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NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be about to pay off

arstechnica.com

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Re: NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be about to pay off

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that racism and xenophobia taint the arguments you're making, even if you yourself are not racist or xenophobic. It's hard to stand up for a view when it is held by people who are widely reviled, and I suspect that courage is something our country needs more of. However, I think the examples I provided compellingly demonstrate that issues of legality do not sit at the core of the ant…

I can't speak for Trump's attack on the judiciary. He's barking up the wrong tree there, and did little to help his case. It will likely be left for SCOTUS to decide, as should be the case; judges shouldn't be cowed by politicians to change their rulings. We do disagree about the point about the sanctity of law. IMO selective enforcement (engagement/detainment directives for the Border Patrol) and the implicit suppor…

Just to be clear: selective enforcement is the law of the land. Has been since before IIRIRA passed-- and enforcement was looser, not tighter, before then. So when you say you respect the law, that's the law and I'd expect you to either respect it or say plainly that you don't and why.

Regarding the Minutemen-- a gentle reminder that regardless of whether a person is illegally in this country or not it is a felony to "point your gun right dead at them, right between the eyes", as Chris Davis publicly advocated for during the Minutemen's heyday. And of course, there's Shawna Forde, the leader of Minutemen American Defense. She's an individual so law-abiding that she has her own entry on murderpedia. And the cofounder of the original Minuteman project was later charged with three counts of child molestation including his own daughter, and is currently serving a nearly 20 year sentence resulting from those charges. Then there's the allegations of influence peddling and fraud that have embroiled the organization in litigation against another founder, Jim Gilchrist... and the fact that Simcox cofounded another related Minuteman project with Jason Ready, a known member of the American Nazi party who received a BCD from the Marines, was believed by the FBI to have been involved in the execution of at least two suspected illegal immigrants, and finally wrapped things up with a 4-on-1 murder-suicide a few years ago. Seriously law abiding folks, there-- and just as another reminder that's the leadership. That's who these supposedly lawful folks decided to follow. Those are the people whose acts you compare the civil infractions of illegal immigrants to.

You know what? I'll take the illegal immigrants, thanks.

Re: NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be about to pay off

#32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IAN a physics major) But to elaborate per my understanding, there are 2 important variables you're playing with in rocket engines: - Specific impulse / Isp (aka how much thrust you get for a given amount of propellant) - Maximum Thrust Due to the rocket equation [1], adding more propellant increases the weight of your vehicle, making it harder to move, requiring more propellant, etc etc. So being efficient with your…

This is correct but incomplete: Vasimr may have a higher power density (be it power per thruster mass or per thruster volume) than ion thrusters but I am pretty sure it has lower power density than a Hall thruster, while being also much more complex. The main (and not yet verified) claim of Vasimr compared to existing and proven tech like Hall thrusters is the ability to greatly vary the specific impulse.

I thought one of the issues with Hall thrusters was that, in engineering-practical terms, getting enough total thrust out of them was impossible. Or would they scale effectively?
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