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For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread


Skyler4856

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It's based on Robert Zubrin and Dana Andrews' work on the Magnetic Sail. I did remember the number incorrectly though, it's 12%, not 20%. The Terminal Velocity of a Bussard Ramjet appears to be the exhaust velocity of its engine. An Antimatter-Augmented Bussard Ramjet, or "Bussard Scramjet" would use a proton-antiproton drive, and carry the antiproton portion of its fuel internally, and have a much higher exhaust velocity.

Edited by SargeRho
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Not true. A Bussard Ramjet could get up to 20% of the speed of light.

None of the proposed systems have been able to generate thrust > drag at any speed that's sufficient for fusion, sorry.

Angel, fact that ramming for matter for matter-antimatter drive is a bad idea is actually very easy to demonstrate. What might work way better is ramming for matter for an ion drive that you'll power with your matter-antimatter reactor. If you have no intention of going past 0.1c or so, that might actually work better than a pure matter-antimatter photon drive.

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I'm not too well versed in the kind of physics involved, but why is ramming for an P-AP drive a bad idea?

More specifically, why not use the rammed protons in a Beamed Core drive? If I'm not mistaken, those aren't photon drives, since they use a magnetic nozzle to redirect the charged particles produced by proton/anti-proton annihilation.

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I think this discussion merits a thread of its own. I'll post one in a minute.

EDIT: Here it is.

Also, the missed questions:

New question : The observable result of a B+ radioactive desintegration is a diffused spectrum right ? Not with stripes but some kind of curve instead ? (If this first assumption is wrong tell me already). If so, how is it possible since the positon/electron annihilation emits two 0,511MeV gamma-photons ? Those should result in a spectrum with stripes... There is no probabilist repartition of the energy(at this point)...

It's not like the neutrino is being detected haha :D What is it?

Can anyone enlighten me ? Thanks

Now I have a question, how viable would the idea of storing heat in something like a diamond heatsink, and jettisoning that, to get rid of extreme heat peaks in a spacecraft, such as from firing a laser or some other high-energy system?
Edited by shynung
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-----

Now I have a question, how viable would the idea of storing heat in something like a diamond heatsink, and jettisoning that, to get rid of extreme heat peaks in a spacecraft, such as from firing a laser or some other high-energy system?

The only problem i can see is dumping diamonds into space :D you could probably build an efficient radiator for half the price :) (depending on how much diamond you jettison)

EDIT : can anyone help me out with my radioactivity question there ? Pretty please... :)

Edited by Hcube
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The only problem i can see is dumping diamonds into space :D you could probably build an efficient radiator for half the price :) (depending on how much diamond you jettison)

Diamond isn't a very rare thing. Anything that can store a lot of heat, I only chose diamond because diamond heatsinks are a common thing in sci-fi.

The idea is to avoid having large radiators exposed during combat, which are easily destroyed by weapons fire.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello

I have just seen a bright flash of light in the night sky. It lasted for a less than half a second and was very bright (I'd say something around -5 magnitude) any idea what it could have been? I was wondering maybe a meteor heading right towards me or a piece of spinning space debris reflected sunlight...

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Hello

I have just seen a bright flash of light in the night sky. It lasted for a less than half a second and was very bright (I'd say something around -5 magnitude) any idea what it could have been? I was wondering maybe a meteor heading right towards me or a piece of spinning space debris reflected sunlight...

Both of those are really the only thing that it could have been, but a flash from a satellite or debris is the most likely.

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Okay, so I have a question:

Incandescent light bulbs produce their energy as about 90% heat and 10% light. Fluorescent light bulbs produce about 30% heat and 70% light (I think). But what about the sun? Of all the solar energy striking earth, how much is released as heat and how much as light?

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Okay, so I have a question:

Incandescent light bulbs produce their energy as about 90% heat and 10% light. Fluorescent light bulbs produce about 30% heat and 70% light (I think). But what about the sun? Of all the solar energy striking earth, how much is released as heat and how much as light?

Well, not sure about the values, but the sun releases its energy in a vast range of different wavelengths including light and infrared, but also a lot of UV and probably some X-rays and energetic electromagnetic waves. So between all those different wavelengths, the percentage of it that is visible light is probably very low in terms of energy, especially considering that the sun emits a lot of UV, that are very energetic.

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Okay, so I have a question:

Incandescent light bulbs produce their energy as about 90% heat and 10% light. Fluorescent light bulbs produce about 30% heat and 70% light (I think). But what about the sun? Of all the solar energy striking earth, how much is released as heat and how much as light?

That'd directly follow Planck Distribution. I need to look up the values first though, thought almost 80% goes in visible and most of the rest goes in UV and IR (heat is IR).

Anyway, I want to ask : is it possible to see a single meteor shower (uh, sounds too absurd ?) from the finder of a telescope ? The FoV is around 5 degrees and it looks quite slow... and quite dim (equal to mag +1 star). I observed it while pointing Alpheratz last night around 23 PM local time (GMT +7). Just wondering whether I truly have saw one or not.

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Anyway, I want to ask : is it possible to see a single meteor shower (uh, sounds too absurd ?) from the finder of a telescope ? The FoV is around 5 degrees and it looks quite slow... and quite dim (equal to mag +1 star). I observed it while pointing Alpheratz last night around 23 PM local time (GMT +7). Just wondering whether I truly have saw one or not.

I'd like to ask something, but this one hasn't been answered.:(

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Could a neutron star ever be put in Kerbal Space Program as a mod?

If not, is there any technical reason which prohibits someone making a planet with a rotational period shorter than 5 seconds?

There's already such a mod called Kerbal Galaxy. Also this isn't a science question.

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