Large Hardon Collider

[Plow]

mom?!

[Eliseos]

Hahaha, awesome.

[Cruzizzle]

Any of you guys follow fusion power research going on right now? I don't know what brought me too it but the last two days I've spent hours reading about current projects/methods on ways to do it. I'm not a physics student or anything, just read shit that is interesting to me.

There's the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor facility going up in France that's doing the 'tokamak' design based on magnetic confinement. Cost 15bn Euro.

The National Ignition Facility in California, currently running, experimenting with Inertial Confinment Fusion. Cost 5bn, budget keeps rising.

And the last I was reading about, using Inertial Electrostatic Confinement. Specifically the Polywell device that uses IEC in combination with a magnetic grid. This is the one I don't get. Concept works on small scale. The issue seems to be that because of scaling, you can't demonstrate breakeven/positive energy output until you make a full size version. This project is currently under the US Navy and has a budget of 12 Million. MILLION. To produce better small scale version (apparently the Navy wants an Ion Gun weapon or something). A full scale, power plant size, would cost 200 million. A fraction of the the other projects.

It's suppose to work, small scale have all been promising (well according to the very limited info available about the project, it suggests its promising, the Navy wants to keep the hype down, probably in case it doesn't work out or something, so they have an embargo on the research). It's WAY cheaper than any of the other fusion projects our there, but no one will take the leap to fund 200mil to build a WORKING plant. Meanwhile, 15bn EUROs goes into an "experimental research" facility. The hell?

The mind behind this died a few years ago just after the Navy awarded the 12m contract to produce two new version in the "WB" series of polywell devices and option for the weapon system prototype if found feasible.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling now. In any case some pretty cool physics at work. Here's a video of the inventor giving a presentation for Google trying to get the 200m funding before the Navy awarded the current contract.



What do you guys think?

[Psion]

Oh don't worry, I'm sure the 12 million budgeted is just to pay for an accountant who will put a more accurate estimate of the cost by tacking on 5 zeros to the end to bring the actual cost to 1.2 trillion, a much more realistic cost considering how horrifically inefficient our government is with its money, especially when it comes to the military areas of spending.

I do have high hopes for fusion research... but I do not expect it to come from the US, at least not from our government.

[Eliseos]

When this falls to the second page, you get a Hipster Sagan:

http://static.quickmeme.com/media/social/qm.gif
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/4evb/

Edit: that site sucks, can't embed the image.

[Kryssan]

@Cruzizzle:

ITER is the one with the most probable chance of success for being the edge that breaks breakeven and lays out the first prototype ideal design for future plants. NIF is really just a research project, a 'hey can we do these things with this technology'. There is a lot more to NIF than just fusion sciences. A lot of countries have put money, technology, and manpower into the ITER pot - and given the success that JET accomplished, it isn't too much of a stretch to envision ITER accomplishing what JET could not assuming they ever get it built with all the funding issues they've been having.

Haven't heard about the Navy and any real contracts for development of fusion power. Also, while the conceptual phase might start at 12 million, the project head was asking for 200 million to continue the project and you're advertising that the military is the one forwarding this contract. So take the budget of NIF and ITER, add them together, multiply by ???, add in interest and inflation, and realize the final cost will have more zeros than any human can count without becoming sick to their stomach.

More to the point, his design is not for a working plant - he's not even proving anything new at this junction. Small-scale fusion design is not a result, because the losses from the smaller magnetic fields are much easier to control and keep engaged - the issue is that it isn't viable, your energy required far exceeds energy gained. When you start talking full scale power plants, field loss becomes a serious issue and one of the major lingering plagues of fusion power. Anyone who was to claim they had the ability/capability to build a working plant at the moment could safely be regarded as another Fleischmann–Pons.

In fusion power, the question is not 'does it work' - we've been doing it for a while now. Many years, in fact, in many countries. I see nothing of notable interest with what he's doing - hundreds of companies across the world are right now experimenting with fusion power in a multitude of manners. KSTAR, MAST, Wendelstein 7-X, JT-60, just to name a few off the top of my head, not including those already mentioned previously. The question is 'how to keep it going', which is something no one has answered yet, hence the current money sinks.

For someone who self admittedly does not have much knowledge in the field, you certainly seem to be jumping on the attack bandwagon with your comments against ITER.

[Eliseos]

Congress proposes bill to cut NASA funding, and would potentially eliminate the Webb telescope:

The House Appropriations Committee proposed Wednesday to kill the James Webb Space Telescope, the crown jewel of NASA’s astronomy plans for the next two decades.

The telescope, named after a former administrator of NASA, is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and it was designed to study the first stars and galaxies that emerged in the first hundred million years or so after the Big Bang.

It was supposed to be launched in 2014, but NASA said last year that the project would require at least an additional $1.6 billion and several more years to finish, because of mismanagement.

Just last week, NASA announced that it had finished polishing all the segments of the telescope’s mirror, which is 6.5 meters in diameter, but the agency has still not announced a new plan for testing and launching the telescope.

