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Spacescifi

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  1. Again it is a heat and safefy issue with the rocket. A rocket is more or less a directed explosion. Despite the fact that antimatter requires bomb mass, to try to replicate the same feat using regenerative cooling on a rocket nozzle I presume would require more propellant mass expended than if you just detonated an AM bomb orion style against the pusher plate. Reason being you have to carry away the heat. Whereas with Orion you do not have a heat problem nearly as much because of distance and the pusher plate. You can also detonate higher and higher energy yield bombs without increasing your pusher plate equipped ship's mass to cope with it. Whereas your energy yield of your rocket exhaust is capped by however much it's reaction chamber can take. Mini-mag is like the limits of rocketry and Orion mixed into one. A magnetic nozzle being propelled by external pulse propulsion. In fact the main form of propellant you lose on an Orion pusher plate is the sacrificial oil used to absorb the plasma every time it hits the plate.
  2. NSWR are the only theoretical realistic torchdrive rockets that have ever been designed. It is my understanding that the energy release is equal to a constantly exploding nuke.... only directed as a rocket plume. This reaction somehow does not occur until what? Once it's already leaving the nozzle?
  3. My point is you cannot have the same TWR as external pulse propulsion using rocketry. For all the mass required for rocketry (most of it being propellant), and the engine waste heat being a factor, you won't be able to ever have the TWR of nuke or antimatter external pulse propulsion, unless you try something dangerous like NSWR.
  4. I meant efficiency with the thrust to weight ratio. Detonating a nuclear or antimatter bomb requires less mass/weight than exhausting enough propellant to gain the equivalent amount of thrust if you just detonated the bomb. By the time you reach the TWR of the bomb with a rocket your engine will either melt or you have some type of nuclear saltwater rocket shenanigans going on that are teetering at the edge of blowing up your vessel in a catastrophic explosion the whole time.
  5. While a thermal antimatter rocket is possible, engine heat limits how efficient you can get using reaction mass. In other words, there is no getting around using tons of propellant because you would still need it. Since cranking the rocket up to max efficiency by reacting more antimatter with mass is not possible because you would destroy the engine. Arguably one of the most efficient engines using antimatter would be a variation on mini magnetic Orion external pulse propulsion, just subbing the nuke for a photon torpedo lol.
  6. Spider silk has 5 times the tensile strength than steel at the same diameter strand. Steel is about 1 Newton per square meter compared to spider silk which about 5 newtons per square meter. Additionally, spider silk can elongate 35–50% its length before snapping compared to 8% steel. So imagine a scifi alien humanoid of average height and weight with skin and muscle fibers that had those properties but weight is normal for a human (180 kilograms). Would they have superhuman abilities at all? My Analysis: Yes. I think. But to be truly super their bones would need to be stronger still than their muscles so the muscles would not crush them. The bones would not be able to stretch like the muscle and organs, but they would need to be strong enough to withstand the pressure put upon them by the muscles. Thoughts? I assume they would be bullet proof more or less but it would still cause them pain if they were shot and they would get knocked down from the force alone. So superman-lite basically. Super durable to piercing attacks, but still vulnerable to chemical and heat attacks.
  7. I think the future of uber magnetic manmade fields lies in advanced magnetohydrodynamics. For example, the massive magnetic field of earth is said to be caused from the rotating molten iron core. And magnetars (uber magnetic neutron stars) are theorized to generate their fields from as follows below from wikipedia: Origins of magnetic fields edit The dominant theory of the strong fields of magnetars is that it results from a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process in the turbulent, extremely dense conducting fluid that exists before the neutron star settles into its equilibrium configuration.[16] These fields then persist due to persistent currents in a proton-superconductor phase of matter that exists at an intermediate depth within the neutron star (where neutrons predominate by mass). A similar magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process produces even more intense transient fields during coalescence of pairs of neutron stars.[17] But another theory is that they simply result from the collapse of stars with unusually strong magnetic fields.[18] Questions: 1. Has anyone tried to generate a magnetic field by rotating molten iron? 2. Do you think we could develop uber magnetic fields with magnetohydrodynamics, or is it simply a matter of mass, meaning more mass applied allows for stronger fields etc as in the case of magnetars. Interestingly in pulse pure fusion detonation research, uber magnetic fields have been created, albeit only momentarily. So it seems you either need a ton of mass or a lot of energy, because mass and energy are two sides of the same coin and are interchangeable and convertible. Thoughts?
  8. Or so I heard off YouTube. Only milligrams of antimatter fuel required to reach Mars. I reckon the video poster is vastly oversimplified matters. Since correct me if wrong, but the only way you are going to only expand milligrams of antimatter to reach Mars is if: 1. You are mixing it with several tons of propellant. 2. You are actually using a photon rocket. Thoughts?
