Recent content by Ken Fabian

I expect we will see mobile emergency power systems (big batteries) adopted by emergency services - oversized onboard batteries, 'slide on' or trailer mounted with the fast charging outlets and cables to deal with stuck EV's. Five minutes of fast charging per car might be enough. They could...

Good point about radiation shielding. Except I think that, along with the dire absence of commercially exploitable opportunities, it builds the case for NOT attempting any long term habitation on the moon and for making our future 'explorations' crewless. What are they going to be doing above...

I am doubtful anyone will build underground on the moon in the foreseeable future. I expect it to be an extraordinarily difficult challenge to attempt that kind of construction. Modular buildings on the surface with high grade insulation and active heating/cooling systems will be good enough...

Making anything complex and technically demanding out of moon resources is going to require large pre-investments in infrastructure and equipment. A whole lot of pre-planning and testing too; few factories doing novel things in difficult conditions work perfectly first go. Seems like in-situ...

This one might be my pick as one to hear Chris Squire as the master of electric bass. (Except for some of the others...

Going to The Klondike in search of riches that were confirmed to be there, so you can take some with you to live somewhere much nicer seems quite different and a lot more attractive to (mostly) young men with few prospects than highly skilled (with good prospects) people going to Mars at great...

My pessimism is mostly grounded in resources and economics, at both ends - Earth and 'colony' - but don't dismiss other concerns like human biological responses to low gravity (which, like most aspects, there can be solutions to, eg centrifuge habitats (spinning pie dish style?). Quotes around...

That was in reference to the difference between bases and colonies - not so clear with a quote of previous quote. I think the Earth economy could manage to build and supply a Mars or moon base - at great expense. Whilst some in-situ resources can help I don't think a local economy - a colony -...

Whereas I think they are vastly different - the difference between using the pre-existing resources and industrial capabilities of a globally connected Earth economy and the relying on hypothetical resources and industrial capabilities of a Mars settlement in isolation. We don't even know if...

I suspect biased sample selection that is not representative. There is no shortage of talented people who have good pitch and the industry usually chooses out of them, but yes, sometimes people are entertaining and popular without it and use such tricks. It is my impression auto tune is not that...

The requirements for certification for safety (or other quality) standards don't require every item to be tested. I'm not familiar with the particulars but random sampling within production runs seems to be the way it is done. May not even require independent testing on a regular basis; it could...

Interesting but I am not surprised that there would be mutation/selection, ie adaptation, however it isn't clear to me what conditions were critical; the paper was quite 'dense' with unfamiliar terms well outside my limited knowledge store. But it did provoke some questions. What is the extent...

Regulated and enforced safety standards seem necessary, ie the cheap counterfeits should be detected and rejected. De-funding regulatory agencies and industry 'self regulation' looks short sighted; I suspect the insurance industry favors enforced standards as will most of the major...

While we are waiting for the nuclear industry to find its feet we should keep adding wind, solar and batteries and see how far that can take us - which is happening most places apart from where policy and excessive red tape deliberately impedes them, eg USA. And let's not stint on pushing ahead...

I think it is as simple as the explanation found unsatisfactory in the first para of the initial post - Put the fan in a duct and the flow rates would be the same on either side of the fan. For the un-ducted fan the closer to the fan we get the less difference between the inlet and outlet side