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Carbon-free fusion power could be ‘on the grid in 15 years’

Asbo Zaprudder said:
I think 7,900 fps is the escape velocity not the orbital velocity, which is about 5,600 fps. One metre is about 3.28 feet and the Moon's escape velocity is 2,380 m/s or about 7,900 fps. Close orbital velocity is about 1/√2 or 0.707 of escape velocity from the same distance from the centre of mass. 0.707 times 7,900 fps is roughly 5,600 fps (1,680 m/s). I believe current railguns can accelerate projectiles to more than 10,000 fps (3,000 m/s) - at least according to Wikipedia anyway. So it's potentially doable although any humans accelerated too quickly that way would look like strawberry jam at the end.
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With croutons
 
Asbo Zaprudder said:
I think 7,900 fps is the escape velocity not the orbital velocity, which is about 5,600 fps. One metre is about 3.28 feet and the Moon's escape velocity is 2,380 m/s or about 7,900 fps. Close orbital velocity is about 1/√2 or 0.707 of escape velocity from the same distance from the centre of mass. 0.707 times 7,900 fps is roughly 5,600 fps (1,680 m/s). I believe current railguns can accelerate projectiles to more than 10,000 fps (3,000 m/s) - at least according to Wikipedia anyway. So it's potentially doable although any humans accelerated too quickly that way would look like strawberry jam at the end.
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Hmmmm...strawberry jam...yum!
 
Roko's Basilisk said:
I think 7,900 fps is the escape velocity not the orbital velocity, which is about 5,600 fps. One metre is about 3.28 feet and the Moon's escape velocity is 2,380 m/s or about 7,900 fps. Close orbital velocity is about 1/√2 or 0.707 of escape velocity from the same distance from the centre of mass. 0.707 times 7,900 fps is roughly 5,600 fps (1,680 m/s). I believe current railguns can accelerate projectiles to more than 10,000 fps (3,000 m/s) - at least according to Wikipedia anyway. So it's potentially doable although any humans accelerated too quickly that way would look like strawberry jam at the end.
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There are some Howitzer sabot rounds that have a muzzle velocity of 5000fps. I wonder if they'd be able to hit that velocity with a vacuum barrel. You'd still need to circularize the orbit so shooting lunar material into orbit is in at least some useful catcher orbit. I don't think the rail gun or Big Bertha idea would be useful for launching people from the moon, but if you needed to get regolith to orbit for processing materials like silicon and titanium, it might be worth it. The downside to the cannon is that it's going to require shells and propellant that you don't actually have on the moon and probably cannot make easily due to nitrogen scarcity, not to mention re-lining the barrel every so often. But for some reason I just love the idea of putting an old surplus cannon on the moon as a cheap launcher.
 
Lest we forget, a space elevator could potentially be built using current technology from the Moon's surface to beyond the Earth-Moon L1 point.

(PDF) Lunar Space Elevators for CisLunar Transportation (researchgate.net)
Lunar space elevators could revolutionize the development of the Moon. The lunar space elevator system allows solar-powered robotic vehicles to climb a high-strength composite ribbon from the lunar surface to beyond the L1 Lagrangian point, where payloads of lunar resources could be released into Earth orbit for major space construction projects.

The overall system concept includes the lunar space elevator, a robotic construction system for the components, and robotic vehicles to carry lunar products into Earth orbit for construction and for upper stage propellant, and Earth-orbit payloads to the lunar surface for lunar habitat supplies. The construction system creates building blocks from lunar materials, using automated assembly and wire forming to construct complex shapes. The lunar space elevators provide non-rocket transportation of these lunar products from polar and equatorial mining sites into Earth orbit.

