We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Britain’s space industry – a sometimes under-rated thing Via CityAM, here is an interesting article about the UK’s own space industry. It is bigger than might be supposed from first glance.
(Thanks to my good friend Tim Evans, over at the Adam Smith Institute and the Cobden Centre, for the pointer).
BTW, one of the big places for registering space-related companies these days is the Isle of Man. No doubt, in centuries to come, the Tranzis will be trying to shut down tax havens in outer space.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Not only that, but we’ve just launched our own satellite into a Manx licensed orbital slot.
Not a bad achievement for an island with a population of only about 85,000 people (or drunkards clinging to a rock as the saying goes).
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/satellite_is_in_a_manx_orbit_1_3924253
Port Erin Resident Libertarian
O.k. And next…
(Oh, and BTW, Happy birthday. And if you blog here from space from a Brit craft before Dale blogs from a US craft I’ll be gobsmacked.)
Here’s something I’ve only recently wondered about, and it relates to space engines- can hydrogen atoms ever become radioactive?
The usual description of uranium splitting makes it clear that gamma radiation has caused some protons to break away from the core of the atoms. The core of a hydrogen atom is just one proton! So I think that hydrogen gas CANNOT become radioactive! Perhaps the proton becomes so energetic that the hydrogen atom disintegrates into plasma.
In any case, we might be able to channel hydrogen gas directly through a hot reactor in a spaceship, with no radiation waste to worry about!
With a name like ‘Nuke’ Gray, shouldn’t you already know this? :O)
You are correct that hydrogen (specifically hydrogen-1) itself cannot be radioactive, although there are some isotopes of hydrogen which are radioactive, such as hydrogen-3 aka Tritium.
Hydrogen atoms are highly reactive, but, I dont think they have enough of the ‘right stuff’ to go reactive, usually
My son is immensely fond of the UK space museum in Leicester, but any mention of visits there just elicits smug, superior laughter from my Russian wife.