KerikBalm

Also(as said before, the debate is just going in circles) if it is not metastable, and you just use a super strong container... It is literally just a compressed gas rocket. There would be no need to restrict to hydrogen either. You could do a metallic helium rocket too, metallic nitrogen, etc. But the strength to mass ratios for such a tank to work would also allow suuupppeerrr light tanks for standard hydrolox rockeys, and said hydrolix rockets would then outperform the compressed gad rocket. It simply makes no sense if it is not metastable, and that is an inherent property if the material, science can't change that, and currently science strongly suggests that it posseses no such property. It. Won't. Work. Period

Not really, but he didn't say that. He made an objectively false statement instead. @Nate Simpson would you care to weigh in?

1:03:18 So the answer is that he is misinformed, trying to hide being misinformed in the past, or disregarding the truth to justify gameplay. I would have preferred if he said "yea, it seems like it can't really work... but if it could, it would be perfect for our vision of the gameplay, so we put it in anyway" But as it is, his statement was objectively false. I can only guess that he was referring to the 2017 paper. That paper used diamond anvils (as the 2019 paper did), but nowhere did they claim to demonstrate metastability. They may have synthesized metallic hydrogen, but they never made any claim to have made metastable metallic hydrogen, much less provide evidence or proof of metastability. There are only 2 options, Nate is misinformed, or intentionally making false statements because mmH would be so good for his gameplay vision. If its the 2nd option, then that is sad, because closed cycle NTRs could fill that role. While "nuclear pulse propulsion"/"Orion drives" understandable shouldn't be usable near a colony, a LV-N or any other closed cycle nuclear rocket should be usable near a colony. It was not needed for the gameplay purposes that he stated. I guess he didn't want players to have to deal with radiation for mid-level engines? Some radiation shielding would be needed, but its not like a nuclear bomb going off, and shouldn't be significantly worse to deal with than LV-Ns. @Nate Simpson You said you were expecting criticism, and you are ready to have the conservation. Well, here is that discussion, come have it, you said that you were ready and happy to have it in the podcast. We've been waiting a long time for you to weigh in on the conversation. You just said that you're ready to have the conversation. Let's have it.

I'm not saying that it is impossible, but it shouldn't be assumed. Also, said caveman saw stuff all around him/her that couldn't be explained. The stuff in the sky was basically magic lights that didn't behave like any earthly things... Now there is funky quantum stuff, and dark matter in particular that we know next to nothing about. Yet even dark matter technology, if it were to exist, wouldn't be considered magic.

I should have gone on: If you instead brought this back to more ancient times, they'd regard it as magic. In the later part of the 1890's, they started to discover x rays (didn't know what caused them, but they didn't say it was magic), radiactivity, and subatomic particles. But they'd been able to make electricity since the early 1800s (Faraday, 1830's). Show them a nuclear reactor making electricity, they'd understand it was a machine using an unknown source of heat, but not a magic machine. No more than they regarded the discovery of x rays and radioactivity as discovering "magic". Go back to ancient summeria, the first agricultural societies, and yea, they'd say it was magic. The tech would be sufficiently advanced to cause complete bewilderment of primitive societies, but not society in... say 1870. The point is not that an explanation is lacking (" technology that can’t be explained by our knowledge"), the point is that the tech would be so far advanced that we can't even be able to fathom what is going on. An 1870's engineer may look at a nuclear reactor, understand that there's some kind of heat engine driving a dynamo, but he won'd understand what all the pipers are doing, what the control rods are doing, why certain barriers are there (radiation), how various parts were manufactured, what the computerized systems are doing, or how heat was being produced. He would not be able to explain how it works - only how certain parts of it work - he would be able to see that it was however a machine working on physical principles and not magic. This is because he would at least be able to understand some principles of the machine (heat engines, and dynamos for making electricity), forming points of reference and making it is not completely foreign to him. A stone age farmer wouldn't have any point of reference, or understand any part of the machine - magic. Personally, I am not a believer in the quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Implicit in that assumption is also that there are always such large gaps in our knowledge that a very advanced tech could wouldn't have any part that we could use as a point of reference to distinguish it from magic.

The saying is "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". While it is similar to what you said, they aren't the same. You could bring a nuclear reactor back to before they discovered radioactivity or even subatomic particles, and they wouldn't have the knowledge to explain it, but they'd be able to tell it wasn't magic... they would be very very confused as to the source of the heat though, and if you weren't there to guide them, they'd be very confused as to why people got sick and died when they poked around inside it.

