On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:56:35 -0600, Oren Beck oren_beck@hotmail.com wrote:
According to the math I have seen for such experimental holes they are in the realm of that engineering math trick question about if a bath tub at 98F or a Oxyacetylene torch flame at 6300F has more heat in it . Answer provable by trying to boil a bath rub using a torch.
uh, no. Heat of phase transition has nothing to do with specific heat. "How much heat is in this?" is usually relative, but an absolute amount for it can be obtained by converting the temperature to Kelvin and multiplying by the specific heat and the mass, after adjusting for phase transitions and the possibility that different phases have different specific heats. You can't weld with a bathtub, you can't bathe in a flame. Well maybe you can, but I can't.
Has anyone else read Gerard O'Neil's "The High Frontier" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/189652267X/tipjartransactioA/
the paperback is available used for under a dollar plus shipping
it's about building orbiting suburbs, but practical. The plan is to build a station on the moon that launches aluminum ore into lunar orbit, which is collected and refined, also in orbit. That way, the huge launch cost of building everything down here at the bottom of the atmosphere and lifting it out to space is saved.
My reccomendation for an ion rocket is to use iron. Choose a suitable iron asteroid, set up camp in it, accelerate your iron ions and fling them out one way, save enough mass to decelerate after you get wherever you're going, but the question of where the energy to do all the ion accelerating comes from is still up in the air.
Perhaps put Oren Beck on a treadmill.