The announcement of the telescope’s potential demise came as part of a draft budget for NASA and other agencies, including the Commerce and Justice Departments. In all, the committee proposed lopping $1.6 billion off NASA’s current budget, which is $18.4 billion for 2011. The Obama administration had originally requested $18.7 billion for NASA.

Astronomers reacted with immediate dismay, fearing that the death of the Webb telescope could have the same dire impact on American astronomy that killing the Superconducting Supercollider, a giant particle accelerator in Texas, did in 1993 for American physics, sending leadership abroad.

Canceling the Webb telescope would “have a profound impact on astrophysics far into the future, threatening U.S. leadership in space science,” said Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which would run the new telescope. “This is particularly disappointing at a time when the nation is struggling to inspire students to take up science and engineering,” he added.

Tod R. Lauer, an astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, echoed his view. “This would be an unmitigated disaster for cosmology,” he said. “After two decades of pushing the Hubble to its limits, which has revolutionized astronomy, the next step would be to pack up and give up. The Hubble is just good enough to see what we’re missing at the start of time.”

The Webb telescope, he said, “would bring it home in full living color.”
The Appropriation Committee’s proposal was the opening act in what is likely to be a long political drama, in which the Senate will eventually have a say. The measure is expected to be approved Thursday by the subcommittee in charge of NASA and the other agencies, according to Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the committee.

Next Wednesday the full Appropriations Committee will meet again to consider the final bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sc...webb.html?_r=1

[Kryssan]

Money is definitely in demand as of late... NASA just keeps getting rolled over too.

[Olo401]

Bumpity bump..

Looks like there was significant progress towards isolating Higgs-Boson announced at a physics conference this morning. I wish I had a better source than this but he goes into good detail about recent findings.

[Eliseos]

Does anyone have any experience programming in Fortran? I'm looking to get a book on it for work, but not sure what is good/etc.

[Woozie]

I'm decently experienced with Fortran. I didn't really learn much from a book. My professor just walked me through my first code and from there I just looked up everything I needed. That's really all you need. Afterall, you already know how to program. All you need to do is learn the form of the statements and such. Any book on fortran should suffice. Just go to Demonoid or piratebay and find Fortran for Dummies or something like that and I'm sure it will be all you need.

[Eliseos]

I may bombard you with questions when I start trying to learn this. I'll look around demonoid and see what I can find. Some of the shit I've seen at work looks like moonspeak.

[Woozie]

I'm not sure how much help I can be. I used it for maybe two years but I haven't used it in a long time and I'm pretty rusty.

[Kaylia]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...4ad9ed6e5.1021

Trojan' asteroid shares Earth's orbit


PARIS — Earth is not alone in its orbit around the Sun - a small 'Trojan' asteroid sits in front of our planet and leads it, according to British science revue Nature, which published the discovery Thursday.

This diminutive asteroid has a diameter of just 300 metres but is called a Trojan because of its particular position in a stable spot either in front of a planet or behind it. Because the asteroid and planet are constantly on the same orbit, they can never collide.

Jupiter, Mars and Neptune also have Trojan asteroids accompanying them, as do two of Saturn's moons.

NASA scientists discovered the asteroid, which lies 80 million kilometres (50 million miles) from Earth, using its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope.

Astronomers have long thought that Earth did have some Trojans but their discovery has proved elusive because of the difficulty of seeing them in daylight.

"WISE was a game-changer, giving us a point of view difficult to have at Earth's surface", said Martin Connors, a professor at Canada's Athabasca University and the lead author on the Nature paper on the discovery.

Our Trojan -- which is officially called 2010 TK7 -- has an unusual orbit that takes it further away from the sun that most Trojans go, moving above and below the line of the orbit, which is what attracted scientists' attention.

Connors and his team scanned the sky from January 2010 to February 2011 using additional data about near-Earth objects (NEOs) and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii to try and pinpoint a Trojan.

But this asteroid is keeping its distance: its orbit is "stable for at least 1,000 years", says Connors, and it won't be coming nearer than 24 million kilometres (15 million miles) from Earth over the next 100 years, says NASA.

Random oddity.

We should go build a space station on it even though its not very pratical or useful!

[Woozie]

The Earth didn't clear its orbit and is therefore no longer a planet.

Also, how did I miss this?

Bumpity bump..

Looks like there was significant progress towards isolating Higgs-Boson announced at a physics conference this morning. I wish I had a better source than this but he goes into good detail about recent findings.

Going to read through it when I'm not working anymore (so probably not until Sunday ), but it seems interesting.

[pogejr]

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

[Altariel]

That's actually pretty cool.

[Tyche]

NASA To Announce New Mars Finding
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pag...news&Itemid=27

NASA will hold a news briefing tomorrow to announce a new Mars finding from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.


The briefing is at 2:00 pm EDT at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. NASA says only that it is a "significant new Mars finding" from the MRO, which has been orbiting Mars since 2006. It will be televised on NASA TV

[Plow]

Morgan Freeman on StarTalk this week...

http://www.startalkradio.net

[Kaylia]

NASA To Announce New Mars Finding
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pag...news&Itemid=27

I bet they found water...again. It's always goddamn water.