FTL means time travel, which would be pretty hard to do in a game. I am certain that relatively will not be modeled in KSP2, but as long as we stick to only a few percent of c, it wouldn't matter.

No, you obviously didn't go to the website that was suggested. If I may suggest tiers: * Nuclear thermal rocket: 1) Solid core, NTR (2) Pebble bed solid core (3) Liquid core (4a) gas core, closed cycle (4b) gas core, open cycle * Orion drive 1a) thermonuclear bomb, ablative pushed plate (1b) thermonuclear bomb, radiatively cooled pushed plate (2) thermonuclear bomb, magnetic sail (3) antimatter-activated thermonuclear bomb, magnetic sail * Nuclear salt water rocket: I dunno, requires the 3rd level NTR and 1st leve orion drive techs? * Nuclear Fusion, 1a) thermal rocket. An NTR that doesn't use fission, minimum engine size is huge. (2) direct drive fusion, interstellar type drive * for both nuclear fission and fusion, a nuclear-electric drive, but this would probably be implemented as a seperate engine using electricity (and xenon, hydrogen, whatevs) and a reactor (or solar panels, or RTGs, whatevs)

[snip] I did not say that they proved mh was not metastable in the 80s. I said that they disproved the only theory (well, it never really rose to the level of theory) that predicted that it would be. The two are not the same thing, and I explicitly pointed it out. So I must conclude that the most likely explanation is that you are being deliberately misleading, and are also projecting your actions onto others. From the 80's on there was no theory that predicted that it would be metastable. The proof it wasn't metastable had to wait for 2017 and 2019. That doesn't change the fact that for the last 40 years or so, there has been no prediction of substantial metastability. [snip]

The only theory predicting metastability was disproven around 40 years ago with observations that contradicted the theory. That's not the same thing as an observation that agrees with theories that predict no substantial metastability, which required making it (2017 and 2019).

You seem to be confusing 2 different papers, just because they are both from 2017. Also, the claims of production in the paper that you seem to be thinking of were not dismissed, but treated with skepticism because of perceived flaws in the way they measured the pressure (likely overestimated), and that their machine broke preventing replication. The 2019 paper actually seems to confirm the earlier report. They report formation of metallic hydrogen about 20 GPa lower than the previous paper, if I recall correctly... which actually lines up nicely with the previous report when you consider the pressures that they likely achieved (again, it is thought that they were overestimating the pressures that they achieved, and the true pressure was lower) Plus, again, no theory that is compatible with observations predicts substantial metastability. It's pseudoscience.

2020-1971 is 49 years... That model that predicted metastability also predicted formation at pressures that were easily achieved not long after. This theory has been bunk for about 40 years, but the idea that a new theory might predict the same thing is attractive, and people's wishes kept being expressed in scientific language for one reason or another, but there is no science to support it. As no-one can point to any science to support it aside from a disproven theory from nearly 50 years ago, and post promoting it should be forbidden content according to forum rule 2.2h ... Yet the ksp 2 devs have put in content that should be forbidden according to the forum rules, so I do not seriously expect rule 2.2h to be enforced in this case.

[snip] As has been repeatedly explained: 2 is exactly analogous to arguing that future technology can make water exist as a liquid in a vacuum. This is an inherent material property, and the argument is basically that we can throw out our currently established laws of physics in the future. This has been repeatedly mentioned, and public statements by Nate when asked about it indicate that this is not the case. Research of the literature yourself can also show that this cannot possibly be the case.

Generally, those sort of posts are looked down upon. If its the same request, over and over again, you'd call them a troll. Which I did for months on end, you really think that this is how conversations should go? People doing 30 seconds of "research", and then making a post that requires several minutes to refute at a minimum? Its like responding to Flat Earthers. Your failure to do the research does not obligate me to be patient with you. I can tell a flat eather that they are wrong without responding to every already disproven FE point, how many times do you explain that, no, perspective does not work that way, before you aren't willing to anymore. Does that mean FE claims should go unchallenged? Antievolution claims? etc?

Well, that's kind of my point. "People post already refuted points, again and again and again, ad nauseum ... This naturally leads to frustration, being curt with them, and flaring of tempers." I acknowledge that I was not very tactful - neither trying to be polite nor rude. Fatigue has set it, and these discussion have not been productive debate in a long time.

