61–70 of 71 posts
Would more energy be available for capture from Jupiter's reflectance or direct from the sun? My heart wants to say yes but my head thinks even as a point source, direct solar energy is higher. If it was other RF or heat, maybe not. I wonder if a Stirling engine could work alternating shade and Jupiter's direct radiation? I also wondered if lowering a long tail could acquire electrostatic energy greater than its coef…
Probably direct from the sun. There's an what-if about using moonlight to start a fire https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/ > First, here's a general rule of thumb: You can't use lenses and mirrors to make something hotter than the surface of the light source itself. In other words, you can't use sunlight to make something hotter than the surface of the Sun. ... > The Sun is about 5,000°C, so our rule says you can't focus s…
Wow, 11 years to Jupiter. I wish we had better propulsion systems. EDIT: This wasn't meant to disrespect the ESA mission. I'm just sad that the outer planets are years away, rather than the hours, days, weeks or months of science fiction.
Starship test hopefully this Monday. :-)
Let's see, Juice is 2.4t dry and 6t fuelled, so 3.6t fuel. Starship has a planned capacity of 150t to LEO, and there supposedly will be a tanker.
So a probe that's 60t fuelled instead of 6t seems not entirely unreasonable. Distribute between "go faster" and "even more science" to taste.
And/or add a Vasimir, once on station use the electricity to power the instruments. Nuclear power or humongous array of panels.
Wow, 11 years to Jupiter. I wish we had better propulsion systems. EDIT: This wasn't meant to disrespect the ESA mission. I'm just sad that the outer planets are years away, rather than the hours, days, weeks or months of science fiction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, the USSR had really bad luck with the various probes they sent to Mars. A couple crashed, and I think one or two got off course and were lost.
Idk about Mars but that was definitely the experience on Venus (which was far more understandable since they were sending metal balls that would be crushed under pressure within minutes). Only survived about 2-3/10.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, the USSR had really bad luck with the various probes they sent to Mars. A couple crashed, and I think one or two got off course and were lost.
Idk about Mars but that was definitely the experience on Venus (which was far more understandable since they were sending metal balls that would be crushed under pressure within minutes). Only survived about 2-3/10.
Wow, 11 years to Jupiter. I wish we had better propulsion systems. EDIT: This wasn't meant to disrespect the ESA mission. I'm just sad that the outer planets are years away, rather than the hours, days, weeks or months of science fiction.
Wow, 11 years to Jupiter. I wish we had better propulsion systems. EDIT: This wasn't meant to disrespect the ESA mission. I'm just sad that the outer planets are years away, rather than the hours, days, weeks or months of science fiction.
A better propulsion system...or just more (reaction-)mass to play with? Starship test hopefully this Monday. :-) Let's see, Juice is 2.4t dry and 6t fuelled, so 3.6t fuel. Starship has a planned capacity of 150t to LEO, and there supposedly will be a tanker. So a probe that's 60t fuelled instead of 6t seems not entirely unreasonable. Distribute between "go faster" and "even more science" to taste. And/or add a Vasimi…
Or, even better, fly a science payload + 2nd stage and a 1st stage and have them dock in LEO and have a rocket with some 100t of propellant from LEO + some 20t of payload
Sounds fun
Wow, 11 years to Jupiter. I wish we had better propulsion systems. EDIT: This wasn't meant to disrespect the ESA mission. I'm just sad that the outer planets are years away, rather than the hours, days, weeks or months of science fiction.
Also note that Juno is the heaviest interplanetary probe ever launched. It must carry quite a bit more fuel than most other missions to permit its eventual insertion to Ganymedes’s orbit – never before has a spacecraft orbited a moon other than ours.