaaay better than all the others are you kidding me! And we havnt even explored all of it! If we're talking KSP then I reject the planet/moon distinction and choose Mun. I like the craters, the airless low gravity and its resemblance to the Moon. Also good views of Kerbin.

Watched Annihilation the other day, yup definitely suffers from "In this world, there are no professional scientists" syndrome, but I did like its originality and its portrayal of an alien as actually *alien* - not just a human who speaks english but has a funny face - an alien with inexplicable motives and technology indistinguishable from magic. If you look at the characters as damaged people seeking some kind of enlightenment, rather than as terrible scientists, it makes more sense. Like many quasi-science-fiction movies, its more fantasy than sci-fi. Filed next to "Tron". 7/10

Depressed trajectory has advantage of short travel time, but much decreased range. You generally have to launch them from submarines off the target's coast. FOBS's advantage is coming from unexpected direction and having essentially unlimited range. Yes, today they would be detected, but that doesnt mean you suddenly have ABM interceptors in their path.

As far as Im concerned, Saturn V is *the* Space Rocket. But my personal favorite changes everytime you ask, I think I voted for solid-rocket fireworks last time around just because of their simplicity and scalability (scale one up enough and you've got a bona-fide strap-on booster or an ICBM) Today I'll go for the Soviet "FOBS" system just because they took the ICBM idea and ran with it as far as it logically could go. You gotta love weapons systems cancelled for being too potent.

Just take a look at some of the "talk" pages on wikipedia, everyone is a blasted armchair warrior these days... If you're the true admin, cant you put in some rules or temporary locks? I know on wikipedia pages can be set to "authorised changes only" (or something) when an "edit-war" takes place. Tip-Top-Tip: expect everyone on the internet to be a round-cheeked-butt, they self-select for audibility so they are over represented, if you expect them you're never surprised, shocked or blindsided. Treat them like any other troll: block&ignore. If they realllly want control of the wiki, they can go through the same channels you did. You will NEVER get everyone on the internet to like & respect you, no matter what, not even if you're Mother Pope Nobel Olympic War Veteran Firefighting Baby-Saving Hero. Haterz gone Hate (...hatehatehate shake it off, shake it off, woo-woo-hoo!)

Im not aware of any science-heavy positions, I would have thought they outsourced that kind of thing to 3rd parties, I wasnt really looking though. Either way, i was looking to the RAF for a different type of career, once that was done, I stuck to the more conventional track.

ATC also seems like a fairly engaging and interesting career, "Battle Planner" is essentially the same thing but onboard an AWACS and managing combat aircraft in-theatre. That would have been very cool. Its definitely not related to the Eustachian tubes, I can still equalise them easily, the mumps virus attacks the middle ear apparently and in severe cases can cause almost total hearing loss. Mine was far more minor, its permanent but its not noticable in day-to-day life. If Im being honest, this was picked up only about half way through the application process, so I dont know for sure that I would have gotten through selection, but thats life. Blah-blah this-and-that and now Im a scientist. Growing up I always knew "RAF pilot" was a long shot but was equally interested in science so got myself educated in that whilst applying for the other. I should have concentrated more on RAF-related things to help my application, which is what I would advise, but in the end it didnt make any difference for me.

I dont know how many people are going to watch a 20min video, what is your actual question?

It seems you keep asking "Can I do this?" or "How do I get to do that?" In all honesty, when you are young, you only have a certain amount of influence over your final career. Yes you can apply for courses and take exams and look for jobs, but in the end, certain opportunities arise, and some dont, you just have to be ready to seize the best ones when they come along. So dont worry about whether you'd make a good astronaut or if mission control is "cool enough". You think its easy to get into mission control? Whether its cool or not? These are leading-edge jobs where it is someone else who chooses you. Just work hard at the subjects you are good at, take courses in what you are interested in, keep an eye out for training opportunities or experience, and if you play your cards right, you can steer yourself towards the field that you want to work in, you can make yourself a good candidate for the types of jobs you are wondering about. THEN you might be able to make choices about what you really end up doing, you dont really make that choice *now*. If you are interested in a career in space, whether ground control or flight crew, find out what the general requirements are and fill them. Maybe you'll end up on an astronaut shortlist one day, or maybe you'll find that you have a particular skill in a related area. There are hundreds of job titles closely related to space, not just "mission control" or "astronaut". I wanted to be a pilot in the RAF, there were many things I could have done better to improve my chances (RAF cadets, flight experience, scholarship applications etc.) but I had good aptitude scores and knew my stuff. However in the end it was my hearing which got me. Contracted measles mumps at university which adversely affected my ears - its only detectable in a hearing test, but the RAF requirements are steep. See what I mean about how things happen? Frankly its lucky I didnt get halfway through pilot training only to get measles mumps then. They then offered to put me on the air traffic control or "battle planner" application tracks, but I was focused on pilot only, and was young, green and disillusioned, so didnt take them up. Wish I did because any of those careers would have been fantastic, especially compared to the mundanity of my daily life now. See what I mean about being ready to seize the best opportunities? About being open to them? Find out what qualifications/experiences are advantages in your chosen field, and try to achieve some of them. Even if you never even get to apply for your dream job (I count myself lucky that I even came as close as I did, not everyone gets to even consider their actual dream job), you will still be learning things that you are good at and that you enjoy, that [hopefully] will be useful to you down the line whatever you end up doing.

