SSI List Moderation

Sorry for the late reply. I've been having conection difficulties for the
past week.

> That seems like splitting hairs to me. The right to drive a car is
> government controlled, too. That doesn't interfere much with the
> ability of commercial enterprises to build cars, or of private
> individuals to drive them.

But not to own the car. I believe it is an important distinction. Consider
this: The government also regulates marriage. But for most people, it can't
withhold permission to marry, or control what happens within the
relationship afterwards.

> Good enough for all those things you mentioned previously? They've
> been snipped by now, but I seem to recall cheap access to space,
> affordable human travel to the Moon and Mars, etc. If the RL-10 is
> good enough to do all that, why isn't it doing it?

If I told you Boeing could build a 3 engined airplane, would you believe me?
Or would you say it's impossible because they're not doing it now? How about
the nuclear-electric propulsion like NASA really wanted to send to Jupiter's
moons? "If they can do that, why aren't they doing it already?" Much as I
have a dim view of their manned space programme, their unmanned space
programme has actually managed to maintain Apollo's high standards of
excellence and jaw dropping achievements. I trust that part, and they think
JIMO is possible. Even though they're not doing it now.

As I said. NASA can only exist if space travel needs NASA. They have no
incentive or goal to reduce launch costs and goals that encourage them to
act otherwise.

I believe conventional rocket technology (or minor modifacations) can bring
launch costs down to $500/kg or lower, and enable crygeneic fuel transfer
and long term storage in orbit. I believe it because of my own (amateur)
inquiries, and because dozens of companies and engineers have said it can be
done, and because most of the key requirements have already been achieved.
(Or at least is significantly better than the horse droppings NASA likes to
call cutting edge.) With those three you have cheap access to moon and mars
at a small multiple of LEO price.

Though I agree the 'coil gun' rocket proposed for asteroid retrieval would
need to be designed from scratch.

> > Polywell is currrently being developed by the US Navy. This makes
> > ccomercial
> > usage unlikely.
> >
> Nonsense. The US Navy was instrumental in the development of fusion
> power too, and those are widely used commercially.

Remind me: How much support does the US Navy (or any other part of the
American government) lend to Iran's new commercial nuclear reactor system?

Hmm? What's that? A comment from the peanut gallery? Brown people don't
count?

The difference is you can't fly a nuclear power station. You can't
buy/license a power station, then move it completely beyond government
control, and use it to crash an asteroid into Washington DC. Powerful rocket
engines are dangerous, in many ways, and unpopular. The other major reason
why you don't find nuke based cargo vessels is because the one such ship
that was built was not allowed to dock anywhere outside America.

Plus any fusion reaction is a neutron source, and any neutron source is a
dirty bomb factory waiting for a military coup to happen.

> In addition to that, EMC2 is a commercial company. The Navy
> is their current customer, but it does *not* control all the IP,

Yes. But the US government is more than willing and legally able to say,
"Well done. Now it's classified and you can't sell it to anyone but us, and
we're not buying. We're also going to loudly and publically tell the world
you failed. Cross us and you'll die in jail. Here's a complimentary pen to
make up for your loss of profits."

> > An engine no one is allowed to use might as well be an engine that
> > doesn't exist.
> >
> Also not true. Suppose your characterization of the US
> Navy's control over this technology were correct
> What about China? India? Japan? The EU?

I believe you're underestimating how persuasive NASA is, and how timid ESA
has been, and how much clout America has. You might wonder why no one else
ever built a stealth fighter or bomber, since the benifits are so obvious.
Oh wait, Germany did. Or at least they were, up until a group of USAF
officials visited, and the project was shut down a week later. The M52
project might spring to mind too, Jet powered supersonic fighter prototype
being built in 1945 in England. Or at least it was, until some Americans
visited, and a few months later it was shut down completely, and everything
sent to Bell Labs.

Nor are they they only nation to act like this. OTRAG is a good example. Or
was until Russia and France stamped on the project. There is a strong
tendency in politics to favor the status quo, and to fear dual use
technology, and to base national space policy on NASA's history of megabucks
projects.

> Once it's known that a thing is possible,
> it doesn't take long for highly motivated
> nations to figure out how it's done.

Which is why I believe NASA and other US agencies have historically opposed
anything that might lead to cheap space flight. They'd lose control of the
basic concepts overnight. And I'm not sure they've changed their minds.
SpaceX doesn't pose a threat because it's a throwaway rocket. The first
person or company to try for reusability will probably find themselves
burried in red tape by a government that probably won't want them to
succeed.

> Maybe the U.S. could strong-arm some of those players into holding
> back a few years, but that would only mean that ten years
> later, most of the world's polywell reactors would be stamped "Made in
China".

Maybe not. Many nations build nuclearr reacctors. But only for themselves or
their close allies; with the possible excception of the cash strapped
russians, who seem willing to drop their pants for anyone nowadays.

John