78stonewobble

Denmark has for many years now had an excess production of windenergy, considering that we still have to have our coal and / or gas power plants running to guarantee stability. Quite often we have had to sell that surplus energy, when prices were low. On the other hand we have had to buy energy, when prices were high. Also it is very likely that whenever Denmark needs extra electricity, so will Norway and Sweden. They are geographically very close together. Denmark also have enough problems keeping industry and business, that I don't really think industrial brownouts will turn out to be popular. ... In regards to nuclear waste being a "big" problem... It is, if you lick it, put it in your food or blow it up into the air. As long as you don't do that... It is a very small problem indeed. If I remember correctly the amount of global nuclear waste would just about cover an american football field, with the long lasting waste being a small percentage of that... For comparison... there was 174,000,000 tonnes of asbestos produced during the 20th century, ie. killing more people in the UK than all types of traffic and transport accidents combined in 2011 (nigh chernobyl sized death rate). ... I made a quick calculation of the cost of supplying the worlds electrical demand with solar energy, 11,100,000,000,000,000 $ was the result I arrived at. I also made a quick calculation of comparing the worlds largest windfarm (chinese) with a relatively recent japanese nuclear power plant and presumably you can get about 6.5 times as much energy for the same amount of money. ... Also consider that the worlds electrical consumption will have to be doubled or tripled in the future partially to reduce our dependence on oil, which will run out at some point, but also to allow for the rest of the world to live as ... well us rich people do. I'm partial to allow the third world atleast a 100 years with cheap ass polluting coal just for the sake of fairness. ... All in all... Major quick reorganization of the worlds power infrastructure is a pipedream. More so if it's based on megaproject scale renewable energy. For irrational reasons and fear (a phobia?) we rejected nuclear energy, when we had the time to change things and killed 125 million people (or will kill, no matter what we do, even if we changed it all tomorrow). As things is... we might as well roll with the punches and wait til we have fusion power.

Or possibly "real" particles that get in the way as well?

Wasn't that more of an american political decision? Tho understandable.

Come on guys ... be realistic ... There isn't enough marshmallows to roast for that...

It depends on a few other things too... If you have a small screen, you could get away with something less than a 760 or possibly just don't quite care as much about maxing games out. If you have a large very high resolution, you might need more than a 760. If you heavily mod the games you might also need a bigger card.

Hmm, personally I would say that sailing exploration and exploration in general are in fact comparable in terms of the psychological impact of isolation, stress and risk and the willingness to accept risk from the beginning. It's not as applicaple in terms of ressource calculations and so on...

Well perhaps I've missed it, but I haven't really seen any comprehensive "survey" of either brands: driver support, error rates, performance, cost, consumer satisfaction and so on. Without that I'd say for the casual user either is probably equally good. If you then have specific needs... in a certain game or games or applications, then you need to look up benchmarks in those areas.

I don't know how scientifically correct this site/blog is, but there are some thoughts and ideas on alternate solar systems, ours and others. http://planetplanet.net/2014/05/13/building-the-ultimate-solar-system/

And partial reuseability did what, for the spaceshuttle? I think it might have been upto 30 percent more expensive per kg. to leo than the throwaway specialized rocket it replaced.

Again, 1 test and 2 satellites, which presumably are standard satellites, which might not really need the falcon heavy. Yeah and someone thought radioactive toothpaste was a good idea.

Interesting question. I've allways found it fascinating how much mass affect the lifetime and luminosity of stars. Red dwarves that can supposedly live up to a trillion years for a star with 20 percent of the solar mass of the sun(well 560 billion years according to the link below). Possibly up to 10 trillion years for a borderline star at 7,5 percent of the suns mass. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/M/Main+Sequence+Lifetime ... Makes me ponder how long R136a1, supposedly the most massive known star at 265 solar masses, has before something interesting happens. It might allready have had it's lifetime extended by merging with other stars, since supposedly stars heavier than 150 solar masses cannot form by regular gravitational collapse of a gascloud. Well it's off topic anyway

How big, how dumb and how many? Well, my personal guess is as big as you can reasonably make an engine and rocket body and ensure a reasonable quality, while still being able to mass produce (really churn them out like liberty ships).

Not guaranteed to launch this year as far as I can see. I expect to see a market for 50 tonne payloads, to merit a 50 tonne payload rocket. ... I am hoping that spacex becomes a successfull company and hope they successfully develop whatever they want to, but I think it would be naive to believe them able to revolutionize access to space. For that to happen, a government or governments would have to genuinely pledge themselves to regular scheduled launches of a yearly massive payload amount for the forseeable future, meaning decades. So companies can build a rocket building infrastructure the size of ie. the worlds ship, car or aircraft manufacturing capacity. Then and after that... companies can expand into space themselves.

Still, the idea of an object "grazing" the roche limit... is rather interesting

Theoretically "you" should be able to enter the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, since... to quote from wiki: It doesn't solve any of the other questions tho... Atleast it wasn't brown dwarves... Derp...

Nice links and pictures. Thanks

3 launches planned as far as I can see. 1 demo launch and 2 satellites, which could presumably have been launched on existing rockets. Not really seeing the need and not really seeing how mass production economy can come in, other than needing 81 engines (produced or refurbished).

Can it fly (is it technically possible)? Probably. Will it fly (is it practically possible)? Probably not for the forseeable future, beyond tests. There is NO market demand for satellites in that weight category, there is no sightseeing tourism passenger capsule, there is no space hotel to go to, there is no advanced nearly done science missions that require it, there is no asteroid mining, no moon base to support and so on. It will probably only fly often and seriously, if the US/NASA and / or Europe/ESA decides to put something big into space, and that takes time to build.

o.O Atleast in star wars, I'd presume the wings are also there, because ie. fighters are also for atmospheric use. Atleast partial reason. ... Half a question... Isn't part of the reason for wings on real life atmospheric reentry vehicles, in addition to better gliding capabilities, a bigger bring back capability?

A thin plastic envelope to hold people and equipment flung around quickly enough to simulate a sizable amount of gravity on a body that has gravity? o.O I think i've heard of this... It's a rollercoaster.

I was thinking more like an artists impression. To quote from wikipedia:

You could equally ask, whats the public satellite demand, for the falcon heavy?

Ah, thank you for the reply. Actually would be kinda interesting to know, why the embryos have difficulty developing. Regarding the 250 mile high club. Don't we have an entire profession of people doing it under stressfull cameras and with little to no emotional involvement? *lol* Does give an entirely new meaning to the expression the right stuff... doesn't it? Yes, the above was meant both seriously and with humor... It is a somewhat hard subject to take seriously without some puns. - - - Updated - - - I don't think people are saying Mars would be best place, that would probably be some billionaires villa, but more of a discussion on whether it's within the realm of utterly impossible, technically possible, economically impossible and so on. So far I'm personally leaning towards technically possible. A more feasible start would probably a, just large enough to simulate gravity and possibly naturally reusing all ressources, spacestation. Aka. a bigger, actually functioning, biosphere 2 in a rotating spacestation.

Soo.. whats the reason we haven't done any human artificial insemination tests in space? Or let a few happy couples join the ... uhm... 250 mile high club for science?

And "Joe the Plumber" benefits from those. Free to stop using refrigerated foods, antibiotics, electricity, computers and what not that science has given him. Certainly the average person is intelligent enough to recognize that science has meant an incredible improvement in lifespan and quality of life. The average joe, doesn't need to be interested or knowledgable in sciences, beyond that... It's an investment like so many others.