Whelp! Ive come up with some really cool open ended specific classes of configurations for storing fission fuel or breeder reactor feed-stock in quantities as much as several orders of magnitude in mass greater than the final payload of a fission powered relativistic rocket. I hope with some guarded enthusiasm that I have brought the upper plausible range of the theoretical velocities for fission powered rockets from say 0.01 C to 0.05 C all the way up to and beyond 0.80 C or 80 percent of light-speed. My arguments are technical and written with prose similar to that for patent applications thanks to my fairly broad experience in drafting and editing my own patent applications for which my brother John is co-applicant and co-inventor. A velocity of 80 percent of light-speed is nothing to sneeze at. Even though the time dilation is only a factor of about 1.8 in this case, the velocity is 4/5 of the way to light speed in the background. This makes fission powered rockets appealing because we can then use what we already know how to make, nuclear fission reactors, to power these spacecraft. I am convinced, that with my new concepts, we could build and fly manned missions to any of the 33 or so stars that lie within 12.5 light-years of Earth with mission arrivals this Century using more or less off the shelf technology that any engineering student or physics student can study in a non-classified setting at any major university or college with a nuclear engineering program. However, we will need to pour huge amounts of federal, corporate, and private funds into the effort to make this all happen. Part of my lifes calling is to be a facilitator in all of this. The rest of my lifes calling is, well, to work on actual hardware design. Folks may amusingly wonder why I am up all morning writing this stuff. Well, I must say that I slept most of yesterdays day-light hours away. Id sleep soundly for 2 hours, wake up to check my email and Facebook, then go back to bed to sleep another 3 hours and repeat the cycle two or three more times. Ive had the entire house to myself for the past 1 1/2 weeks since my brother John and my mother drove down to visit my sister Suzy near Atlanta, GA, and her family for several days. This mother-son trip was meant as a special treat for my brother John so that John could spend quality time with my mother. However, I am pleased that they will be back in town by this afternoon. I miss my brother Johns high energy lectures on green and sustainable housing and infrastructure. John works as a consulting building energy efficiency engineer and he is as good as they come at this stuff.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 07:53:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015