Spacescifi

Active cooling only takes you say far and has limits. What are you doing? Using cryogenic propellant as cooling? Or just tanks of coolant? To lift a 1000 ton SSTO into orbit without staging, I am thinking that a lot of your mass will likely be coolant and propellant, limiting crew and cargo capacity dramatically more than any airliner jet. Ironically, this nuclear rocketry scheme would likely better be used as a set of staging rockets to launch a 1000 ton SSTO. The 1000 ton SSTO could go to the moon, and spend a day per ton of water processing from moon ice. Later it could process it into just enough LH to take off from the moon, while extracting tons of LOX too. The whole fuel processing task may take a month or more. Meanwhile crew conserves what food they have and grow fruits and veggies onboard tge ship's hydroponic garden. From there it could fly to mars, send a shuttle down with a nuclear rocket, send it back up, and go home. The only way the ship is landing on Earth is to send up booster rockets to link up with it and slow it for landing. As I doubt after the moon adventure will have enough propellant left to effect a safe landing. I see. So a proper star trek shaped vessel weighing 1000 tons launched into orbit would need a whole row of rocket nozzles along the rear wall to increase the thrust. Not like this:

There are a few areas where I really do think the universe says, "LOL you cannot do that!" But for the most part doing new stuff with science is like applying for a job. If you have the required experience (knowledge) and the skill (available resources), and you can impress the interviewer (the experiment is a practical success), then the universe is like, "Have at it, have fun, knock yourself out."

We know how fusion works. What we have trouble with is magnetic field containment and not breaking even for the amount of energy expended vs what we are producing via fusion. You have faith that we will develop a process to do what star's do... without the star's worth of mass, relying on wispy plasma and uber magnetic field control instead. I hope you're right, but material limits and physics will have it's say in the end either way. If it allows for it great. I have found that in the universe the answer to whether or not something is possible is often more like, "It depends on meeting certain criteria." Rather than a hard "No, you cannot do that!". Including things that have occurred that seem to defy known undersyanding of physics.

Kay I will concede that I was likely wring about the thrust thing. As far as I know you just need to increase the mass flow rate, likely via air intake along with propellant... which might drive up the heat load further on the quartz. Since oncoming air at high speed will be hot, not cold. Do not get me wrong. I want it to work, but the design challenges are formidable. As for fusion, i have my doubts, since how do you do it on a spacrship when it takes an entire massive facility to achieve it on Earth? All that TWR ya know? Unless our materials science. Advances and we can build future truck engine size power plants as as good the facilty size ones we use for fusion nowadays.

Physics does not make it easy, but I do applaud your research for trying to make a scifi drive that is achievable. I think our materials science needs to catch up first. Any idea what element we could engineer that has high heat loads but won't break up into radioactive compounds? Physics will likely have it's say there as well. Yet we will see what it says.

What is 'long'? Engineers conisider it a feat to sustain fusion for a few seconds even. And the magnetic field problem is just there, causing issuez for dense plasma focus I have read about. From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion Inertial confinement fusion relies on lasers to heat a pellet for fusion to occur. Currently success is eluding them unless the news has forgetten to mention it. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, many experiments were conducted in order to understand the complex interaction of high-intensity laser light and plasma. These led to the design of newer machines, much larger, that would finally reach ignition energies. The largest operational ICF experiment is the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US, designed using the decades-long experience of earlier experiments. Like those earlier experiments, however, NIF has failed to reach ignition and is, as of 2015, generating about 1⁄3 of the required energy levels.[1]

Love is an emotion that often motivates action, ergo force. To what degree love motivates action indicates what it's focus is.

So this is an interesting what if scenario... mainly for fiction anyway. I will describe the changes I think would happen and you may add upon it. 2019: Every human alive retains fear, joy, love, disgust, and surprise. But they all lose the the emotions of anger and sadness. After 2020 everything will revert back to normal. How crime is effected: Certain rates go down while others go up. Namely crimes of passion/murders by scorned lovers go waaay down. Strangely, some hate crimes continue, since often at their core such ones feel threatened and are motivated by fear mostly, not hate. As does gang violence for the same reason. Also the suicide rate drops dramatically. Economics: There is a spike in productivity across many economic sectors as no one comes to work distracted by sadness nor anger. How politics are effected: The USA and world politics will be different, with opposing sides playing on the public's potential fears more than anything. Less insults in the media everywhere, including the internet, since they no longer tick anyone off. Instead people start making threats and thus start getting arrested. Death: People no longer mourn at funerals, instead it is a joyous occasion celebrating the life of the deceased. Did I miss anything? What else would happen/change in 2019?

True for humans. Although human love can be directed at virtually anything. Inevitably being focused primarily on either someone, something, or the self.

K thats fine. But justifying it would be hard. Try exolaining to Picard why you need to beam up a Klingon's knife from Q'onos for scavenger hunt LOL.

