Moonwards

MolbOrg

01:13

child's play, used to a half minute and more, terminals in Siberia on crappy mobile connection

it should have timer, and tasks - funny thing indeed
VNC will be no problem

MolbOrg

01:39

just pick the corner you will align, and move cursor where you need the corner

MolbOrg

04:39

Fission fragment reactor

Similar to how the fission-fragment rocket produces thrust, a fission fragment reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates electricity by decelerating an ion beam of fission byproducts instead of using nuclear reactions to generate heat. By doing so, it bypasses the Carnot cycle and can achieve efficiencies of up to 90% instead of 40-45% attainable by efficient turbine-driven thermal reactors.The fission fragment ion beam would be passed through a magnetohydrodynamic generator to produce electricity. Fission fragment reactor designs generally have several common components. The reactor chamber...

Arthur Dent

18:17

Personally, I think the most compelling argument you can make to a layperson is going to history. What if the Europeans never left Europe? What if Polynesians stayed on one island? Humans stayed in Mesopotamia and never got out of the stone-age? Humans are creatures who have made the Earth their dominion because we have a drive to explore and create. The next obvious step is space.

As for how it affects people personally, everything they enjoy is because someone took that next step. Computers? Coffee? Surviving past infancy with a greater than 50% chance? All because people pushed the boundaries of the present.

kim holder

i have to say i especially like that your two examples are computers and coffee :D

well, and survival...

Arthur Dent

Early humans could have never imagined the world we live in today. Gunthar told his buddy Flarg that he wanted to spend time and resources exploring the hill over yonder. Flarg argued that those resources and time would be better spent making their little village better. Gunthar did it anyways and discovered an oasis

kim holder

hear hear

Arthur Dent

And the technology he created to get there yielded better transportation, food storage, etc.

I think appealing to that sort of thing works best. Gotta get at the primal instinct everyone has to drive forward.

And computers and coffee came to mind because I'm currently under the influence of both

Also, little update. I finished the derivatives so all I have to do is write the script. Hopefully it works. I might have a bugged version done by the end of the day. Idk how long debugging and graphing will take.

kim holder

that is really cool. Hoh seems to have gotten bogged down by school and stuff again. MolbOrg will understand it better than me though

and i do believe i'll post it on the website and try to entice a few other choice people to look at it by bringing it to their attention

i might be able to do that through the space show, or i might try posting something about it on space.SE

Arthur Dent

18:29

I must warn you though, one of the equations is massive. It'll end up being about 40 terms long. And due to the nature of derivative calculations, it's always possible there's a typo somewhere.

kim holder

man - thanks for sticking it out. i hope the results are appropriately interesting.

so, this means what i really need to do is talk someone with the necessary skills into checking this over, doesn't it?

Arthur Dent

Not necessarily

The only thing that would need checking is the derivatives - making sure the raw math is correct.

The appropriate knowledge lies in being able to model the system correctly and know how to set up the equations. I'm pretty confident that will be correct. But the equations are based on taking derivatives and it's easy to drop a minus sign or confused cos with sin

kim holder

18:47

ok. now i'm nervous about what it will spit out. i sure hope this really works :]

Arthur Dent

Haha me too. I think I might have actually figured out how to simplify it a little. It's been a while since I've done this and there's multiple ways to do it.

The graphs will indicate if something is very off or not.

kim holder

in a system so complex, if there are problems, i guess i can also hope that there may be clever, efficient solutions... ?

Arthur Dent

I'm not sure what you mean.

What do you mean by "solutions"?

kim holder

well, you said the risk is that for adequate control, a lot of propellant might be needed, right?

Arthur Dent

Oh yes. Just because the equations are complex, does not necessarily mean there will be a lot of propelant.

The equations being complex just means the way the forces interact are not intuitive. For the most part they will balance each other out, probably.

kim holder

18:58

Hoh said a while ago that if you can move heavy cars on the cable at the right moment, the right way, orbital correction could be attained by using them to sap more momentum from the Moon

Arthur Dent

What we have to do is run the simulation without any control, and see how badly the shuttle mass affects the stability of the system. Then we have to figure out what sort of force is needed to cancel out the instability.

Hoh is correct, that is one way to fix attitude.

kim holder

can something like that be used for moment, too? (and i think i'm using the wrong word...)

Arthur Dent

But we will also have a periapsis drop, so we need to know how much force the ion engines will need to keep it stable.

kim holder

ah - attitude you say. he was thinking of using it to raise periapsis.

Arthur Dent

There are no moments, since we're just dealing with tension. Basically, moment is only when objects twist against each other. The cable doesn't do any twisting, just pulling.

Angular momentum is the complex part imo, and correcting it will be difficult. It can be done though with, as Hoh said, moving cables.

The simulation I'm doing will be set up in such a way that we can input forces fairly easily. So we'll be able to input the ion thrust and adjust that value and direction to keep control.

I took a controls class in my last semester, but it's pretty tough and I'm not as good at it. Depending how in-depth we intend to go, I might have to use some stuff from that class which will take a while.

The important thing right now is to just get the free dynamics model working, then we can play around with it by inputting control forces.

kim holder

19:03

he also pointed out that the most effective place to put engines would be on the tip of the outer tether, the one that extends outwards from the anchor mass deeper into space

Arthur Dent

I was thinking of just putting an engine on the asteroid. But yes, it can be done by putting it further out.

That would make the equations more complex though... So I'd rather just do the engine on the asteroid for now. We can get to that situation later.

kim holder

oh yeah - two non-rigid cables instead of one :D

hopsblog-hop.blogspot.mx/2017/06/zylon-mars-elevator.html

Arthur Dent

Exactly. You would have to introduce another frame between that further point and the inertial reference frame. Every new frame makes it more and more difficult, since all equations have to be represented in a single frame.

kim holder

Hop is one of the people it would be great if he weighed in on this, and look, he just posted on his blog about a tether at mars

Arthur Dent

Looks interesting, I'll check it out later

Still though, the tension on that thing would be so crazy.

kim holder

19:09

yeah... he has written a fair bit on tethers, he has several related posts

he actually proposed a much more reasonable near-term tether system between the moon and earth, which i adapted and took to this extreme i'm using, as personally, i don't think you have a business case unless you go extreme

hopsblog-hop.blogspot.mx/2016/08/lunar-sky-hook.html

^ that is the one that came partly out of conversations on space.se about this

MolbOrg

19:24

"Personally, I think the most compelling argument you can make to a layperson is going to history."
no, it isn't a compelling argument and it isn't really a good argument
one of the examples is zubrin - he tried to use the argument, he still where he is at beginning of something which might not happen.
Secundo, they did the thing they did for some particular reason, not for the virtue of something, but for their gut profit. It made a great thing out of that but which keeps some value for us today, but it does not mean they were driven by it or that we should do it today, change our direct p…

"The next obvious step is space." - saying so you do not change things for people whom it is not an obvious one, and there are such people and actually they are majority

Arthur Dent

But what direct profits can be explained right now to the public?

We don't know what things from space travel will be useful for the average person.

The only thing I can think of right now is medicine developed in 0-g

Why do you think we went to the Moon? There was no direct profit from going there. The American people voted to go to the Moon because they were inspired to.

Of course it was a show of superiority over Russia, but it's still an appeal to the desire to advance technology and humanity in general

MolbOrg

"As for how it affects people personally, everything they enjoy is because someone took that next step. Computers? Coffee? Surviving past infancy with a greater than 50% chance? All because people pushed the boundaries of the present."
that is true, and if it does not require public support - no one will stop those people from pursuing their ideas because everyone knows it might bring some good stuff. But it does not mean they are going to support those people because there is no profit in doing so for them personally at the moment and why they should take investment risks?

if someone else's is willing to take the investment risks.

Arthur Dent

I don't know what alternative you support. How else will we get people to support space?

@kimholder That is an interesting blog post. It certainly makes sense.

MolbOrg

@ArthurDent there are some, at least. as an example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

Arthur Dent

What does that have to do with space exploration?

You mean that's something people would rather spend money on than space?

MolbOrg

19:37

"Why do you think we went to the Moon? There was no direct profit from going there. The American people voted to go to the Moon because they were inspired to." long story - but consolidation around one idea is good for squeezing profit and efficiency from a group of people.

Overfishing

Overfishing is a form of overexploitation where fish stocks are reduced to below acceptable levels. Overfishing can occur in water bodies of any sizes, such as ponds, rivers, lakes or oceans, and can result in resource depletion, reduced biological growth rates and low biomass levels. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical depensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself. Some forms of overfishing, for example the overfishing of sharks, has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems. The ability of a fishery to recover from overfishing depends on whether the ecosystem...

Arthur Dent

My question is, how else would you motivate people to allocate money towards space exploration?

MolbOrg

onegreenplanet.org/news/…

there is an example of a problem which directly leads to jobs creation and job loses and to types of fishes you have on your dinner table and how big and good is the fish etc.

Arthur Dent

There will always be issues on our planet, that does not mean we can't also spend resources to help explore space.

MolbOrg

this problem can be solved with delivering iron from space to oceans

at least if not solved it can be softened, fish grow can be done faster, co2 consumption can be stimulated, etc

it is affecting on sea and its live on planetary scale

if you have source of iron(moon) cheap energy(solar) and means to extract and deliver

a nice thing about that is we can draw line pretty straight forward from investing in creating this solution and gains for the economy we can make.

huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/18/…

@ArthurDent we can help issues on the planet by investing in space - that is what I'm saying

I do not say we should not invest in space - I'm saying we should invest in space to solve our practical problems including possible space researche's.
I myself do not care about practical problems, but other people do, and to convince them one should show that space is the answer for things they care about.

kim holder

20:35

@MolbOrg actually, seeding the oceans with iron is a solution few ecologists support. it would cause as many problems as it solves. but if it was a good idea, there would be no need to do it from space. the iron required is not that much, and spreading it is not that hard.

MolbOrg

I'm not pushing the idea - I just say if it is the solution it can be more economically done from space

but ok, for a change - name some problem you find interesting - let's see if there is a space solution for it ))

kim holder

it's like everything though - it is economical only once you have gigantic infrastructure that will be extremely expensive

the problem i find interesting that can be resolved from space is the one that causes instant rebellion among most Space Show listeners seems to me like it is discarded out of hand when to me it is obviously the most important thing

world peace

MolbOrg

" it is economical only once you have gigantic infrastructure that will be extremely expensive"
that is the point of bridging talk to show it is possible.

about world piece - I see why the reaction.
Let's try again - name something

kim holder

too bad. it's true.

that's why i would rather not take the time right now to convince you. you already aren't listening, and it will take time to do it really well.

and, contrary to the way it might seem, i'm really quite busy...

MolbOrg

I can talk about world piece trough space, I have not problems of doing that.
However, I would like to see if I may suggest some space solution for something practical (it does not mean I call world peace nonpractical)

however, I would like to address something with obvious economic benefit in doing

it is not about convincing me or you, it is about answering questions of the general public in terms which may appeal to them

kim holder

21:17

alright

Transcript for