AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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«‹›1991 »

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Dark Helmut posted:

Would they remove the Gau-8? That would be depressing.

I think the last time this got brought up someone mentioned little life rafts rolled up into 30mm casings

# ? Oct 14, 2014 18:30

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# ? May 27, 2024 06:39

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Snowdens Secret posted:

I think the last time this got brought up someone mentioned little life rafts rolled up into 30mm casings

Be awesome if they ever responded to a sinking ship full of guinea pigs.

# ? Oct 14, 2014 18:40

Seizure Meat: Jul 23, 2008; by Smythe

Cyrano4747 posted:

Hah, station a squadron of A-10s in florida for drug interdiction.

Think:

http://youtu.be/Km7_cNajNKc?t=2m26s

but with more GAU

less GAU more GBU

# ? Oct 14, 2014 19:14

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

MrYenko posted:

Be awesome if they ever responded to a sinking ship full of guinea pigs.

I would make that happen.

# ? Oct 14, 2014 19:18

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Reminds me of this:

That yellow thing slung under the fuselage is a droppable life boat.

Now, logically I know that they must have done something like get low to the water, slow to just above stall speed, and drop it a couple dozen yards away from whoever needed a delivery-style lifeboat. That just makes sense.

That doesn't keep the 10 year old in me from imagining 200 of those in formation 15,000 feet over a sinking ship with a coastguardsman staring down the lead Norden.

# ? Oct 14, 2014 19:18

Somebody Awful: Nov 27, 2011; BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED

The 10 year old in me agrees.

"Catastrophic consequences" await the Bulgarian armed forces if they are not weaned soon from dependence on old Russian equipment and repairs, according to outgoing Defence Minister Velizar Shalamanov.

# ? Oct 14, 2014 20:08

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

To be honest they probably have a point. I don't think Russian engines are rated for anywhere near the hours that US/Euro military jets are.

# ? Oct 14, 2014 21:36

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Took a while, but here's the next post about the JA 37. For the record, JAS and aircraft 39 refer to the Gripen.

Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2

There's still more to go. :v:

Bonus content: Article in an issue of Ericsson Review from 1983, about the JA 37's radar. Tons of nerdy stuff, very interesting.

quote:

Moderator: Well, we've talked about the system, but I was thinking we should focus a bit. We've already talked a bit about user interfaces, but maybe there are more things about the machine end of things that we'll want to cover?

The target indicator display in the JA 37, in its original incarnation.

Lennart Alfredsson: Yes, well, you can't avoid talking about user interfaces when you've been at SRA working with displays for a significant part of your life. In the very first solutions for the JA we used parts from the AJ, of course. In the AJ you could turn the reflex glass for the HUD up and down, but Ulf Frieberg didn't like that, he wanted a different solution. And we did end up with another solution in the end.

In the AJ the central display in the cockpit was a round thing with an outer diameter of 110 mm (4.3 in) and on that an ordinary PPI was shown. The useable area was about 100 mm in diameter. We couldn't go back to the system we'd used on the 35, because there the radar returns were "stored" with simple electroluminescence that showed a "memory" of the pulses, and the visibility wasn't great. We wanted something with much better visibility than that, and so we started off with the AJ's indicator screen.

The first thing we tried was drawing a regular B-scope. An analog B-scope has pretty big distortion errors at the bottom of the display, things float out towards the edges no matter what you do. We implemented some B-scopes and showed them on the indicator screen we had then; as Hasse Olofsson mentioned we had a pretty good amount of money to use for various related development. But the result wasn't very good, nobody at all thought it was a sound idea. Instead we returned to the solution they had in the US, which was based on a "scan converter", which meant you took the radar input signal, put it through a special cathode ray tube and then you could read a signal suited for presentation in the other end and show that on a display. You needed an extra glass tube, about 40 centimeters (15.75 in) long with a weird double anode in the center and two electron guns, and this was supposed to fly.

I know the yankees did that. We had steady contacts with Hughes Aircraft Company. Their solution was originally part of a system called CORD (Coherent On Reception Detection, a precursor to fully coherent systems), which some of you might remember. And that was no good. It was nothing. Nobody at FMV, especially not at the aircraft electronics bureau, found that particularly attractive. But then, in the morning of May 8, 1968, my colleague Acke Axelsson called me and said "I'm back from my visit to Hughes and I have something to tell you". And he came to me after lunch. He told me there was a new component, a linear shift register, which was a thousand bits long.

