Reply To: Iconography

[Aeronaut]

Henning wrote:

After we get fusion up and running, grasslands will be my next environmental pursuit. Restoring the Middle East dustbowls. So much to do.

Yepp. And my taking is, before colonizing Mars, finish colonizing Sahara first. I don’t care if Mars gets settled 1000 years from now, way after my lifespan.

Mars is fine for robotic exploration (with computers outperforming human brain in twenty years anyway, like a recent survey of experts say – or let’s say in fifty years). There is no need for humans on extraterrestical planets, what couldn’t do robots better – giving one or two decades that are required to build stuff for a human expedition.

And no high risk space elevator (yes Aero, that means you).

Start with something useful, i.e. watering Sahara and surroundings.

I fully agree that getting FF up, running, and performing useful work for real people is the first priority. My design strategy is to build thermal products that are designed so the X-ray converter bolts right in during normal scheduled maintenance. Which is going to boil down to a core swap out in the field for economic and regulatory reasons. At some point the net electric output option will make these retrofits irresistible to all FF owners. But I see a steep learning curve for onion makers, at least in the early year(s).

Henning, I see the fusion frontier facing the same perception problem as space travel- most of the world is currently working from a limited resources world view. So the “glass half full” point of view is conspicuously missing, but only if you have the key to pretty much unlimited cheap, clean energy.

Taken a step farther, FF may well need some custom-engineered nano materials to reach its fullest potential by consistently reducing the bulk and mass of the shielding. Capacitors are another area where custom-engineered materials research for FF could cross over into the SE tether’s development.

And the last step is that when we get over the ‘need’ to reach orbit using chemical rockets, a whole new branch of the global economy is going to spring into existence. Returning NASA to its research and engineering roots was an excellent move in that direction, imho.