  9. You have a point but it relies on the unknown. Also known as answers to questions we never knew to even ask So the only thing we can logically do is make assumptions off what we do know. That is how science is done to a large extent, barring the theoretical stuff that cannot be proven
  10. Correct me if wrong, but based upon Earth, it seems that there is a narrow range of worlds that could both harbor life AND the ability for it to develop a high level of technology and industry. Examples below are worlds that would be challenging to develop technology or industry upon even if life was adapted for the environment. 1. An earth world with 3 atmospheric pressures. Wind storms would wreck everything. Seems to me to avoid that everything would need to be heavier for life to be more normal, and if you do that on a 1g world everyone will walk slower. 2. Worlds with high oxygen would probably effect science and technology development. Never mind the constant fires... unless a lot of plants and creatures were adapted for fire resistance. That could work. Also you would think cancer and disease rates would be higher due to oxidation, and yet I honestly think if life was adapted for it they may be just fine. Endurance would be higher and a lot of life forms could grow to giant size on this world who would struggle or die on earth. Your thoughts?
  11. It has virtually nothing to do with chalenges a protagonist has to overcome. Not in my case. Rather, without fiction some scifi stories cannot even be told. And yet economics is at least one thing we understand well enough that we could get it right since unlike warp drives we have working economic real life examples to go off of. Space governments would be massive space habitats. Maybe a scifi civilization of biological immortals is solving the problem of population control by a mix of artificial reproduction (think like birthing chambers for kryptonians in Man of Steel) and space habitats for those that chose to have natural birth.
  12. Provided a realistic setting with spaceships like Elite Dangerous, is it remotely realistic that you could buy up 20 tons of fish and sell it somewhere else and reap a good return on your investment? I mean honestly, habital earth-like worlds have plenty of food, and if you wanted to make better profits you would could realistically find a place on the same planet you bought the fish from to sell it to someone else and reap a good return on the fish. You would not need to interstellar planet hop for mundane food items, since the greatest demand for them would be on the world you got them from, since those folks know it and use it. I guess a case could be made for space habitats, but unless the population is huge you would be better off with profit margins if you kept food trade/shipping down to the planet of origin. My conclusions: I am not sure it would be wise or profitable to create a company based on shipping prepared meals to various worlds that are ALREADY Earth-like and inhabited. You could try to ship to space habitats, but they would limit trade more than a planet would due to a limited amount of storage. Chances are good they would already have food contracts with delivery companies already, and your profit margins would have to compete with that... if they even let you have a contract. Am I correct in concluding that buying 20 tons of Earth oranges and trying to sell them by shipping them via starship to another Earth world is silly and not a way to maximize profits?
  13. Just because a spaceship can go 9g does not mean it will, and I mentioned doing so would drain a drive's power reserve and require a recharge at a solar moon power base... which would take longer to charge than with lower max acceleration drives (like the 5g 1000 hour one).
  14. I guess I was not explicit enough in the OP title. I literally meant an alien race dropping language teaching satelites in orbit of worlds with human-like aliens who ALREADY have something akin to a modern space program. Meaning they have rockets and a bunch of satelites already in orbit. The aliens make the satelite look as non-threatening as possible, and they fully expect planet astronauts to enter inside it (the satelite is large enough a group of people could go inside it). When the planet people approach in a shuttle craft, arrows would light up on the satelite directing them to an open door. When they walk through the air will already be pressurised because a forcefield screen is keeping it inside while permitting them to cross over. Inside would be a control panel and a language learning screen that would activate, as well as several portable pad devices with multiple power AC outlets that also have the language learning software. Within 10 years the aliens figure we should figure the language out, because they expect we would throw a lot of resources at the challenge.
  15. True but that increases difficulty and has other risks. And when you are setting off for dozens of worlds a drive by language learning method is most efficient.
  16. Seems to me the laziest (yet profoundly effective) way is to simply do a drive by. Not in a bad way... rather just fly into low orbit, drop a few language learning satelites into orbit, then fly away. Then come back in ten years. In ten years they should have studied and learned how to speak the language, and if for some silly reason they have not then they probably are not worth your time anyway (Pakleds lol?). Pre-requisites: It helps to already speak a vocal language as well as use visual writing to communicate. Otherwise less people beyond experts will be able to communicate with you. Although the good news is that they should have some form of google translate, and inserting your given language into that would be possible. Also it goes without saying that it's required to monitor a planet enough to verify the planet uses spoken language and visual writing so that using language learning satelites can actually be effective. Last but not least it helps immensely to have a common space faring language, a lingua franca of sorts. That way whoever you meet will have to learn it and your influence and ability to network will increase across the star systems. Main Question: Any potential challenges to this method of first contact? Sure it is not fool proof but what ever is? It surely avoids the issues with immediate communication that would occur otherwise.