A single component that could store a thousand bits, that was something that hadn't existed before. We got started, Acke and I, and we kept on until nine PM and we drew and drew and drew. We built chains of these shift registers. We needed about a hundred thousand bits (~12.2 kB, about two thirds the size of the text of this post) to make a B-scope. And we really wanted the possibility of storing and "aging" the radar returns. On top of that we had the problem that while the radar had a refresh rate of about 1 Hz, the presentation system ran at a refresh rate of about 50 Hz. Thus we had to be able to present the information continuously while reading in new radar data and removing old information from the system. It actually took us nine hours until we were convinced that it would work. From that day, when Acke and I went home at about 9 PM, the old solution for the central indicator screen and everything behind it was completely dead. There wasn't a chance we'd even get the idea of getting that back.

We had solved all of the problems. In the central indicator on the AJ there's radar integration pulse by pulse, there's brightness control, there's memory, there's tons of things. Everything was a huge compromise, an extremely fine balance of voltage potentials that controlled various grids and cathodes in the system. It was all gone, we could divide and conquer. The radar did its own thing, it delivered a neatly packaged video signal. We could draw symbols separately, we could solve the storage of radar pulses separately, we could solve the brightness control separately. Everything came together in a single evening. And there was no talk of going back to any other solutions.

But it was hellishly expensive. When we got started the military variant of these shift registers were eleven bucks per bit. Eleven bucks per bit (in today's dollars; I adjusted the original Swedish numbers for inflation and converted to USD). And we needed quite a number of them. We were talking millions, and there was no way we could spend that on trials, so when we built an experimental system we used the civilian ones and they were about $2 per bit. In the end when we had to quote the cost for the system the military variant had gone down to $2.2 per bit as well, so that was 220,000 dollars for that one component. Everything, the entire system, five boxes of electronics, was $287,000 in all. It wasn't easy to convince the management that we should blow $220,000 on a single component.

Anyway, we built these things. From that point analog wasn't on the table, everything was purely digital. This turned things on their head, we could process targeting data, we could do all sorts of things. And then Hughes had another flash of genius. They suggested we should switch to drawing the targets character by character as ASCII. What we did was we chose only the targets and marked them, which meant the memory footprint was greatly reduced. In the system we had the capability of showing 128 targets. That was all. We implemented "aging" so we could see the target tracks, we could save two, three, four, five or six, as many sweeps after each other as we wanted. So we could see where the targets were going. We could draw their course vectors directly on the display. But that information might not be all that easy to interpret correctly when you're going really fast yourself and on top of that you have to take the B-scope distortion into account. So then we implemented compensation for the aircraft's own movements and for the B-scope distortion. More or less, the tracks you saw on the display were a pretty good representation of how the target was actually moving in relation to the aircraft's "track-up" in the system.

May 8th, 1968, that was the big turning point for us at SRA. The symbols weren't a huge problems, we had those in the computers, we did a lot of experiments with those, we tested all kinds of things. It was obvious that computers and digital was the solution. But for the radar it was on that day that we received the information that solved everything. Sometimes you're in luck.

Some of the JA 37's original displays in action; the tactical indicator is shown at the linked time, the HUD and the target display come up a bit later. The arrows are friendly aircraft, the # signs are targets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAPteuBsRGg&t=214s

G�ran Tode (visitor at the seminar, worked with strike aircraft ops at the air force HQ at some point): I have a question, let's see if I can formulate it decently. I'm rather impressed when I hear you talk about these things, how you took advantage of new ideas. I wonder if there's something special with corporate culture when it comes to aircraft in particular. In that you take advantage of all opportunities, and that it's so dynamic, it changes all the time. Many years ago I got take a ride with the navy while they were hunting subs, and I took a look at their command and control system and I understood immediately why they never caught anything. It had brass tubes and whatnot. No, I mean, through the aircraft, through high-tech and the danger and everything, you immediately get to know if things are good or bad in a different way than you do at sea. And if we look at administrative control systems that's even worse, then you never see anything until it's too late. Does anyone want to comment on this?

