Tag Archives: ask hentzau

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors.

For the sake of my sanity, I’m just going to deal with this question which has been sitting in my inbox for the last two months.

Joe asks

What is your view on LFTR technology in general. What are the biggest obstacles holding it back? Does it have a real chance at being the number one energy provider?

Since LFTR technology would allow smaller and lighter reactor housing would it be cost effective to put LFTR technology in space?

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Grapefruit + Egg = ???

Jiiiiim asks

So, put a grapefruit and an egg in an area of space which has no other gravitational influences. Would they orbit each other and what would that orbit look like?

It rather depends on the initial parameters of the system, but assuming no other information my answer is going to be absolutely not.

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Two Weeks.

Baron von Awesome asks

How likely is this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17439490

I can’t be bothered to listen to the full programme so I demand that you do the hard work for me. I’m expecially interested in how he plans on getting the fuel to Mars if he wants to refuel there.

I’m thinking he’s living on another planet already when he suggests the average person could afford it at half a million dollars.

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Nuts And Bolts.

Gerry asks

Hey, I noticed a screenshot of SpaceChem on the banner up on top. When are you going to post a review?

Anyway, my question, if you have the time, is concerning your layout actually. I’ve been playing around with Chunk and I just cant get the top links (Science/Gaming on your site) to link to a page where all my posts on that specific category get listed.

I know that your links lead to the category itself (http://scientificgamer.wordpress.com/category/science/). Can you guide me on how it is that you edited the links ?  Thanks in advance!

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When This Baby Hits 88 Miles Per Hour.

Noah Rhee asks

Dear Professor,

A question professor, what is time dilation and how does it work? Furthermore, if time indeed is relative, how would this play into futuristic space colonization?

Thanks,
Noah Rhee

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Testicular Torsion Physics.

Longbranch Pennywhistle asks

What do you know of Newtonian Torsion physics?  Is there a reason this information isn’t more widely known or even distributed?

Here is some info I found, not all inclusive by any means but does this hold any credence?

http://intalek.com/Papers/NTP.pdf

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Voltaire As Applied To Asteroid Mining.

Empress Josh asks

This wacky Lets Mine All the Asteroids scheme. Viable y/n.

Ah, a question where my answer isn’t immediately “That’s stupid” or “We couldn’t ever do that.” Mining asteroids isn’t stupid, and we probably will be able to do it at some point. The real question here is, can we do it today or (as I suspect Sergey Brin et al. damn well know) even fifty years in the future? And is it going to be worthwhile?

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