--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > You can look at He3 fusion cycles all you want, but > until we get > simple D-T fusion to work on earth, theres very > little point.
Agreed, there is much development to be done. > Also, > D-He3 does have some side reactions of D-D, which > *do* liberate > neutrons. That's why I said "pure", as in He3-He3. No deuterium in there at all. > Show me a flightweight, *working* D-T > reactor, then > I'll pay attention to other fuels. Fission reactors > can be built *today*. Show me a fission reactor that could possibly get political approval for operation during launch today, especially if the operator is not a governmental entity. We can talk about future tech all we want, but the fact is that there are many reasons we're developing peroxide/kerosene today. Once we've got commercial access working using that, then we can see where other fields have developed, and see if we can eat our own lunch (and those of our then-present competitors) to make things even better. I can imagine ways to get things < $1/lb. to GEO, but not without significant advances (technology and infrastructure) from where we are now. For example: extract reaction mass from the atmosphere and refine to fuel in a completely automated refinery. (Maybe also from the oceans via desalinization, if you can find a good way to keep sea life from mucking up the works without manual cleaning or other intervention.) Power that, and recharge spacecraft's battery, from a network of solar power satellites that you own. Make all of this self-maintaining (or better yet, needing no maintenance), and you don't have to pay for your fuel per-flight. Also have the craft capable of the same self-maintenance, with minimal human inspections that in practice are rarely more than formalities - though, of course, it's the few times that they're not which justifies them. Couple with a high flight rate and a list of pre-approved flight routes that require at most per-flight notification, which in turn can be automatically filed when someone purchases a ticket. Pay off all the R&D for all of this, of course, which is possibly the most difficult task. And *then* you might get per-flight costs below $1/lb. I don't think this scenario is going to happen within 5 years, probably much longer if ever; it's certainly not what we're working on right now. _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
