On the Apollo missions, only 1/601 of the mass sent into space returned. An Orion mission to Mars would return 1/2.5 of its mass and a mission to Saturn would return 1/6 of its mass. In 1958 dollars, an Orion mission would have cost 11 cents per kilogram sent into space, while in 2005 dollars, …
The largest container ships can hold about 11,000-15000 shipping containers. The ships weigh 170,000 tons. Each container can hold a maximum of 14 tons. The space shuttle could take less than two full containers into space. The Super-Orion nuclear external pulse propulsion rocket had an 8 million ton size and could have taken 3 million …
A Goldman Sachs study on “The Expanding Middle: The Exploding Middle Class and Falling Global Inequality” While America laments the loss of its middle class as there is divergence between a mass affluent and wealthy class and those at middle class, there is the rise of the global middle class. The global middle class is …
Straight up storing CO2 as a gas in the ground or saline is happening now at several tens of millions of tons/year worldwide. The amount of CO2 offset by solar power is on the same scale. Civilization is generating abut 25 billion tons of CO2 per year. Nuclear power worldwide offsets 2 billion tons of …
Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have carried out the first comprehensive assessment of the relative merits of different geoengineering schemes in terms of the climate cooling potential. Their paper appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions. [H/T Greencar congress Using a mix of these geoengineering techniques and mitigating production of …
Single atom quantum dots created by researchers at Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology and the University of Alberta make possible a new level of control over individual electrons, a development that suddenly brings quantum dot-based devices within reach. It is demonstrated that the silicon atom dangling bond (DB) state serves as a quantum dot. Coulomb …
A 60 slide presentation Chinese HTR Program: HTR-10 results & Work Progress on HTR-PM by Zuoyi ZHANG, Institute of Nuclear and new Energy Technology (INET), Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China The Chinese High Temperature Reactors is one of the top 16 programs for the Chinese Government from 2006-2020. They figure that as they make their …
The Times UK reported claims that Alan Windle’s team at Cambridge University had created the world’s strongest ribbon. I finally tracked down specifics of this work. UPDATE: Details on hypersonic skyhooks/rotovators [orbital ropes] that would be enabled with these materials as well as lunar and Mars space elevators. Background on strength of materials, units of …
MTPV, a startup based in Boston that has raised $10 million, says that it has developed prototype micron-gap thermal photovoltaics that are large enough for practical applications. Thermal photovoltaics use solar cells to convert the light that radiates from a hot surface into electricity. The first applications will be generating electricity from waste heat, eventually …
-American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC), a leading energy technologies company, and Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) announced today at the Surface Navy Association’s 21st National Symposium the successful completion of full-power testing of the world’s first 36.5 megawatt (49,000 horsepower) high temperature superconductor (HTS) ship propulsion motor at the U.S. Navy’s Integrated Power System Land-Based …
This a follow up to prior article about re-inventing civil defense using and one on improving blast resistance of buildings. The U.S. Army has developed a new blast-protection adhesive tape called X-Flex. This X-FLEX tape would be used to coat the interior sides of exterior walls in order to absorb the shock of a blast, …