And this is why the US can't have nice things any more.

Im really not sure how good AI will be at replacing peasant farmers.

No, it doesnt.

If I buy a token for real money and sell it to you for WoW gold, before the transaction you and me combined had 1 token + 100k gold, and after the transaction you and me combined had 1 token + 100k gold.

If it's solid and conductive or semiconductive, we can use it.

That said, Im expecting to find worse power efficiency as well as lower specific impulse from "mixed metal fuel rods" - but if you didnt have to pull it up from the bottom of a gravity well, it might be worthwhile.

Personally, I'd start by looking at the work on solar furnaces and space manufacturing.

Is this a casual conversation, or are we talking, like *numbers* here ?

If it's the latter, the 1kW is going to be the biggest constraint - you're asking for a lot of power.

As far as costs go, I'd say we're looking at 'not especially ambitious' Kickstarter, especially if you're happy for it to not come back, and to cut that power demand down a little.

It's press coverage - it's going to be hypey, and thats just the world we live in. As indeed is toxic comment environments :)

While running on space junk would be nice, it doesnt need to happen for the drives to be useful. If you're rocking 11 000s of specific impulse, then it's simple enough to bring a shipment of cathodes up from earth, transfer to a SEP tug and take them to where they are needed. The fact they are solid, and therefore dont need to be kept at the correct temperature and pressure helps a lot.

Cathode geometry is something we need to do more science on. At the moment, we've been working with one inch diameter circular cathodes, and the 'star' erosion pattern appears to be a thing. Yes, we're definitely looking at cast/extruded cathodes. We've got some ideas about how to move cathodes forward, and thats on the 'to do' list for the model thats going up to the ISS.

*shrug* If they want to be a customer, Im happy to sell them space and give them a power allowance.

Nahh, he's saying he's a fan of atomic rocket and he doesnt think anything else has the thrust to do what he wants, and so he does the circular firing squad thing that the space sector has been doing for the last fifty years.

Even if he is right, there is still a need for non time sensitive cargos of canned goods, metal powders for your advanced manufacturing printers, copper wire and all the other crap colonists will need, and thats where being able to go 'it'll take 500 days and we dont care' becomes important, even if it isnt the ion drives that are taking the humans to Mars they are still helping.

http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/S... is as good a summary as any about NASA's current ion engines, while the APL paper by Neumann, Bilek and McKenzie for the http://scitation.aip.org/conte... has information about the Neumann Drive.

Short version is that xenon drives vary in specific impulse and power efficiency depending on the power levels, while Neumann Drives vary in specific impulse and power efficiency depending on the fuel used, while the power level affects how many pulses per seconds. Higher power levels appear to cause faster wear of the grid in Gridded Ion Thrusters, or the chamber in the case of Hall Effect Thrusters, as well as needing more investment in Power Processing Units and so on. Additionally, there is the issue of tankage, regulators and so on for dealing with the xenon itself, which means it's not a straight 1:1 comparison. That said ...

TLDR : Magnesium in a Neumann Drive runs about 9 uN/watt and 11 000s specific impulse. A NSTAR running at ~1000 watts input has about 32 uN/watt and 2850s of specific impulse.

Hi,

I'm Ian Whitchurch, the CEO of Neumann Space.

First of all, if you want more technical information about the Neumann Drive, there's an article in Applied Physics Letters. It may be available here

http://scitation.aip.org/conte...

If that isnt working, then you might know someone with an APL subscription, or it might be somewhere on the internets under "A centre-triggered magnesium fuelled cathodic arc thruster uses sublimation to deliver a record high specific impulse Patrick R. C. Neumann, Marcela Bilek and David R. McKenzie".

Secondly, it's not just the Neumann Drive that's going up to the Bartolomeo platform on the ISS. We're planning on taking a bunch of other peoples small projects, which deserve to go into space, but cant by themselves get a ride into orbit, or an easy method to get power, heating, cooling and communications once they are there. If you're interested, you might want a look at this fine Airbus DS press release.

https://airbusdefenceandspace....

There is also information available about the Facility for Australian Space Tests on our website, at http://neumannspace.com/fast/

Thirdly, Im happy to answer further questions people might have.

Finally, our poor, poor website. Also, the original post lacks a poll, which itself lacks a Cmdr Taco option. What the heck am I supposed to vote for ?