How To Safely Contain a Literal Ton Of Antimatter.....

[Kerbart]

51 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Upd.

Got it. You mean the mass defect.

Yes. If for whatever reason your antimatter starts to "interact" with the real world I'd assume the entire amount (and the equivalant matter) would be converted.

2 kg of uranium fissions --> 1 g of mass converted to energy, enough to destroy a city
2 kg of antimatter --> 4 kg of mass converted to energy, enough for... ? (my imagination lacks comprehension)

There are certain spherical bodyparts that are usually described as being of steel to depict courage, but I don't think steel is impressive enough to describe what it takes to confidently handle a metric ton of antimatter. Ignorance perhaps. Then again, does it really matter for the handler if an ounce spills, compared to the full load?

 

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Yes. If for whatever reason your antimatter starts to "interact" with the real world I'd assume the entire amount (and the equivalant matter) would be converted.

2 kg of uranium fissions --> 1 g of mass converted to energy, enough to destroy a city
2 kg of antimatter --> 4 kg of mass converted to energy, enough for... ? (my imagination lacks comprehension)

There are certain spherical bodyparts that are usually described as being of steel to depict courage, but I don't think steel is impressive enough to describe what it takes to confidently handle a metric ton of antimatter. Ignorance perhaps. Then again, does it really matter for the handler if an ounce spills, compared to the full load?

 

 

Only the best starfleet engineers of course!

 

For the trouble they get all expense paid for vacations to Risa multiple times a year... sounds about right... if they survive.

[Codraroll]

Make the whole ship out of antimatter. Problem solved.

Granted, a few other problems are created instead, but those are outside the scope of the original question.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Codraroll

[Catto]

A home depot bucket

[tomf]

Ooh, I have an idea that is at least good enough for sci-fi.

Strangelets are particles  consisting of roughly equal up, down and strange quarks. They are hypothesised to be stable because 3 flavours can be in a lower energy state than only 2 flavours for larger groupings. My entirely unknowledgeable hypothesis (1) is that the same will apply to up, down, anti-strange.

This won't anihalate with regular matter as the anti-strange can only anihalate with strange quarks.

So you have one fuel tank full of anti strangelets, and the other with regular strangelets, mix and boom!

You do have the possibility of your whole ship turning into strange matter but if that was really a problem we would know about it already.

 

(1) based on reading the Wikipedia page on strangelets just now

[kerbiloid]

A good portion of antimatter in a strangelet pie. What can go wrong?

[magnemoe]

You have the idea from Schlock mercenary of storing antimatter in an buckyball matrix with the antimatter atom in the center. Power density tend to be lower, more in the range of nuclear weapons but you could scale down very easy. 
Even if this would work it would be very vulnerable to heat and more so radiation who would be able to kick multiple antimatter atoms into the ball surface and produce more radiation. Obviously background radiation will cause this. 

And the quark idea is genial, its more energy down there than in antimatter. 

[Gargamel]

On 1/20/2023 at 6:33 PM, Codraroll said:

Make the whole ship out of antimatter. Problem solved.

Granted, a few other problems are created instead, but those are outside the scope of the original question.

Might be doable.   Enclose said ship in a permanent warp bubble.    Since you can make warp bubbles go very fast, you should be able to control them very slowly too.   Then, for atmospheric flight, poke a tiny hole in the rear of the bubble, and through magnetic lensing, mix a tiny steam of atmospheric matter with your antimatter fuel source and have your zero mass warp bubble make pbbbbbbbbbsstststststs fart noises across the sky like a nuclear balloon. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 1/25/2023 at 2:35 AM, Gargamel said:

fart noises across the sky like a nuclear balloon

Well played, sir.