Only 880,000 years at our current average speed. Mind blowing, that.
That’s still a few times older than our species.
Species is a rather arbitrary line here. Humans split from Neanderthal ~500k-800k years ago but could still interbreed 40k years ago. We’re likely more closely related to our common ancestors at that point of divergence than Neanderthal suggesting given the opportunity modern humans could interbreed with our ancestors ~500k-1m years ago.
Of course that’s just genetic compatibility, there’s plenty of other ways to define species.
Only 880,000 years at our current average speed. Mind blowing, that.
NASA and Starlink have already been using ion drives with 10x ISP of chemical rocket engines. Using such drives a 3 stage with existing nuclear reactors as energy source can get to 150-200 km/s.
While it haven't been built yet, nothing seems to prevent ion drive even with 100x ISP of chemical rocket. That means we can get 1000-2000 km/s (acceleration with existing reactors would take about 100 years) and get to the closest star in 1000 years.
There is a market shortage of helium but shouldn't be: There's also helium in methane, but unfortunately few places crack out the helium from natural gas. TIL Helium kills Kudzu and powers fusion power plants.
It is the four layers of resources, each one is smaller than the next. 1. What is the total theoretical resource? 2. How much of it do we actually now the location of 3. How much is technically recoverable? 4. And most importantly, how much is economically viable? The last one is really the crux of the problem nowadays, there is a lot of helium but most of it just isn't in a high enough quantity to make the investmen…
> 4. And most importantly, how much is economically viable?
But literally the least important factor beyond “should we have started yesterday”. The amount of waste humanity has perpetuated in just the last 100 years because something wasn’t “economically viable” this fiscal quarter makes my head hurt.
There is a market shortage of helium but shouldn't be: There's also helium in methane, but unfortunately few places crack out the helium from natural gas. TIL Helium kills Kudzu and powers fusion power plants.
It is the four layers of resources, each one is smaller than the next. 1. What is the total theoretical resource? 2. How much of it do we actually now the location of 3. How much is technically recoverable? 4. And most importantly, how much is economically viable? The last one is really the crux of the problem nowadays, there is a lot of helium but most of it just isn't in a high enough quantity to make the investmen…
There will come a point when the price hits high enough to justify the cost but that also means higher costs to the end user.
This makes me wonder if it'd be worthwhile starting a company to capture it now, and just stockpile it until it's rare enough to be able to use my stockpile to control the price. The DeBeers diamonds playbook applied to helium, or maybe the Peter Thiel build-a-monopoly-to-win approach.
Only 880,000 years at our current average speed. Mind blowing, that.
NASA and Starlink have already been using ion drives with 10x ISP of chemical rocket engines. Using such drives a 3 stage with existing nuclear reactors as energy source can get to 150-200 km/s. While it haven't been built yet, nothing seems to prevent ion drive even with 100x ISP of chemical rocket. That means we can get 1000-2000 km/s (acceleration with existing reactors would take about 100 years) and get to the c…
The problem is radiation. Empty space is not really empty, there are stray atoms floating around. Very scattered, but at a high impact momentum penetrate the ship ionizing anything in their way, and making the ship itself radioactive.
Not even talking about stray high-energy particles from distant supernovas and magnetars -- those irradiate ship regardless of its speed.
There is a market shortage of helium but shouldn't be: There's also helium in methane, but unfortunately few places crack out the helium from natural gas. TIL Helium kills Kudzu and powers fusion power plants.
It is the four layers of resources, each one is smaller than the next. 1. What is the total theoretical resource? 2. How much of it do we actually now the location of 3. How much is technically recoverable? 4. And most importantly, how much is economically viable? The last one is really the crux of the problem nowadays, there is a lot of helium but most of it just isn't in a high enough quantity to make the investmen…
It is the four layers of resources, each one is smaller than the next. 1. What is the total theoretical resource? 2. How much of it do we actually now the location of 3. How much is technically recoverable? 4. And most importantly, how much is economically viable? The last one is really the crux of the problem nowadays, there is a lot of helium but most of it just isn't in a high enough quantity to make the investmen…
There will come a point when the price hits high enough to justify the cost but that also means higher costs to the end user. This makes me wonder if it'd be worthwhile starting a company to capture it now, and just stockpile it until it's rare enough to be able to use my stockpile to control the price. The DeBeers diamonds playbook applied to helium, or maybe the Peter Thiel build-a-monopoly-to-win approach.
That's where the government reguli could step in. It wasn't economically viable to capture natural gas so it's just flared off, but if the government fines oil companies for flaring off the natural gas, suddenly it's economically viable to capture it instead of wasting it.
NASA and Starlink have already been using ion drives with 10x ISP of chemical rocket engines. Using such drives a 3 stage with existing nuclear reactors as energy source can get to 150-200 km/s. While it haven't been built yet, nothing seems to prevent ion drive even with 100x ISP of chemical rocket. That means we can get 1000-2000 km/s (acceleration with existing reactors would take about 100 years) and get to the c…
The problem is radiation. Empty space is not really empty, there are stray atoms floating around. Very scattered, but at a high impact momentum penetrate the ship ionizing anything in their way, and making the ship itself radioactive. Not even talking about stray high-energy particles from distant supernovas and magnetars -- those irradiate ship regardless of its speed.
anything going out there for those long journeys would/should be big, so there would be enough walls, storage of supplies, reaction mass tanks, etc. to provide significant protection.