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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • Yes, ion thrusters still use conservation of momentum to generate thrust. They aren’t limited by how fast or how hot we can make something explode though, so we can shove way more energy into the stuff they’re throwing out the back. They’re basically tiny coil/railguns, using electricity to move individual ions really fast.

    In terms of efficiency, Ion thrusters are 4 to 40 times better than liquid fueled rockets. The draw back is that ion engines make very little thrust for the mass of the engine.


  • Memes can be propaganda, yes, but they need to be something more, otherwise they won’t reach people.

    You can make an image macro of a cat with the text “cucumber bad”, but it probably won’t be very popular. Even then, there’s a history of memes about cats reacting to cucumbers that gives that idea more traction than “Nazis did a nazi”.

    Someone asked “why the downvotes”. I explained “bad meme”.