This architecture is a new way to create a lunar base for robotic and human operations on the surface. A lunar space elevator using existing high-strength composites with a lifting capacity of 2000 N at the base equipped with solar-powered capsules moving at 100 km/hour could lift 584,000 kg/yr of lunar material into high Earth orbit. Since launch costs twenty years from now may be $1,000/kg, this material would be worth half a billion dollars per year, creating a new era of space development.
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In fact, Friedrich Zander first conceived of a lunar space tower in 1910. This idea was revived by Yuri Artsutanov in 1960, by James Cline in 1972 and Jerome Pearson in 1978. More on the idea here:

(PDF) The Lunar Space Elevator (archive.org)
This paper examines lunar space elevators, a concept originated by the lead author, for lunar development. Lunar space elevators are flexible structures connecting the lunar surface with counterweights located beyond the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points in the Earth-moon system.

A lunar space elevator on the moon’s near side, balanced about the L1 Lagrangian point, could support robotic climbing vehicles to release lunar material into high Earth orbit.

A lunar space elevator on the moon’s far side, balanced about L2, could provide nearly continuous communication with an astronomical observatory on the moon’s far side, away from the optical and radio interference from the Earth.

Because of the lower mass of the moon, such lunar space elevators could be constructed of existing materials instead of carbon nanotubes, and would be much less massive than the Earth space elevator.

We review likely spots for development of lunar surface operations (south pole locations for water and continuous sunlight, and equatorial locations for lower delta-V), and examine the likely payload requirements for Earth-to-moon and moon-to-Earth transportation.

We then examine its capability to launch large amounts of lunar material into high Earth orbit, and do a top-level system analysis to evaluate the potential payoffs of lunar space elevators
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ETA: This would be better discussed in the space colonisation thread, so I'll copy this post there. Apologies if this seems like spamming - it's just a one-off.
 
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XCV666 said:
I was not aware they used moving parts
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Oh my bad it was this one I was thinking of, from the last page, the one from General Fusion with lots of moving parts.

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Interesting youtuber's vid on MIT's new high temp superconducting magnets for their tokamak. I did not realize they were that far along, but a $250,000,000 funding injection probably helped. It's a bit annoying the presenter does not seem to know about any of the other developments going on concurrently, but at least viewers might stop the "30 years and always will be" nonsense.
 
I'm just wondering if fusion power was cheap and affordable like in comic books, and homes had their own home fusion for their own domestic needs how would utility companies deal with the fact they're no longer needed?
 
This may help things in some wise
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-dimension-magnetism-superconductivity.html

"The possibility to tune magnetic responses by designing the geometry of a wire or magnetic thin film is one of the main advantages of the curvilinear magnetism, which has a major impact on physics, material science and technology. At present, under its umbrella, the fundamental field of curvilinear magnetism includes curvilinear ferro- and antiferromagnetism, curvilinear magnonics and curvilinear spintronics."

Now this sounds like something more suited for smaller tech...and then, I saw this:
A pure beam of carbon atoms....
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-tool-effective-cancer-treatment.html

Could you induce fusion at small scales?

Another record
https://wonderfulengineering.com/sc...rongest-high-temperature-magnetic-field-ever/

Fusion news
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-radio-frequency-fusion-simulations.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-fusioneers-fusion-energy-website.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-passive-aggressive-ready-runaway-electrons.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-neutral-particles-disruptive-plasma-blobs.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-harnessing-hot-helium-ash-rotation.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-fusion-reactors-spacecraft-shields.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-brink-fusion-ignition-national-facility.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-hot-cores-cool-edges-fusion.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-visualizing-microscopic-world-fast-ions.html

The gold standard
https://interestingengineering.com/chinese-scientists-strike-gold-in-a-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-scientists-insights-extreme-states-earth.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-algorithm-plasma.html
 
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Cyanide Muffin said:
I'm just wondering if fusion power was cheap and affordable like in comic books, and homes had their own home fusion for their own domestic needs how would utility companies deal with the fact they're no longer needed?
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if it stays a two front solution for a long while, renewables are not all that cheap, plus maint, as was already stated, and the cost of decomissioning old fossil fuel reactors. I don't know about the others but Helion is aiming for $.01/kwh. Regardless of certain state politicians lust for coal, there just isn't any way to continue to support it's use after this. He might as well argue for "stone knives and bear skins"
 
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