Recent comments in /f/space

KenethSargatanas t1_j5w232a wrote

Reply to comment by alexxerth in Mycotecture — the use of mushrooms and other fungal substances for architectural purposes — could be key to building affordable, fire-resistant, insulated habitats on the Moon and Mars. NASA aims to experiment with the technique on the Moon in 2025. by clayt6

My guess is that they will extract it from lunar regolith. The Moon has all of the major elements of life just lying around. It true that it's not in the same proportions as Earth, and it will take time and effort to develop the processes to obtain and process them, but they are there.

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twilightmoons t1_j5vzcn5 wrote

Reply to comment by GenericCleverNme in 2024 Eclipse - Best Locations by procyons2stars

Be aware - there may be hotels who don't know why people are booking that weekend/Monday in April so soon, why their hotel is full.

They will learn VERY quickly.

Last time, we had three club members who lost their "locked-in, guaranteed" reservations three to six months ahead of August, because the hotels realized that the rooms they booked at $50/night could be sold at $300+ a night instead. Luckily, we had LOTS of backups sites planned. They were able to meet at the family farm of one club member south of the path, then drive up early in the morning to a site along the centerline for a great view.

Just plan for something like that, just in case.

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ttkciar t1_j5vy5oz wrote

Reply to comment by ShittyBeatlesFCPres in NASA to test nuclear thermal rocket engine for the first time in 50 years | CNN by dem676

> Does anyone know how large these would be compared to a civilian energy reactor?

Tiny. A civilian energy reactor has to implement two heat exchange systems -- one for transferring heat from the core, and one for heating water to steam to turn turbines and then condense it again.

For NTP there are no circular heat exchanges, and no turbines. It's just a hot core in your reaction chamber, which heats the hydrogen you squirt on it, and the hot hydrogen gas escapes out the rocket nozzle.

The smallest critical mass of plutonium is about four inches across. In theory that's all you need in the reaction chamber, but in practice you will also want cladding so that your hydrogen reaction mass erodes the cladding and not the plutonium (else you'll be squirting plutonium out the rocket nozzle along with your hydrogen), and a bisecting neutron reflector shutter or something so you can turn the core on and off.

So, maybe something about twelve inches across? Still much smaller than a civilian power reactor.

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LiCHtsLiCH t1_j5vvzrk wrote

Reply to Mycotecture — the use of mushrooms and other fungal substances for architectural purposes — could be key to building affordable, fire-resistant, insulated habitats on the Moon and Mars. NASA aims to experiment with the technique on the Moon in 2025. by clayt6

Fungi are f'n strange. Ive said it before but people never really grasped the idea. They kinda self assemble, not like a plant or an animal, they need all the pieces, then they kinda manifest, animals and plants make pieces, then assemble... Bad job trying to say what I'm trying to say. But yeah fungi dont do it by combustion, animals and plants do it by oxidization, combustion, but they need perfect conditions. I know people are freaking out about how little they know about things, but fungi are pretty simple, vinegar is to them, what alcohol is to bacteria.

Anyway, this sounds hilarious to me, setting up a musroom wall is not as easy as compressing bricks, especially if you are boring, imagine studying this 15 years ago... then using geo sciences realizing top soil has an astounding amount of organic material in it, stufff just bubbels up out of the ground, you can light it on fire...

Then you get organic material less soil, there is none, little bit of water crystalizes into brick, then tube shape(an interlacing brick design) after a quick dehydrate, no need for fungi, but they do grow well in low light situations... i get it misheard, walls covered in fungi, not made out of fungi *burps*

cool

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danielravennest t1_j5vu17b wrote

Reply to Mycotecture — the use of mushrooms and other fungal substances for architectural purposes — could be key to building affordable, fire-resistant, insulated habitats on the Moon and Mars. NASA aims to experiment with the technique on the Moon in 2025. by clayt6

As I suspected, this idea is from architects, who come up with nice looking but impractical designs. It is left up to us engineers to make something practical that works.

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