The Mad Scientists Thread Of Things To Make And Do

[zevon8]

Originally Posted by bmcculla

There was a famous speech by someone from MIT in which he joked that by the time you had a laser of sufficient power to actually damage a target you could do significatly more damage by just dropping it on them.

Reminds me of the joke about 2 weapon testing engineers watching the colossal explosion from their latest design....

"...oooohhh.... that was a good one, we should have saved that one....."

sorry, off topic

[tansis]

Thankfully the idea of using a nuclear bomb(s) to launch payloads into space and further afield never got very far. Though trials with scale models using conventional explosives looked promising -
known as "Project Orion".
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo...OrionProj.html

[zachtheterrible]

Taylor originally proposed that the vehicle be launched from the ground, probably from the nuclear test site at Jackass Flats, Nevada

and now for a bit of juvenile humor: jackass flats . . .haa haa

bak 2 the nuclear powered laser, ya no wut would really bite, is if ya miss :lol:

[tansis]

Originally Posted by zachtheterrible

kind o stupid if u ask me. destruct millions of dollars 2 shoot a laser.

for that kind of money y didnt they just develop a reusable 1 powered by solar??

Not as daft as it sounds..

Some years ago the idea of generating electrical power in space and beaming it to Earth using microwaves was proposed.
Not only is the science good, but even the accountants were happy with the long term financial returns.

PS:
The upcoming posts entitled "Brain Implants For Beginners" has not been forgotten..but looks likely to end up as a download document.

[zachtheterrible]

Some years ago the idea of generating electrical power in space and beaming it to Earth using microwaves was proposed.
Not only is the science good, but even the accountants were happy with the long term financial returns.

cool, not only would it produce power, but just stick the turkey outside and it will cook, even @ night :lol:

seriously, ive been taught to fear microwaves that aren't inside a microwave. n microwaves capable of producing enuf power to light cities would be perdy intense eh?

[tansis]

ive been taught to fear microwaves that aren't inside a microwave. n microwaves capable of producing enuf power to light cities would be perdy intense eh?

Taught with good reason, but don't get too paranoid. Microwaves and other high energy RF sources are often to be found "outside the box"

The beam would be so low in density that it wouldn't even feel warm if you happened to walk through it. Little worse than having a cell-phone to your ear / sitting next to a WiFi transponder.

Of course the Solar Power Satellite could be hijacked and the beam safeties overidden , then things could be really made to cook. Probably why this great idea has yet to be put into practice...though I hear the Japanese are keen on the idea

[zachtheterrible]

how can such a low density beam carry so much energy? :?

[tansis]

One could liken it to collecting raindrops.. each one on its own has negligable energy, yet gather enough and you can make a river.

The rectenna (rectifying antenna) array would be an ellipse 10 x 13 kilometers (6 x 8 miles) in size. It could be designed to let light through, so that crops, or even solar panels, could be placed underneath it

The peak intensity of the microwave beam would be 23 milliwatts per square centimeter (148 milliwatts per square inch). The US standard for industrial exposure to microwaves is 10 milliwatts per square centimeter, while up to 5 milliwatts per square centimeter are allowed to leak from microwave ovens. US standards are based on heating effects. Stricter standards are in effect in some countries. So far, no non-thermal health effects of low-level microwave exposure have been proven, although the issue remains controversial. Nevertheless, even the peak of the beam is not exactly a death ray. Underneath the rectenna, microwave levels are practically nil.

[zachtheterrible]

oh, 10x13 kilometers. i was thinkin somethin like a couple hundred meters. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

how much energy could this thing provide?

[tansis]

:lol: one of the hazzards with any project in space
the numbers get very big awfully quickly!!!

The short answer is that such a network of orbital power stations
could provide all the electrical power for the planet in theory at least.

for a bit of fun , why not do the math... how big a solar panel array would you need , in order to provide 2KW at 120 [usa] or 230[uk] volts AC?

Two schools of thought exist
a: large and simple using conventional solar cell arrays
b: small and complex that use solar furnaces with turbines

Advantages and drawbacks with either and both will require more than a couple of US shuttle flights per year just for maintenance, yet there is hope.. all the materials can be found on the moon. Lunar production of hardware could slash the cost by some 80%

In terms of payload to Earth orbit , either launched directley from Earth or from Lunar outposts ..we are talking THOUSANDS of tons. The shuttle or Ariane capability is around what .. 25-30 tons a launch

[zachtheterrible]

hmmm, solar furnace, ive heard of it . . . wut b that?

[Oznog]

Well, sun can be around 1kw/m^2 in midday, although there are many factors. Not only weather, but latitude. And of course time of day other than peak hours is less. Solar cell efficiency has gone as high as 30%, in practice, 25% for the best of the best.

Space-based solar cells get more sun. I don't recall exactly, I think it was maybe 30%.

The costs of putting it into space and microwaving it down are pretty ridiculous, compared to just putting them on the ground. Ground stuff faces problems of dirt and hail, but that's nothing compared to space debris and charged particles. It's like 100k times cheaper to replace cells on the ground.

Many web pages dedicated to power a house with solar. Big problem is storing power for the night or cloudy days. A single lead-acid deep cycle battery is only around 1.2kw-hr, and lasts maybe 5 yrs at best. If you have very low consumption, this can work. If you keep a desktop computer (300w) or lights on all the time, or use an air conditioner, it becomes impractical.

[Oznog]

Originally Posted by tansis

Thankfully the idea of using a nuclear bomb(s) to launch payloads into space and further afield never got very far.

In the 50's there was a plan to make a nuclear powered long range bomber aircraft. The idea was it could loiter in a "ready" state indefinitely, always ready for a quick first or retaliatory strike. It was killed partially because it's incredibly dangerous and partly because missile technology made the concept of first strike nuclear bombers obsolete entirely.

Recently the discovery of halfnium-178's alleged capacity to decay in a fully controllable, non-self-sustaining reaction when x-rays are pointed at it gave rise to the plan for a nuclear UAV, it releases enough gamma rays to heat the air so it would need a second lauch engine to get it to an altitude to operate without nuking people.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000918.html

There are also people who say this is the perfect "Death Ray" gun. Do we really NEED a death ray??

Funny, looking up the halfnium-178 issue, I found a web page which said the effect was unsubstantiated, not from a credible source, couldn't be reproduced. Look, it's a govt coverup in action!

[tansis]

Originally Posted by Oznog

In the 50's there was a plan to make a nuclear powered long range bomber aircraft.

Indeed , this is very true. Both the Americans and Russians had manned flying expermental aircraft, as did the French.

Both Pratt and Whitney in the US (open cycle - radiactive exhaust) and Rolls Royce in the UK (closed loop - akin to a conventional reactor system..odd because at the time Britains first fission pile at Sellafield was direct air cooled) were involved but hard facts are scarce due to company takeovers, PR guru's .. both P&W and RR are less than talkative about this episode.. one would suspect a whole lot of document shredding...

Still the idea lived on for a while thanks to Gerry Anderson's nuclear fuelled vision of the future , yeah.. thats right ...THUNDERBIRDS! (Stingray-Joe90-Captain Scarlett)...all of the craft were/are nuclear powered..even the first epsisode of "Thunderbirds" features the world first nuclear powered civilain airliner - Fireflash

useless fact - only one episode ever featured Solar Power, and in that the giant mirror of a solar furnace/ power station had tipped over thanks to an earthquake and was going to fry a nearby town at noon

Anyhow back to reality.. details regarding halfnium-178's properties may be sketchy however the work done with Polonium can be found without any problems. Polonium was deemed to be of particular interest, highly energetic yet only emitting alpha particles and therefore requireing little in the way of shielding for the crew.. how energetic tou ask.. well dropping a single gram into a five gallon bucket of water is not a good experiment to perform by hand :wink:

[bmcculla]

A recent Issue of " The Bullitin of Atomic Scientists" talked about the possibility of using halfnium to create low yeild nuclear weapons. A .5KTon warhead would be quite useful on the battlefield - though the implication of say a shoulder mounted rocket nuclear device are rather frightening in this age of terrorism.