Quartz may work, but I do not see it being able to survive the thermal energy needed to lift 500 ton SSTO'S (average jet liner weight). I am thinking it would have to be lightweight solution at best. Orion pusher plate thrust it is not. Only with scifi heat resistant materials could a gas core ever lift something like this with 40 crew and cargo to orbit: As for fusion: Sure magnetic fields don't melt, but they also leak plasma. Which prevents a sustained fusion reaction from taking place. Causing fusion is not too difficult, sustaining it using magnetic fields so far has proven ineffective due to plasma leakage which leads to a drop in temperature, which leads to the fusion process stopping.

You cannot just replicate all that stuff. You must actually find it, take it, ask for it, or borrow it somehow.

Except for 7 of 9. You could always ask her. Say you are on a scavenger hunt. She might comply in order to understand humanity's strange to her customs.

That is why I like the idea, as they are perfect for scifi. All you really need is unusually heat resistant materials that we do not currently have. With those, you could fly a gas core NTR up to orbit and back. Since thrust per amount of propellant burned is higher the hotter it is. In real life, thrust would be lower due to not having such heat resistant material available that would dramatically allow higher thermal energies in rocket thrust. Fusion is a dead end right now in my opinion. NTR is much more scifi and easier to achieve too in scifi. No fussing about with magnetic fields, just make a scifi heat resistant material. In real life it is easier than fusion but lower thrust unless augmented with air or certain propellants/mixes.

Not in-universe it is'nt. What's your point?

Yes and no. A phaser can be persuavive, inasmuch Seven initially seemed to have no shame anyway. Very matter of a fact.

Yes. It has to be the one in-universe that she originally wore but stopped wearing later on. I presume she left it on Voyager somewhere. For now though she is still wearing it LOL. EDIT: You will be placed in each setting so you have a chance. For the klingon knife you, a human are placed on Q'onos. For 7 of 9's cat suit you are placed on voyager in the delta quadrant. For the klingon bird of prey you are put on Q'onos again. For the phaser you are put on the Enterprise D (Picard as Captain). For the borg implant you are put on a borg cube. For each item acquired you teleport to the next location you choose in whichever order you like. And you get to keep all the items in a backpack, and can even use them to help you out to get more items later in the hunt. Enjoy!

Nuclear lightbulb drive rocket's do not have radioactive exhaust I read. Are you saying that as long as that reactor is running it will emit neutron radiation in all directions whether rocket is expelling exhaust or not? And the neutron radiation will go right through the hull into the outside environment... barring making the enitre hull neutron absorbent? Which may be impractical except with project Orion.

This is kinda for laughs, partly for ingenuity. You are on a scifi scavenger hunt in the Star Trek universe. All you have to do is acquire specific items. You cannot buy them though. You either find them, borrow them... or um... you know. Items: Klingon's personal knife: A borg implant: A phaser: 7 of 9's catsuit: Klingon bird of prey: Could you do it? How do you do it? Ask politely? Or do you die trying?

Does liquid nitrogen have the same issues of liquud hydrogen? Being hard to store because of vaping away? If not that's great, somebody can try that one day. Nitrogen makes a pinkish flame I read, but a blue one at peak current... whatever that means. Liquid nitrogen is awesome though. Since if he can do this with hardly any preparation, then a prepped air breathing NTR with liquid nitrogen could do wonders.

I too find it interesting. Somewhere I read that nuclear air breathing SSTO'S are possible, inasmuch project pluto did work. One could even make the open cycle exhaust safe by shielding the reactor and using heat absorbed from the shield to create the heat for plasma jet thrust. Therein lies the challenge, since shields must be great heat conductors but not melt. That is why nuclear lightbulb drives are still on the drawing board. Even if it could solve the heat issues, it has been claimed by some that a nuclear thermal air breather craft would use up all it's uranium for nuclear reactions within days. That is the price for high thrust nuclear craft, you run out of uranium faster. At least that is what some say.

I know, yet there are circumstances where speed may not be totally matched where inflatable shielding can be useful. Namely rescueing astronauts or catching wanted debris without fully matching speed to save on propellant.

I was thinking to use it sanely, for intercepting objects that I have adjusted my speed and trajectory for already. Something orbiting in the opposite direction hitting my vessel would be unhealthy to say the least.

After watching Ad Astra and watching just how hard Brad Pitt collided with spacecraft, I started to think about inflatable shielding for spacecraft. I know it goes up as a rocket, but it is also possible to inflate balloons all over the 'spine' (the rocket body) of the spacecraft. My reason is twofold. 1. So astronauts or debris won't puncture the hull, just transfer momentum. 2. You could ram/push/catch stuff at certain velocities without taking damage to your spacecraft. Newtonian bumper carts. EDIT: I am finally begining to realize that the future of spaceflight will have shapes and designs yet to even be seen in popular scifi. I actually now see a spaceship as a hard rocket surrounded by plushness. Seems to offer benefits over the standard hard only spaceship. Even in a worse case scenario of a crash landing, inflatables hugging the hull could make a gliding descent more survivable. A more soft landing. Because the inflatables will cushion the blow before they fail. Thoughts?

Here's an idea: Take a solid propellant and forget about the solid oxidizer powder. Instead use the heat of a nuclear reactor to burn the solid propellant, which is poured into the reaction chamber as needed. Has this ever been theorized, or is it just a bad idea for reasons I am not aware of, but will likely learn from you or another? Thanks.