Lennart Andersson: Well, it's a good thing. In my world there's always been positive and negative things. If we at SRA had some good ideas that we believed in, that we though we could do - and it was certainly the same at Ericsson in M�lndal - FMV was always up for it. Sometimes you had to advance some money but it always came back in the end. We had lots of opportunities, we had it better than the researchers at any university. However, in my opinion, what was kinda wonky was the corporate executives, you couldn't trust those. At all. When we got started with digital technology at SRA, which was about 1964 to an order of magnitude, the circuit boards were huge clunky things. And then a directive from the execs came down, saying that digital circuits were for the development division only, and those guys were on the sixth floor somewhere far away. The rest of us were not to work with integrated circuits. They forbade us to work with these things, but we didn't give a gently caress, we didn't take that seriously.

The next big thing was when Saab got started with computers, or calculators as they were called back then. There was a directive from Marcus Wallenberg himself to all of Ericsson and SRA (Wallenberg was one of the big owners of both Ericsson, Saab and SRA; he was the chairman of the board at Saab at the time) that we could not do anything with computers. Period. And of course we didn't, we called them program units, and in M�lndal they called them control units. But they were surprisingly computer-like, I'd say! Anyway, those were the orders, we were not to work with calculators. When new things show up the execs have to let them out all over the business and let everyone use them, no restrictions, check them out and poke at them. There's always someone who has an idea somewhere.

Moderator: Can I add something to that? You'd think that the universities would be on the cutting edge, and I became a professor in 1965. If we were to purchase a computer at the university, it had to be approved by the computer committee, the computer central. And they were kinda like corporate execs, they said we couldn't get a computer of our own. But then we called it a process control unit instead. And then it was fine to buy one. So it's not just the corporations that has management like that, the kind of progressive places called universities suffer from that too. Sorry, I shouldn't talk so much myself. Gunnar.

Gunnar Lindqvist: Well, regarding the skepticism against electronics. I suppose I should point out the background information that in the case of aircraft 32 and 35, the electronic systems were heavily delayed and couldn't keep up with the aircraft deliveries. That's why the aircraft engineers a bit doubtful about newfangled things. At Saab they had a new systems division and the guys who "banged at the sheet metal", as someone irreverently put it, wondered what these systems people were doing. When it came to delivery deadlines the avionics industry wasn't as mature as the sheet metal benders. When we were getting started with aircraft 37 we got a directive from the commander of the air force, that we couldn't put a single new device in the 37, it was all to be stuff from the 35. This was changed later but the IFF unit remained. One of my coworkers said it was only interesting to museums and souvenir hunters. That was some background regarding the skepticism against electronics. As always, it was about risk management.

I almost forgot the most important thing I was going to say, the issue of the customer's knowledge compared to that of the provider. We at FMV had the mindset that we had to have very good engineers with a vision of the future, who could communicate with the people in the industry, our suppliers. The Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences conducted an investigation in the 70's where they found that one of the reasons that Swedish industry had been so successful was the relationship between customer and supplier. And that wasn't just between FMV and Saab and Ericsson, but it was at least as important between, for example, Vattenfall and ASEA Atom (nationalised power company and nuclear power generation respectively), and between SJ and ASEA Traction (national railways and train builder respectively). And certainly not the least, Televerket (the national telephone administration). The national telephone administrations in Norway, Sweden and Finland came up with a standard for cell phones. That meant that the Nordic countries were more than a decade ahead of other countries in that area. But in today's investigations made in the armed forces they find that the engineering people at FMV are an unnecessary double competence that just bumps up the requirements and that those engineers shouldn't be there.

Bengt Sj�berg: When it comes to working methods maybe I should direct some attention to the working groups that more or less grew up during the time of the AJ 37. For example, when it came to to adapting the JA 37 to the needs of the pilots, we made sure that was a more formal working group. It was called the PM group and it consisted of representatives from Saab, FMV, the air force test pilots and Saab's test pilots, as well as some people from M�lndal - the radar was important - and some presentation guys from SRA, usually one or two from each. And we had some pretty intense meetings. First we had some smaller groups meeting up to discuss every single system function, and then we had more formal meetings at regular intervals. Other than the PM group there was also, for example, a radar integration group, called M�linm�tningsgrupp 70, MIG 70.