  17. Scenario: This is a scifi drive, one that emits fictional extremely repulsive rays of white light from mirrored nozzles with an emitter down the throat. The effect is much the same as a normal rocket. You get the blow back effect from the exhaust and the sound of the roar of the engines in atmosphere, just minus the rocket plume even though the nozzles are lit up. Different models of drive have different operating time limits, but the protagonist's starship has 1000 hours of drive acceleration before needing an electric recharge (done at moon bases covered with tall solar panels, which combine all their collected energy to charge new drives and visiting ships that need a recharge). Max acceleration for the protagonist ship with full payload is 5g. Which the ship cannot go past due to drive limitations. Drive Limits: Due to weird drive physics, the highest acceleration that has ever been achieved was 9g, but the operating time was only an hour before a recharge was needed. 9g drives also take longer to recharge and are expensive to purchase. In practice manned vesssls often have drives with lowered maximum acceleration limits such as 5g. What Happens If You Attempt To Accelerate Past Your Acceleration Limit: Your thrust will invert, meaning instead of emitting extremely repulsive light rays, you will start emitting ATTRACTOR rays. Meaning your nozzle will create a vacuum suction effect, sucking up anything nearby with the same force it was emitting extremely repulsive exhaust with. So for example if a 500 ton vessel was accelerating at 5g, if it tried accelerating with engines beyond 5g it would find that it's engines would create an equivalent vacuum suction force. That. Is some serious suction folks. Advice For Pilots: Don't do that in an atmosphere. Why? It would increase air pressure inside the throat of the nozzle (which is plugged at the throat bottom because of the emitter lens), eventually warping it out wider than it should be. Too much air pressure and you would crack the emitter lens. In space converting your repulsor drive into an attractor ray won't cause any harm so long nothing crashes into your nozzles. Main Question: Even though I know this is scifi, I trust I got the physics on inverted thrust correct.... right? Disclaimer: The inverted thrust only applies to the scifi drive acceleration. Obviously if you strapped rocket boosters to your ship for extra thrust you could increase your acceleration since you would not be relying purely on the scifi drive.
  18. I loved when the narrator said "So at Aperture Sci-I mean uh, Rocketdyne." If you know you know lol: This was a triumph I'm making a note here "Huge success" It's hard to overstate my satisfaction Aperture Science We do what we must because we can For the good of all of us Except the ones who are dead But there's no sense crying over every mistake You just keep on trying till you run out of cake And the science gets done and you make a neat gun For the people who are still alive -Part of the lyrics of Still Alive (by John Coulton sung by GLADOS).
  19. This is so cool. Also fluorine as propellant is BAD if you if you you remotely fear Murphy's law. Still easier to work with than antimatter though lol....
  20. Not really, unless you are proposing putting the core itself at the rear end on the outside of the vessel.
  21. So I was designing a scifi SSTO. It has a drive core that requires a mass of at least 30 tons in order for it work at all to get the reaction that causes the scifi drive to work. The drive core is a single solid unit. 30 tons of drive core can propel 300 tons of spaceship at a maximum of 3g. Indefinitely so long you have electricity running. No propellant required. If you had a 1000 ton vessel you would need 300 tons of drive core to allow you to do 3g, and so on. Mass limits: Despite the ability to generate a lot of thrust and indefinitely at that, I think the real limit to the scifi SSTO mass is the drive core itself. Because it will be the single heaviest object on your entire vessel and will effect it's center of mass... or rather it WILL be it's center of mass. Too heavy and the ship's floors won't able to support it under thrust as it would fall through and tear through the ship's rear as it accelerates. Main Question: I could totally see 300 ton SSTOS being common, because making a floor that could support a 30 ton object is feasible. What amount of crew sounds reasonable for a 300 ton SSTO? 30? 40? 50? More? Less?
  22. Completely unrelated, but this whole thread was inspired by a joke thread about the Outsiderverse and reponses to it below: https://well-of-souls.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2717&sid=89db28358e859cb1694ee4c8cec8a725 The phrase Yottachad got me wondering about a yottabomb lol. Originally it was all about Gigachad lol.
  23. Just curious? If a nation on earth was gifted one by scifi aliens (who are going to sit back and watch from high orbit while they eat popcorn), just how destructive is that? What could you do with a 3 yottaton energy level bomb? I aware they stopped making nukes more powerful because a lot of blast energy is wasted knocking air out into space rather than destroying the target. Yet once you are in yottaton territory, I think matters start to change... right? Is a yottaton the kind of bomb that rearranges the shape of continents?
  24. Ok. What if I just go with timeporters that can only go forward in time then? Choice is no longer illusory as you can no longet manipulate the past to an excess... only a little. Like figuring out your ship was either destroyed in the future or it's timeporter disabled when it ceases to timeport test objects past a certain date. You never cease to amaze me with your creative and sometimes dark but efficient humor. Reminds me of Kang's conversation with Janet in Quantumania. Janet: "That's what monsters do." Kang: "That's what conquerors do. They burn the broken world. And they make a new one." The irony is that to behave like a a god you also have to behave in a way that many would see as rather amoral if not evil for the sake of efficiency. Superman in comics has gotten himself killed or permanently defeated more than once in dark multiverse comic variants purely for failing to act more ruthless when it comes to countering massive threats. I think any moral person would have doubts about acting as you suggested, yet what may cause them to do it is if data poured over by analysts suggests that it is the optimal way to get results. Because in the end, the only thing man cares about or ever will is getting results for his labor. Getting nothing makes him want to die.
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