A MarketPlace of Ideas                        

When I was very young I was interested in the moon landing programs.  I quickly homed in on the problem of propulsion in space.   I also quickly became discouraged.   I felt as though physics may never give us the present of the possibility of interstellar travel.   This was the late 60’s and society and technology seemed to crawl at a snails pace.

But now its 2008 and in the intervening time our pace of technology has increased substantially.   After additional study of physics and review of what type of research work is being done I am confident we will in the next 50 years send a probe to Rigel Kentaurus.  Rigel Kentaurus is the nearest star group to us at about 4.3 lightyears.

aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p139/speed/Alpha-Centauri.html  - more detailed information on the system including a comparative with our solar system

How much time is required to accelerate to near the speed of light at 1g acceleration?

    in days  … thus some days will require higher accelerations.

This can be achieved with a near massless drive powered by nuclear means.  The data link back might be a bit slow.

Small nuclear reactors in the 70 MW thermal or 25 MW electrical power range. 

Unlike conventional designs, the proposed reactor is self-regulating through the inherent properties of uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The temperature-driven mobility of the hydrogen contained in the hydride controls the nuclear activity. If the core temperature increases over the set point, the hydrogen is driven out of the core, the moderation drops, and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen returns and the process is reversed. Thus the design is inherently fail-safe and will require minimal human oversight. The compact nature and inherent safety open the possibility for low-cost mass production and operation of the reactors.

The Hyperion design takes advantage of the economy of mass-production instead of the economy of scale (as is done presently with traditional reactors). HPG estimates that approximately 4,000 of the first module design will be needed to meet initial demand.  This feature will likely yield a much more widespread adoption of this nuclear technology.

Their website is: www.hyperionpowergeneration.com

You can watch the focus fusion Google TechTalk here

• We need cheaper energy not more expensive alternatives.
• In order to merely provide the rest of the world with european level power will require 4X current energy investment.  We won’t get there from here.  That includes fossil, nuclear, solar and wind power.  All together insufficient.

 Currently popular alternatives are not energy dense enough to get the price of energy down.  Material costs are too much.  Added benefit?  If we can make it work it will lead to propulsion that will allow sending probes to the nearest stars.

I am currently researching if D Wave has a public interface where one can submit jobs to one of their quantum computers.  I have not found if they have yet but I have found one of the founders blog here:  http://dwave.wordpress.com/

Seems to be throwing one machine open to the public would be a good idea.  Some jackass somewhere will use it for something it was totally not meant for and it will turn out to be the best use for it.   Or maybe I am just saying this because I want a chance to have a few runs on it.

UpDate( 08-13-2008): D-Wave has a mocked up system with classical solvers where you can become familiar with their user interface.  You can sign up here: sandbox.dwavesys.com/orionui/