[Aeronaut]

zapkitty wrote: Oooh… even with a 1cm channel through a meter of shielding the radiation is kinda fierce… x20 channels is not as friendly a neighbor as I’d hoped for. To maintain the safety margin either closable ports w/ the added weight and complexity or use beam heating all the way and onboard propellant for the last stage… ouch… needs more MWe…

… but as the MHD units have to have beams anyhow for their work…

Why not try BWB with 1 to 5 thrusters in the fuselage, along with the 10 to 20 cores? And assume desert spaceports, of course.

[Aeronaut]

Personally, I don’t think we’d fit in well over there. But that’s just me.

[Aeronaut]

vansig wrote:

30KJ of net energy at each firing x 180 ~ 5MW
Alright, you say 1000Hz, so he expects 5KJ converted for each firing. But, why this value, then? Why not 500Hz or 2000Hz or whatever?

not 5kJ converted; but 5kJ net output after charging for the next shot

The value can be whatever your investors and advisors will stand still for in terms of potential output and real output- not to mention the frequency and duration of maintenance overhauls. Iow, there is no simple answer. Here in North America, I prefer evenmultiples of 60hz. Europeans prefer even multiples of 50 hz. Both cases aim for the simplest direct conversion to the local power grid.

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote: Once I send one of the guys responsible for topic picking in technology an email about some perspective Fusion and Solar power technologies, but I never heard from him back.
I am guessing that either that Innovative Confinement Concepts have not made a serious mark yet or the understand that energy is the most important issue is not widespread.
Edit:Or maybe he just missed my message, next time I will know to ask the community to give a helping hand.

The biggest challenge I can see right off the top of my head in persuading TED to let us present FF as a potential solution to clean energy and water challenges, possibly drainage (sanitary sewers) as well is that Bill Gates used that platform to off-handedly dismiss fusion in general. At the risk of sounding confrontational, I’m leaning toward a refutation of that aspect of Gates’ presentation. That’s if we decided that TED is the right forum, and that now is the time to attempt to present there.

I’m outlining and skimming a fascinating book called “Influencer” (got it at Barnes & Noble) which will culminate in tying their 6 strategies for influence together into a strategy to make the desired outcome inevitable. Also on my list is re-reading and this time noting from “Multipliers”, which was written in the same time frame from students of Influencers’ authors iirc.

As Spock once advised Kirk, “I’d prefer to be a welcome guest”. When the sales psychology is right, there will be no shortage of offers to help promote FF, and it will coincide much closer with the real break-even experiments.

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote: Just to clarify I am talking about tedx conferences. It is like ted, but for poor peoples 😉

Understood. I was looking at that large and growing organization as a way to make our case, succinctly and memorably to the thought leaders who will be making and administering policy for those people. It’s all good. Any other angles of approach to TED?

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote: Tedx

Or their contact page

[Aeronaut]

Matt M wrote: I suspect the Focus Fusion people are going to find that a pinch is a very difficult thing to contoll – much less optimize.

I cannot help but recall that Edison tried over 2000 times to develop a filament for his electric light bulb. If he was not such an incredibly stubborn visionary – we might still be sitting in the dark.

Unfortunately for FF, they will have thousands of helpful people watching over their shoulders, highlighting the problems with the first 1999 approaches, explaining in detail why the approach will never work.

Too bad most of these naysayers have enough eddycashun to be dangerous to themselves and their readers- if any.

[Aeronaut]

Looks like Magnifye may be on to something. I was looking for a cryo-plant like PW is currently going to need.

[Aeronaut]

My understanding of current scramjet designs are that you need a turbine engine to get the bird moving fast enough to create the compression required by the ramjet’s constricted wall design. The ramjet would in turn accelerate the plane to scramjet speeds in production birds. X-series birds ride a rocket to the required speeds.

The magnetic approach sounds ‘good’ to me, but like with a polywell, beware the magnets’ weight and expense.

[Aeronaut]

vansig wrote:

plasma window

Can handle up to 9 atmospheres; doesn’t seem like enough for the enviro of a jet engine.

Do remember that 9 atmospheres is 0.9 million newtons per square metre. 🙂

That’s like supporting a 90 tonne vehicle on top of a 1m² window.

Seen head-on, a vehicle of this type might be reminiscent of a manta ray. With a huge mouth, its cross-section is mostly engine, in comparison to its airfoil and payload.

Sorry, I’m still not seeing how the compression is achieved without the compressor stage fans. A Blended Wing Body (BWB) architecture may be easier to engineer for mach 24…

[Aeronaut]

dennisp wrote: Another layman question: does this result prove that x-ray cooling isn’t a problem?

We’re attempting to prove that high magnetic fields can keep the X-ray cooling low enough to exceed energy breakeven using pB-11 fuel. Iow, that X-ray cooling is an ongoing challenge which can be managed, not eliminated.

[Aeronaut]

I’m having problems understanding the airflow without either a compressor or a minimum air speed (thinking along the lines of the SR-71 Blackbird’s variable ducting to put essentially 2 engines into 1 nacelle). Next up, of course, is the proposed scramjet’s use of hydrogen fuel- mainly storing enough liquid hydrogen. But if this can be made to work, it should be able to lead to a SSTO vehicle?

[Aeronaut]

zapkitty wrote:

An FF transport would not even be as fast as a 747… mach 0.72 as opposed to mach 0.85…

What I still don’t get is, why is Mach 0.72 an upper bound?

That was just me using “default” 5MWe FF boxes for aircraft concepts equivalent to current commercial turboprops. A “go anywhere at any time” electric aircraft.

Turboprops such as the Tu-95 have gone as high as Mach 0.92 in tests.

vansig wrote:
We’re not limited by mass; 80 anodes tesselating a sphere yields 20 tonnes, not 160 tonnes.

We’re not limited to propeller or turbo-prop configuration.

Fusion powered jet does not require a turbine; we don’t have to slow the airstream down or compress it, to heat it, as a ramjet does, since we don’t have to inject chemical fuels.

Scramjet configuration seems to be the simplest engine architecture. and it’s highly efficient, *if* we have a way to heat air with electricity. which we do: i propose to build a high-wattage infrared laser, emitting at a wavelength that air strongly absorbs, yet engine materials do not absorb.

What remains, that could keep this below high Mach numbers and altitudes of 35km or more?

And that brings us back to the question of whether using the excess alpha output for direct heating of air would be more efficient. Your design is for 400 MWe, right? Are you omitting the 640 MWt “waste” heat from your calculations? What if there was no “onion” and you tried to use the x-rays as a heat source as well?

This sounds like it’ll be optimized for electric output only, with some of the heat going to the cabin and hold. I’m wondering how you plan to heat the air to achieve the supersonic airflow, and what airspeed (if any) would be needed.

[Aeronaut]

MTd2 wrote: So, the October news was partly the machine playing a red herring on the team…

You can also think of troubleshooting FoFu along the lines of troubleshooting a dead CRT-based TV set- only when you’ve located and repaired the HV power supply issue can you begin fixing anything that may be wrong with the picture (which breaks down into Hor and Vert deflection coil drivers), sound, or tuner. Said tuner can be a riot if it has a closed loop AFC contributing to picture and sound problems.

And this is simple compared to LPPX.

[Aeronaut]

What we need to keep in mind is that our nuclear cousins of the fission family have the clout and financing to move over a trillion dollars through their projects, irregardless of practical considerations the rate payers may have. The good news is that nuclear is no longer a dirty word. And that helps float our boats on the nuclear fusion side of the family…

[Author]

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