Lennart Alfredsson: We weren't allowed to call ourselves 37. MIG 37.

Bengt Sj�berg: No, and this was in the early 70's. I think we met every two weeks for several years. We alternated the place where we met, and here we benefited from Sweden's limited size, we could always call for a meeting just a day or two in advance if we had to. We could gather the knowledge that existed within our borders. Then we had a communications and combat control group where the corresponding people at FMV were members. The pilots had their say, we always had excellent cooperation with the test pilots. Some of them were very good a understanding us engineers and could describe details they observed during the flight, as they were observing it. In a single-seater aircraft it's not easy to hitch a ride and look over the pilot's shoulder. Then we got good simulators and there we could have intense discussions.

When this PM group came with a recommendation that was sometimes a pain for the project management, because who the hell was responsible for what in this group? Who was in charge of the economic issues, and so on? But we always replied that we were just issuing recommendations. Then it was up to every project manager to count his own purse and for the project management in concert to decide. And it was very hard for the project management to go against these recommendations, because there was a lot of power behind them if you look at who was represented in these groups. The way the contracts were written for the 37 was also pretty good for cooperation in an area of technology where the understanding of things was constantly growing. Because the man from FMV could go home and talk to Gunnar here, and come back with a small bag of money, most knots were untangled. FMV had some resources in reserve.

Since we could talk freely between the industries it worked very well. If we didn't like something you could always call up Acke Axelsson or some representative at FMV and say "We're having some trouble with this detail, can't you go talk to the guys in M�lndal about it?". And after a while the problem was usually solved. Usually the FMV man in question had a small bag of money with him because he saw the long-term economy in getting a better system, while the industry was working with a more limited perspective. But, well, you didn't win any popularity contests with your bosses at Saab because of all the suggestions we came up with. Because it cost money. But there was a solution for that in the 37 era.

Those solutions weren't there when we were developing the JAS 39, there we couldn't criticize each other in front of FMV. I couldn't say that now things are hosed at Ericsson in Kista, they're completely stuck. We shut up about that. We didn't tell our friends at the aircraft electronics bureau. I really do believe though that it was basically a good way to write a contract for the 37, and these working groups worked very well. Many solutions and ideas grew from there. The PM group, for example, just decided many hundreds of details that we flat out sat down and signed off. No project manager could even be bothered to get up to speed and understand the details, so it became as we had decided if the costs didn't skyrocket too much.

Lennart Alfredsson: There was one downside to these contracts, and that was that it was very easy to change, add or remove things during development. And nobody thought about the upcoming series production. We added a small casing here, we laid a cable there and there was some of this and some of that. The electronic map and the other things weren't free. Things got added here and there. And then when we had to come up with a quote for the series production it turned out to be pretty expensive compared to what we had said originally, we had gotten a gradual increase of costs in this system, at least at SRA. They wanted to get rid of that in the coming discussions about JAS, and so they did and unfortunately they did it way too well. There they connected the development to a limited series production run and there were no changes allowed for something like seven or eight years. That was sort of unfortunate. But there are downsides to any contract.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 15, 2014

# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:21

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

C27J Chat: one just buzzed the gently caress out of my house flying like it was stolen. Came straight at me while I was on my front porch, time I ran around to the back it was completely gone over the horizon without so much as engine noise.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 00:08

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Sperglord Actual posted:

The 10 year old in me agrees.

"Catastrophic consequences" await the Bulgarian armed forces if they are not weaned soon from dependence on old Russian equipment and repairs, according to outgoing Defence Minister Velizar Shalamanov.

So if I read this as "never trust Russia for anything, as when you displease them they will try to dick you over and start running puppet parties in your national elections" would I be wrong?

# ? Oct 15, 2014 01:37

StandardVC10: Feb 6, 2007; This avatar now 50% more dark mode compliant

Sperglord Actual posted:

"Catastrophic consequences" await the Bulgarian armed forces if they are not weaned soon from dependence on old Russian equipment and repairs, according to outgoing Defence Minister Velizar Shalamanov.

Buying used Eurofighters from Portugal would be a bit of a feat given that I'm pretty sure Portugal doesn't have any.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 02:23

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Nebakenezzer posted:

So if I read this as "never trust Russia for anything, as when you displease them they will try to dick you over and start running puppet parties in your national elections" would I be wrong?

