OT Nuclear material used as a power supply

There's really no other way to power deep-space probes.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Bussard ramjet? (I know in theory only.)

George H.

MHD _does_ work with exhaust gases. ...Jim Thompson

Deep space missions last years to decades, so RTGs are the only game in town. Pioneer 10 and both Voyagers have them, and I'm sure the comet probe does too.

Cheers

Phil

First you need to get a fusion reactor that'll work with whatever you sweep up -- which will be a trick for a civilization that doesn't have _any_ working fusion reactor other than various bombs. Then you need to make the "sweep up thing" work. Then you need to get up to speed (which will probably involve fissile material).

So -- maybe stick to hunks of Pu 238 for now.

Of course. Where have you been?

They've been used to power lighthouses and remote radar stations, as well.

Sucking on your mother's teat.

Why Tim haven't you heard that nuclear fusion is only 10 years away? :^)

(googling small nuclear fusion and ten years.. it was my first hit.)

George H. Then you need to

Yes, and?

lockheed-martin-cfr/

Yes, I have heard that. I think I first heard it when I was in 8th grade, about 40 years ago.

This reminds me of a science fiction faster than light drive. I can't remember the author, but he must have been giggling when he came up with it.

The drive used a material that was so very hydrophillic that it would jump forward in time in order to get wet. The drive worked by bolting your spaceship to the material, then holding a glass of water just in front of it -- done right, it would pull the entire spaceship forward while simultaneously warping time, thereby achieving FTL travel with no energy expenditure.

So, yea -- safe practical nuclear fusion is just 10 years away. I'll be sure not to buy stock in any oil companies in the mean time.

My name for this stuff is "olds". Because, since there's nothing new about it, you certainly can't call it "news".

Tim Wescott wrote in news:fbednaL-NoRMyLHInZ2dnUU7-SOdnZ2d giganews.com:

"The endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline" by Isaac Asimove.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

There are beta batteries, too.

The original beta batteries just caught the betas to make a current. They worked, but delivered nanoamps at hundreds of kilovolts, which was hard to use.

Hey I had a smiley face... Fission it is then. I was thinking we could never have small scale fission, cause someone would make it into a dirty bomb.

George H.

Isaac Asimov, and his "thiotimoline" material... first "discovered" back in 1947 when he was a biochem student working towards his Ph.D.

That particular "FTL travel" twist on his imaginary hyper-soluble substance was apparently "Thiotimoline to the Stars", first printed in "Astounding" in 1973.

Dunno where the extra 'e' came from.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Of course not everybody knows everything. Your original post had something of the breathless quality of a MIT or Stanford press release, which does have a tendency to evoke responses along the lines of "so what?".

You also seem to be a bit thin-skinned (as suggested by your descending to obscenity in your responses to folks who were underwhelmed). That's a liability on Usenet, where discussion tends to be rather uninhibited.

So take a deep breath, calm down, and come join the discussion. We can all learn stuff, which is both useful and fun.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs