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Kashai
reply to post by kingofyo1
Actually you are bringing up Worm holes whose energy is more equivalent to that of Black holes.
Again the topic is about fusion drive and its potential as an energy source on Earth.
woogleuk
reply to post by Kashai
Incorrect, that article states:
Maximum velocity (kilometers per second): "Energy limited orion": 1000 km/s (=0.33% of the speed of light) or "Momentum Limited Orion": 10,000 km/s (=3.3% of the speed of light)
You are confusing 0.33% with 33%
“To power a rocket, the team has devised a system in which a powerful magnetic field causes large metal rings to implode around this plasma, compressing it to a fusion state. The converging rings merge to form a shell that ignites the fusion, but only for a few microseconds. Even though the compression time is very short, enough energy is released from the fusion reactions to quickly heat and ionize the shell. This super-heated, ionized metal is ejected out of the rocket nozzle at a high velocity. This process is repeated every minute or so, propelling the spacecraft.
Blue Shift
I just cannot imagine a scenario where the cost of creating a fusion drive would be worth sending a few people quickly to Mars. Invest a fraction of that money in developing intelligent robots and we can find out all we need to know about Mars without needing to send anybody there.
YOU are never going to stand on Mars and watch a sunset, just like YOU never put a foot on the Moon.
Kashai
The scenario in question is with respect to overpopulation and the ability to feed our planets growing numbers.
Blue Shift
Kashai
The scenario in question is with respect to overpopulation and the ability to feed our planets growing numbers.
Spreading out to other planets to colonize or farm doesn't work economically or logically. Shipping food all the way from Mars will never be economical, considering the time and resources necessary to make it happen.
And it's not as if the entire planet will be converted to farms that will exclusively be used by Earth humans. Once you get enough people on Mars, they will start breeding themselves and soon their population will expand to use all the resources they can produce. They'll put up "KEEP OUT" signs pretty fast.
The only way to keep people fed on Earth is to have less people here and eliminate any warlords or governments that use food and starvation as a weapon.
JIMC5499
How about we take 90 days so that we don't arrive as goo from the acceleration? Without some kind of inertia dampener that's exactly what would happen.
Kashai
It would make little sense for NASA to spend all this money on planning such a venture without being able to stop.