I assumed that the dust billowing was a side effect of the drive field. If it were electromagnetic, then couldn’t the dust have been ionized and repelled?

If you look at the early moon expedition proposals, such as the von Braun team’s “Conquest of the Moon” (part of the Colliers’ series), they had internal combustion engines on their tractors.”

Very interesting. I have to get my hands on that book. Unfortunately Amazon seems to list only four used ones starting at $100. Still, if it truly was worth it that wouldn’t be a problem. Have to look into it more.

Phil, if you have not seen this, you don’t know what you are missing! This is the most hilarious thing I have EVER seen!!!! And please tell me that Capt. Pirk does NOT look life Wesley Crusher!!!! If this is made by the same people making the Space Nazi film, I can’t wait!!!!

If you look at the early moon expedition proposals, such as the von Braun team’s “Conquest of the Moon” (part of the Colliers’ series), they had internal combustion engines on their tractors. Not quite as straightforward as modifying a conventional gas or diesel engine, but close. They used gas turbines burning hydrogen peroxide as a monopropellant, because it simplified the fueling requirements and doesn’t require a radiator, but a standard IC engine can be made to work as well.

Of the two, diesels would be easier to modify. They don’t require a precise (I can’t spell stoichiometric:-) air to fuel ratio since they burn in excess air. It might be easiest to just box the engine in a pressurized vessel and let it run normally, piping oxygen in and the exhaust to the outside. Cooling would be a problem since you only have radiation to work with in getting rid of the heat. It would take a sizable array of cooling panels. A possible solution would be active cooling by storing up something cold (like liquid nitrogen) to cool the engine coolant in a secondary loop. That would add another constraint to your operating time, not just worrying about running out of fuel and oxidizer, but coolant as well.

- Jack

The tires would work for a while if you kept them at 2 to 3 atm absolute (as opposed to gauge pressure here on Earth), but the temperature extremes (not to mention the UV) would quickly do them in. The daytime temperature is close to, if not over, the melting point of rubber, and the nighttime temp is cold enough that rubber will shatter like glass when you hit a rock or something.

Maybe if you made them out of something like Kevlar, but then you’re travelling down the road to a non-pneumatic tire.

- Jack

(Of course it’s a stupid argument, but it’s still better than the stuff ol’ Ben comes up with . . .)

This movie id going to suck hard, another stupid movie that will teach us how nazis were evil… blehh

Would have been far better an secret war on 1945-50, with ruskis, yankis ,nazis…and aliens

Such a waste of film

@Lars: point taken, i’ll be more precise with my wording next time.

Silly terminology.

These area might have lots of water ice (and descendant from Atlantis ).

It will be in English, and it will be distributed under Creative Commons, so you can download it legally.

It will be released no earlier than late 2010.

More like “dark” as “unknown”.

Cooooool. “Iron Sky”. Love the title.

“Rautataivas” would have been better. But another movie in Finnish might have been too much…

I dunno, Phil. I share much of your sci-fi tastes, but this does look kinda silly.

It is supposed to be kinda silly.

I can’t wait for the movie (course it’ll be YEARS and hopefully i won’t forget) – will it be in English? Subtitled? Dubbed?

But anyway, do you think the musicians would be willing to sell an mp3 of that song? it was that good, i want to own it! You could make pre-production money by selling it for a rediculous price!!!

(oh, by the way, if they are on the far side of the moon, which you say is ‘dark’ to broadcasts from Earth, how do the Space Nazis know that Jenna Bush is president?)