It's not as huge a problem as you think. There's plenty of expertise in that equipment in both Israel and other countries in E. Europe.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 03:03

hepatizon: Oct 27, 2010

TheFluff posted:

Took a while, but here's the next post about the JA 37. For the record, JAS and aircraft 39 refer to the Gripen.

Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2

There's still more to go.

Bonus content: Article in an issue of Ericsson Review from 1983, about the JA 37's radar. Tons of nerdy stuff, very interesting.

Still enjoying these, thanks!

# ? Oct 15, 2014 03:32

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Panzeh posted:

It's not as huge a problem as you think. There's plenty of expertise in that equipment in both Israel and other countries in E. Europe.

Expertise is one thing, spare part supply is another.

Also despite the twist of the article the implication is less that having a military full of Soviet gear is bad because you're dependent on the Rus for support, and more because it means your newest gear is pushing 25 years old and the median age is probably a lot higher. Their newest fighters, for instance, are Fulcrum-As with questionable modernization status, and theoretically they're still flying MiG-21s, which just doesn't cut it in a European context.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 05:42

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Regarding the B-52 engine replacement talk, aren't there enough spare JT3's to outlast all the current airframes available?

# ? Oct 15, 2014 18:04

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

This isn't exactly in line with the thread, but this has become three closest thing we have within tfr to mil-news.

C.J. Chivers just published an article in the nyt about the DOD's awful handling of pre-1991 chemical munitions found during OIF, secrecy to the point of getting more service members hurt, and improper treatment of nerve and mustard injuries. It's long, but absolutely worth it. The idiocy of being wrong about a current wmd program combined with a refusal to acknowledge that troops were getting hurt by stuff the west helped build in the eighties is just too much.

http://nyti.ms/1xQACMG

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:00

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

Blistex posted:

Regarding the B-52 engine replacement talk, aren't there enough spare JT3's to outlast all the current airframes available?

About 2,000 or so, yes.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:03

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

Blistex posted:

Regarding the B-52 engine replacement talk, aren't there enough spare JT3's to outlast all the current airframes available?

The AF calls it TF33, but yeah that's what started the conversation.

Edit: drat you

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:04

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

Dead Reckoning posted:

About 2,000 or so, yes.

That's enough to completely re-engine every B-52 about 3 times. :stare:

Yeah, I can see why nobody would bother replacing it.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:21

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

Mortabis posted:

That's enough to completely re-engine every B-52 about 3 times.

Yeah, I can see why nobody would bother replacing it.

The TF33s also engine about 100 other planes (JSTARS, E-3 Sentry, E-6) but yeah, they bought out more than 60% of the TF-33's total production run. Heck, back in '97 they had 3600 engines left. Now they have around 2,300 at last public count.

edit
Lockheed claims they made fusion reactors :stare:

quote:

Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.

In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.

In recent years, Lockheed has gotten increasingly involved in a variety of alternate energy projects, including several ocean energy projects, as it looks to offset a decline in U.S. and European military spending.

Lockheed's work on fusion energy could help in developing new power sources amid increasing global conflicts over energy, and as projections show there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in energy use over the next generation, McGuire said.

If it proves feasible, Lockheed's work would mark a key breakthrough in a field that scientists have long eyed as promising, but which has not yet yielded viable power systems. The effort seeks to harness the energy released during nuclear fusion, when atoms combine into more stable forms.

"We can make a big difference on the energy front," McGuire said, noting Lockheed's 60 years of research on nuclear fusion as a potential energy source that is safer and more efficient than current reactors based on nuclear fission.

Lockheed sees the project as part of a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate change problems.

Compact nuclear fusion would produce far less waste than coal-powered plants since it would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels, the company said.

Ultra-dense deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is found in the earth's oceans, and tritium is made from natural lithium deposits.

It said future reactors could use a different fuel and eliminate radioactive waste completely.

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years, McGuire said. A small reactor could power a U.S. Navy warship, and eliminate the need for other fuel sources that pose logistical challenges.

U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fission reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle.

"What makes our project really interesting and feasible is that timeline as a potential solution," McGuire said.