Well, to be fair, these discussions do get rather heated* and do go heavy into the science, so I understand why threads may be moved or closed. And the lack of contact with the community in general is not MH specific. * The reason that these discussions get heated, is because time and time again, for over a year now, people jump into a discussion without reading the previous posts, and post already refuted points, again and again and again, ad nauseum. This naturally leads to frustration, bueing curt with them, and flaring of tempers. Its hapenning again. Just look [please do not single people out for condemnation] This post above does not add anything new to the discussion, completely misses the point (as has been pointed out time and time again) - no the question is not how to get there (PS, we've gotten there), and shows an ignorance of the subject in general. I'm not going to bother typing a response to the content of that post, and will instead direct him to read the previous threads, everything in there has already been addressed, and the post ads absolutely nothing new to the discussion. excellent suggestions of other examples to use other than aether propellors and pixie farts for propulsions based on outdated theories/things that can't be 100% disproven. [please don't single people out for condemnation] No it can't. Do you want to say that a Phlogiston rocket would also work "in theory", because you apparently don't care if its an old and disproven theory? For elaboration on why "it can't", read previous posts and threads, I'm not going to go fetch all the links again or spend even more time because you couldn't do proper research. Seriously, these threads are pointless. I'd prefer that a thread is simply locked and pinned to the top so its visible. Its really just useless to have a thread that goes in circles. If I may summarize this thread: 1) Post showing why MH won't work 2) post saying "but what about A" 3) Post refuting A 4) post saying "but what about B" 5) Post refuting B 6) post saying "but what about C" 7) Post refuting C 8) post saying "but what about D" 9) Post refuting D 10) post saying "Ok, but what about A" 11) Go back to 3) Continue for page after page, month after month, and now year after year. Really, there's nothing productive happening in these threads. Pin it, Lock it, forget about KSP2 as no news has come recently, and maybe get agitated over what happened to star theory.

Yes, it was a bit tongue in cheek. I quoted someone who also seemed to think that moho is not worth visiting. I disagree with that idea, but I accepted it for the purpose of debate - if one accepts that premise, then I don't really see how adding a moon helps

On top of that, if the ballon is linked to the surface, you will be able to make use of the wind gradient to generate power. Just mount some wind turbines on the balloon. Since its not floating freely in the air, but tethered to the surface, it will experience relative wind. I just can't see exploring the surface of venus for any substantial length of time without using a balloon that gives access to the much more temperate upper atmosphere. -I still don't think there is any life there though :p

So the solution to a boring ball of rock not being worth visiting is to add smaller boring balls of rock around it?

Strictly speaking, there would be buoyancy. If the inside is 1 atm, and outside is 90+, then you will have a density difference (ignoring temp and gas composition). So I looked it up, the surface density is roughly 65 kg per cubic meter, or 6.5% the density of water. Its not huge, but its not nothing...displacing a cubic meter of venusian atmosphere gets you 65kg of buoyant force

There had been a rash of BS papers lately: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/amp34166354/black-hole-center-of-earth-fake-study/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31850126/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32996903/ Could this be one that has so far escaped notice?

That author name sounds familiar to me, I think he's some guy trying to show failures of peer review... but maybe I'm way off...

*cough* Beirut port explosion *cough* but yea, it is an uncommon event Umm, no... antigravity is just a terrible idea for lazy SF writers who don't want to think through things. What does the AG do? neutralize the effects of gravity? Great, you don't fall towards the Earth, but you also don't fall towards the sun. Your station flies off into interstellar space, and ceases to be a station about the planet. If you then say that somehow it neutralizes Earth's gravity but not the Sun's (or whatever planet/star combination you wish), then ask yourself, what happens when you need to shut it down for mainenence? what if there is a malfunction? or sabotage? A station holding place at 300km would take about 245 seconds to fall and hit the surface of the Earth if it was "stationary". That's just over 4 minutes. Even if you got it fixed in 4 minutes, then you'd need one heck of an acceleration to stop it from smashing into the Earth. A massive station that would be destroyed if a piece of equipment stops working for a few minutes is a terrible idea. If you have "antigravity", you can get your big station up, and push it into orbit, then shut your antigravity device off - much safer. Plus if you stipulate that the antigravity tech needs some expensive/exotic material/tech, then you don't need to have it on every vessel, just some sort of reusable cargo lifter.

Well my point is that there may be an energy limitation similar to the very slow growing microbes that I included a link about. If any life on Venus needs to do a lot of energy intensive reactions, despite the ample sunlight, it may end up with an energy limitation. Anyway, I consider this chemical finding to be less interesting than this other 10 year old chemical finding: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2010-190 Its interesting and deserves further investigation, but I would still bet against life.

Well, we are talking about a pressure around 1atm, so 3.5% there compared to 78% here... Dunno if that's low enough to be a problem, but yes, it would be an energy hog, lots of things for such life would be energy hogs, including producing phosphene. Its growth could be energy limited, despite the sunlight.