ControlsFreak
No bio...
User ID: 1422
Ah, so you think that there is something to be looked at in terms of designs, and at least something about distances/payloads, yes? And you think that this information can be found and understood with just a quick internet search? You just think that these internet sources don't use first principles reasoning, conceptual designs, concepts like specific impulse, thrust, and delta-v, etc., I guess. Those things are wholly irrelevant to your point. Am I understanding you correctly?
ControlsFreak
2d ago
As long as it's significantly better than chemical rocketry, which it is, then that makes it a better option for long-range spaceflight, since it can do the work and chemical rockets can't.
Lets use another one of your examples. Cars are much better than horses. Does that imply that cars are a better option for long-range spaceflight? If you think this statement doesn't quite make sense, try to explain without reference to any first principles, conceptual designs, concepts like specific impulse, thrust, and delta-v, etc.
Alternatively, to hone in really narrow:
since it [fusion rocketry] can do the work
How do you know that it can do the particular type of work you're asking it to do? Wouldn't it be nice if you had some reasoning, from first principles and/or conceptually, which could inform you as to whether it is plausibly up to the type of task you're asking of it? Some sort of check to see if you're accidentally expecting a car to go to the moon, just because it's better than a horse?
ControlsFreak
3d ago
Stepping back and taking a very broad view, there are several steps to the research, development, and engineering of a system. Generally, one begins with physical principles. With those physical principles, one can compute theoretical limits. One can also sketch a concept of operation based on those physical principles. Often times, at that point, one can still handwave away many practical concerns and compute how close a concept could, in theory, get to the raw theoretical limits. As one progresses, one may include an increasing number of more real-world difficulties.
For nuclear rocketry, we are not building on a blank slate, as though no one has ever started down this path at all, as though we simply have no idea what the theoretical limits are or what the concept-based performance could look like (still handwaving away many practical considerations). People have been doing this work and publishing it for half a century.
Do you agree or disagree with this general picture?
ControlsFreak
4d ago
Why would we need to escape the rocket equation? It's like going from horses to cars.
Neither horses nor cars are propelled by the physics of the rocket equation. The rocket equation is an exponential (or a logarithm, depending on which way you arrange it). It provides a hard limit on performance that cannot be hand-waved away. You say, rightly, that future technologies can perform better. This is true. How much better? What are the numbers that we can plug into the rocket equation in order to compare to the other numbers that we can plug into the rocket equation? It is only then that we can really get a sense for the scale of how much better future technologies can be.
ControlsFreak
6d ago
PRISM is a code name for one of the tools that Section 702 authorized.
I think an equivalent way of saying this is, "Section 702 is the statutory authorization for tools like PRISM."
(I believe your comments are blurring the distinction between being something and authorizing something.) The fact that PRISM is a code name and was classified justifies calling it a "black program". Also, I interpreted the phrase line item from OP to be budgetary, since I have only ever heard that term used in a budgetary context before.
Perhaps blurring occurred. I would contend that the blurring occurred here:
As for the statutory authorizations, they were black programs and their replacements are almost certainly black. There's no statutory line item for PRISM or XKEYSCORE any more than there was for the SR-71, and there won't be for the replacements either.
Is this talking about "statutory authorizations"? Or is it talking about line items, which you interpret to be budgetary?
I contend that if it's talking about "statutory authorizations", we obviously have it. I will concede that if all that Nybbler was saying was that we don't have public budget lines, then sure, we don't have it. But I would also contend that that's pretty much entirely beside the point when the conversation is about what they have legal authority to do and what we know about what their programs actually did.
I also think that whether proper names are in the statutory text isn't particularly salient for whether we have a statutory authorization or are able to understand how something works. A couple of prompts to some AI on the topic, and it appears that the term "Head Start" was nowhere to be found in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, but nevertheless, a program by the name "Head Start" was understood to be authorized by this statute. That does not imply that this program was so 'black' that we can't understand anything about how it works.
Look, I'm normally not this belligerent, but Nybbler in particular has a history of being willfully ignorant on this topic. Over and over again.
Frankly, I was saying that your prior comments are basically incoherent.
...lol, you don't know what my profession is.
Look, I didn't want to wave credentials around, but the reason why I got into this discussion is because you were showing that you are ignorant of the physics involved. What I'm arguing is that you need to learn a little bit about it before you make claims about it. Especially before you make dismissive claims where you say that we don't even need to consider the physics involved. That we don't even need to think about concepts like the rocket equation, specific impulse, thrust, delta-v, etc.
My claim was that we already had pretty decent published literature on various not-yet-existing propulsive methods, that this literature uses the standard physics and the standard methods of analysis and standardized performance metrics. You were saying that we should just ignore all that. That it was wholly irrelevant.
Nah, dawg. You need to have a basic understanding of the domain you want to speak on. If you're going to now agree that we can go look at the published literature (at least I think this is what you want to go for; you just called out an "internet search", so maybe you're going to crackpot sites) and that doing so is not wholly irrelevant, then one requires a sufficient understanding of the basic physics and terminology to have any clue what it is, and is not, saying.
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