Party Plane Jones fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 15, 2014

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:37

Back Hack: Jan 17, 2010

I don't believe anything Lockheed is selling at this point. :crossarms:

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:46

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

"We're totally going to invent nuclear fusion that you can haul around in the back of a F250. All we need is a decade and a bunch of government and military money.

There is no way this will go over time or over budget. See we have all this secret research done that we can't show you, we're like 90% there, honest. Really we're just working out the final details, deciding what color to paint it practically.

This will also solve all your environmental, military budget, and naval construction problems. We're pretty sure it is positively buoyant and heals the sick as well, but we're waiting for the data on that.

Also, the first 250 units come with a pony. A unicorn pony. That's pink. Her name is Fluttershine."

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:55

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

Nuclear fusion itself isn't actually that hard, relatively. The problem (or, really, a problem--there are others) is nuclear fusion that produces net energy. There are plenty of fusion reactors out there, but confining the fuel takes more power than it generates.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:57

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Mortabis posted:

Nuclear fusion itself isn't actually that hard, relatively. The problem (or, really, a problem--there are others) is nuclear fusion that produces net energy. There are plenty of fusion reactors out there, but confining the fuel takes more power than it generates.

Presumably, lockmart is not bragging about fusion power that requires external power to work. But they could always just be lying.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:05

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Mortabis posted:

Nuclear fusion itself isn't actually that hard, relatively. The problem (or, really, a problem--there are others) is nuclear fusion that produces net energy. There are plenty of fusion reactors out there, but confining the fuel takes more power than it generates.

Fine, I should have specified "net energy positive nuclear fusion" but that didn't fit with my artistic vision in end-of-the-day mockery.

Either way that little "detail" is a pretty loving profound leap to promise on a fixed timetable if only someone would just uncork that sweet, sweet government money hose.

I mean, essentially infinite, cheap energy offering a way for us to fix major long term environmental, economic, industrial, and social problems? A promised future where we don't really have to worry about nasty things like curtailing our energy consumption and can keep on keeping on with making our society as luxurious as possible with no repercussions?

Yeah, obviously no one else has bothered to put a poo poo load of effort into trying to solve that one. I mean, riches and wealth beyond all possible dreams and avarice plus universal fame and adoration would be the only rewards. I'm certain no corporation has given this a hard shot, and god knows there aren't any research scientists interested in the sort of project that would more or less guarantee a Nobel if they pulled it off.

But look, just make that check payable to "Lockheed Martin" and give us a decade. We'll get that little item checked off lickety split.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:12

Micr0chiP: Mar 17, 2007

X-15 Development: "Research Project X-15" 1966 NASA Hypersonic Spaceplane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=?kBbZqeiU10s
(Youtube thumbnail is not working for me, so here's a link

A still from the video were they show the analog computer used on the simulator. :worship:

Micr0chiP fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Oct 15, 2014

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:14

darthbob88: Oct 13, 2011; YOSPOS

We've actually achieved break-even fusion, where the fusing fuel released more energy than the lasers put into it. Unfortunately, we still have to get a reaction that produces more energy than we have to put into the lasers, but with time and money, it's possible. Probably not with LockMart, though.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:15

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Yeah, I don't want it to seem like I'm against funding core scientific research or anything. Quite the opposite.

I just can't help but roll my eyes, hard, when LockMart promises the holy grail of energy research on a fixed timetable.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:18

Lobster God: Nov 5, 2008

Cyrano4747 posted:

"We're totally going to invent nuclear fusion that you can haul around in the back of a F250. All we need is a decade and a bunch of government and military money.

There is no way this will go over time or over budget. See we have all this secret research done that we can't show you, we're like 90% there, honest. Really we're just working out the final details, deciding what color to paint it practically.

This will also solve all your environmental, military budget, and naval construction problems. We're pretty sure it is positively buoyant and heals the sick as well, but we're waiting for the data on that.

Also, the first 250 units come with a pony. A unicorn pony. That's pink. Her name is Fluttershine."

Looking forward to fusion powered F-35s.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:19

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Lobster God posted:

Looking forward to fusion powered F-35s.

It's what we're going to power the laser with, silly!