Its an exception, but the Alfa-class soviet sub (in service 1977-1996) had crews as small as 30. Large crews on modern boats I presume also has something to do with complexity of equipment and expansion of mission capability (reconnaissance, special ops, SIGINT etc.) For interest: Alfa-Class boat - 2300tons surfaced Complement - 31 Tons per crewman - 74.19

So the only thing we have to go on, are: It is a low thrust/high efficiency thruster. That somehow involves a fluid that can create "spiky" structures in a magnetic field. The fluid is not a ferrofluid. That works by using an electric charge to repel droplets/particles/ions of itself away at high speed. But isnt a colloid/electrospray thruster... Well unless someone at SciShow has made a mistake, Im stumped.

Are you sure it wasnt a ferrofluid? https://phys.org/news/2017-07-spiky-ferrofluid-thrusters-satellites.html

The magnetic fluid with the little spikes is called a "ferrofluid", its not the fluid that is magnetic here but microscopic particles of iron. I dont think it is related to Magnetohydrodynamics though, which deals more with the manipulation of fluids which themselves have electric or magnetic properties, like plasmas and other conductive fluids.

I like the way that the frame displayed on that youtube link has the nuke detonating in the centre of an already-formed circular mountain range.

How curious...what you just described was a very prominent concept during the Cold War, "Use 'em or Lose 'em." Ha! No conflict was ever won by the phrase "...will just..." You are assuming you can train bees to use a beam weapon? Well, you probably can, when I worked at Rentokill briefly, the state-of-the-art method of detecting bedbugs was trained wasps. Anyhoo, you just described a conflict almost completely dominated by arms-race dynamics, another common Cold War concept. Im beginning to think I have a valid theory To be honest, whilst this might have happened in various real scenarios, and you may be able to get away with it a few times in the heat of war, this is not exactly a tenable policy on which to build a fighting force. It demonstrates something that might prevent entirely, the rise of automated combat.

Well I may have been assuming counter-force strikes, but for some targets we can use tailored bioagents instead of nukes, no problemo.

@kerbiloid lol excellent points, here are some off-the-cuff responses: Because someone with a deathstar can win any simulation. You've never heard "No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy" before? Besides, if both sides have done this, neither side has. You know, what I was actually thinking about was friendly fire. Even if you win, who do you hang out to dry for that drone that glassed the colony on Rigel 7? *** Reasonable point, but I cant think of anything more dangerous than being a marine tasked with this. No thank you sir. *** Essentially long-range missiles? So would it follow then, that rather than resembling naval combat (which is already regarded as unlikely), a space war might resemble (tactically and strategically) more like the general nuclear exchange that was so feared during the cold war? Rather than warships manouvering for position, you have planets "manouvering" for industrial and technological capacity to nuke the other guy, the war being largely fought theoretically, before a "spasm" exchange settles the outcome: "That guy built more silos, so we will build an anti-silo weapon, except espionage leaked the plans and the enemy sees themselves as largely resistant to any military response so they take the opportunity to attack. Little do they know that you have a second delivery system which has taken the long way around to sneak through a gap in sensor coverage caused by mechanical failure, discovered by your operatives, ." Its not quite the right comparison, but that cant help but remind me of Season 1 Episode 1 of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. *** LOVE this idea. But if I got wind of it, I'd install the brain of a bee-eater bird into my ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eater