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Winchell Chung
@nyrath
Star map and Atomic Rocket geek. The hard-science SF writer's tech support. Mastodon: spacey.space/@nyrath
Winchell Chung⚛🚀’s Tweets
I'm not sure people realize how big of a deal this is. High-altitude balloons might not be as sexy as autonomous weapons or hypersonics but I think they have the potential to be just as revolutionary for warfare, if not more so. 🧵 1/10
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U.S. military’s newest weapon against China and Russia: Hot air politi.co/3Rbwiqr via @politico
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Useful thread. (Any SF novels featuring weaponised balloons that weren’t written in the late C19th/early C20th?)
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I'm not sure people realize how big of a deal this is. High-altitude balloons might not be as sexy as autonomous weapons or hypersonics but I think they have the potential to be just as revolutionary for warfare, if not more so. 
1/10 twitter.com/HopeSeck/statu…
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I have really enjoyed running rpgs among the moons (and rings) of Saturn. It is a nice, varied place.
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Dust clouds on Mars, painted by Chesley Bonestell for his book "The Solar System," 1967 edition.
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Sorry for not flinching at the $400k unit cost of the AIM-9X used to take out the Chinese balloon yesterday
I work hypersonics where the AGM-183 ARRW goes for a cool $15M
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But even if we did upload a mind to a computer we would still have to take its word that it was really conscious. We couldn't tell from the outside if it was a dumb programme that was very good at appearing to be sentient, or if it really was alive.
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Concept: Mining companies that roll up to planets facing an asteroid impact and offer to make the problem go away in exchange for all rights to said problem.
Because, hey, free rock!
#sciencefiction
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Digital color overlay for this one:
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After two months of mourning and working on estate issues it was really good to stand out in a damp field and fire off rockets and hob-nob with fellow rocket nerds.
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Back from da rocket launches.
Two teams of teen engineers launched three models total. All their eggs came back intact, but altitudes were way under the contest's goal. They'll need to build new models and/or use larger motors.
I flew five flights, for fun. One busted fin.
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"Ballistic" indicates its target from launch. "FOBS" indicates only upon de-orbit. A FOBS is similar to the nuclear deterrent imagined by Heinlein in his juvenile books and, from a MAD standpoint, deeply destabilizing.
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We have a ship preview for #screenshotsaturday 🚀
Presenting the Tug ship.
Designed to work both on its own or in a formation, depending on the size and mass of the cargo, you will encounter them on raiding missions, or maybe even fly one 🤔
#scifiart
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Good morning!
It was super fun making this little magical device ages ago, from a 2D vector base made in Illustrator to 3D in Modo. A bit of making-of/references in the last image.
artstation.com/artwork/mK6Ge
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There is a reference in this SDI-era report to a 'General Electric SPAS study' from 1988.
In it is described a 200 MWe MHD generator, later described as a "GE pebble bed reactor MHD ".
More importantly, it has component masses.
ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/
Does anyone have it?
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🚨oops alert🚨
Oak Ridge flooded a nuclear material vault & declared a situation of "accidental criticality is possible from the loss of one additional documented control."
also violated spacing regs for two carts with U material.
stuff happens more than public told
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read image description
ALT
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Fractional orbital means object has an orbital speed, meaning it brakes to reenter before first orbit is completed. Ballistic missile never reaches orbital velocity, so it needs to accelerate further to become a satellite of the Earth.
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what the FUCK
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FTL -> time travel paradoxes -> alternate timelines -> sudden use of lighter than air craft when this makes no sense.
I'm not saying it's aliens, as it's most likely just cyborgs from the future.
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Author and editor Ted White was born on this day, so here are a couple of his book covers, then some of magazines he edited (artist: Frank Frazetta, Ralph Brillhart, Vaughn Bodé & Larry S. Todd and Mike Hinge):
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If this rendering is remotely to scale, then you can get about a 4×2.5×2 meter package on the cargo elevator down to the surface. What are the most useful self-contained machines or modules that fit in that form factor?
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The US military raised concerns last year that China may be developing fractional orbital bombardment systems and other space-to-ground weapons. Does the best way to counter such weapons involve the US developing similar ones? buff.ly/3HvJ7Ig
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A few more renders 🤘:
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I think Anna Kikina may have heard about the biggest hair record and decided to give it a go.
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So, does Marsha Ivins hold some kind of record for the biggest hair in space?
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The rings of Saturn, painted by Chesley Bonestell (1888-1986)
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Dyna Soar mockup photos circa 1960. Taken from a mockup review film at the National Archives. Sadly, my videotape copy was corrupted long ago...
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Old but I should do more. Cockpits are comfy
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The recent success of NASA’s DART mission might suggest that scientists have figured out how to deal with a potentially hazardous asteroid. Two scientists explain their research that shows that some asteroids might actually be difficult to handle. buff.ly/3WS4Bou
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Two spacewalkers relaxed today as the rest of the crew set up a 3-D bio-printer, watered tomato plants, began a fluid physics experiment, and studied cardiac research.
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Arp 148, aka Mayall's Object, is the collision between two galaxies about 450 million light-years away resulting in a ring of gas, dust, and stars and a bright, elongated companion. This image comprises data acquired with in April 2007.
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Unused hostile parasites for Subnautica: Below Zero
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Vernor Vinge forecast tiny nanochips might float everywhere, drawing power from fields beamed into the medium from some power source.
Hmmm ... now see tiny little robots actuated by magnetic fields, with biomedical application. On target again, my friend.
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And a different spacecraft called Hyperion, to add to the pile. 4k video of the nuclear Mars mission design...
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I appreciate the critiques of my post by analogy to beekeeping, and I will now revise and extend my comments🙂. The flaw in the Comparative Advantage argument for saying humans are safe in the face of AI, is that the argument only allows 2 options: Trade, or Not Trade. /1
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With respect to @Noahpinion, I don’t think this argument works. The human brain has high energy cost compared to ant brains, but we aren’t driven to trade with ants. Comparative advantage assumes some parity between trading partners.
Within a century or so we may be ants to AI. twitter.com/Noahpinion/sta…
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3/ Another option is Conquer, Colonize, Enslave, and Steal Resources. That’s the one we need to worry about AI.
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Those sensors, and the integration of same, take up a noticeable amount of mass on the airframe. Not a staggering amount, but a noticeable amount.
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