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:21

MrChips: Jun 10, 2005; FLIGHT SAFETY TIP: Fatties out first

darthbob88 posted:

We've actually achieved break-even fusion, where the fusing fuel released more energy than the lasers put into it. Unfortunately, we still have to get a reaction that produces more energy than we have to put into the lasers, but with time and money, it's possible. Probably not with LockMart, though.

NIF is a dead-end from any perspective other than as a nuclear weapons simulator.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:22

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Cyrano4747 posted:

I just can't help but roll my eyes, hard, when LockMart promises the holy grail of energy research on a fixed timetable.

"If only five-hundred and thirty-five or so idiots with lots of money and zero functional accountability would help us out a little, we could change the world!"

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:23

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

Cyrano4747 posted:

Fine, I should have specified "net energy positive nuclear fusion" but that didn't fit with my artistic vision in end-of-the-day mockery.

Either way that little "detail" is a pretty loving profound leap to promise on a fixed timetable if only someone would just uncork that sweet, sweet government money hose.

I suspected that's what you meant, but the pedant in me couldn't let it go.

quote:

I mean, essentially infinite, cheap energy offering a way for us to fix major long term environmental, economic, industrial, and social problems? A promised future where we don't really have to worry about nasty things like curtailing our energy consumption and can keep on keeping on with making our society as luxurious as possible with no repercussions?

I'm somewhat skeptical about the cleanliness part. Fusion reactions release shitloads of neutrons, so the reactors do produce a fair amount of radioactive waste, depending on what fuel you use.

Anyway if LM is really that close to practical fusion power it should be able to get private funding.

Mortabis fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Oct 15, 2014

# ? Oct 15, 2014 21:42

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

"Shitloads of neutrons" is a very short term and essentially solved problem.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 22:12

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Snowdens Secret posted:

"Shitloads of neutrons" is a very short term and essentially solved problem.

My god no it isnt what the hell

# ? Oct 15, 2014 22:20

BIG HEADLINE: Jun 13, 2006; "Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Someone at LockMart watched "The Saint" and decided Tretiak had a really good idea.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 22:56

Humboldt Squid: Jan 21, 2006

Party Plane Jones posted:

The TF33s also engine about 100 other planes (JSTARS, E-3 Sentry, E-6) but yeah, they bought out more than 60% of the TF-33's total production run. Heck, back in '97 they had 3600 engines left. Now they have around 2,300 at last public count.

edit
Lockheed claims they made fusion reactors

I'm trying to be skeptical,but if anyone on earth could pull this off its skunkworks. I hope it is because it might save all our butts.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 23:15

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Groda posted:

My god no it isnt what the hell

When people think 'radiation' and 'radioactive waste' in terms of nuclear plants they're generally thinking of the results of the decay chains of the fission products and fuel leftovers. They're not thinking of the neutrons released during power-operation fission, which are zipping around for a trivially small amount of time after release compared to the eons-scale of those chains, and dealing with those in that short timeframe is a question of space, not tech. Reading that LockMart talk, they're reflecting them back into the reaction chamber. I know you know all this stuff, Groda, and you know why I'm not getting into detail. But I've worked, eaten, slept and lived for years within mere meters of a fission reactor at power, making GBS threads out its poo poo tons of neutrons, and I find it unconcerning.

Also reading up online it sounds more clearly like when LockMart talks about fitting on the back of a truck they're talking about the reaction chamber / reactor core itself, certainly not the entire steam side and probably not even most or all of the containment. That likely means the size and the other numbers they give are all in the ballpark of the latest batch of self-contained fission units like the Toshiba 4S. The most shocking thing about that announcement was the implication they'd shrunk the generation and support aspects down to fit on a truck with the core, which would've been very hard to believe if it involved spinning turbogenerator sets.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 23:35

ThisIsJohnWayne: Feb 23, 2007; Ooo! Look at me! NO DON'T LOOK AT ME!

So you don't think the people who created nuclear fission reactors 70 years ago (physicists working in universities) could create nuclear fusion reactors, but the people who put the wings from a sail plane on a starfighter 60 years ago (engineers working at lockheed) could?

I do not agree.

# ? Oct 15, 2014 23:43

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# ? May 27, 2024 06:39

Somebody Awful: Nov 27, 2011; BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED

In other Cold War news, it turns out convicted Soviet spy David Greenglass died back in July.

# ? Oct 16, 2014 00:00

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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