Spacescifi

Certainly interesting. I was thinking to use a nuclear light bulb rocket with air intakes and liquid methane for propellant. Should save on fuel, since I will retain most of my aqcuired speed as air is getting thinner the higher the vessel goes. As for shape, I would go for a thick and blocky folding hexagram. Basically a cross within an X. Six rocket thrusters near the ends of each rectangular beam under the belly. I would either wait for the air to lift the vessel far enough off the ground or do a quick pulse burn. Once my vessel has cleared the ground enough, I would make the entire vessel fold downward so that it looks it is like a bundle of thick rectangular beams. This I would do to reduce drag somewhat during ascent. Main engines would actually be on the end face of every rectanfular beam, so the ship would have to fold and be elongated to actually use it's main engines. Crew habitat: Since air pressure weakens corners, I would have the crew within an inner inflated habitat. And that's it. I would expect my rocket flames to be a mix of violet and blue due to the mix of liquid methane and intaked air pumped through the nuclear lightbulb. In space though, my guess is that the it will just be a short blue flame, as there is no air, just liquid methane propelllant.

Huh? Are you referring to race 2? Or do you think both race 1 and 2 resemble Rastafarians? Strange. I simply decided to play with/modify human traits. I was not really aiming for Rasta as I did'nt even know what it meant. Actually race 2 I at least on a small scale was inspired by the social behavior (and lack thereof) of domestic cats. Thus when they want to be alone, leave them alone. They will let you know when they want company.

What. Is. Rasta?

That sounds interesting. If a faraday cage can float merely by directing magnetice force downward (without resorting to uber powerful diamagnetic fields) then perhaps we could do that. Most matter is only weakly diamagnetic, so it takes a strong field to show it. As for strong magnetic fiels being dangerous to life, I read online that some stars, I think neutron stars, are so magnetic that if you got close enough (assuming you're were not burned up already), your flesh would liquify, leaving only bone. Don't ask me why. Something to do with uber magnetic fields do weird stuff at high levels.

That is an interesting thought. Here is what I read: Magnetic fields can repel all matter that is not ferromagnetic (metals pulled by magnets). Diamagnetism I believe is what you're referring to. Shown below. Water is diamagnetic enough that you can float it in a strong magnetic field, and frogs definitely have plenty of water in their bodies smd aren't heavy either. Now as far as I have read, projecting magnetic fields kilometers out while maintaining field strength is not something I have seen anyone theorize on a means of how to do it. One could throw more power at the challenge via antimatter, but again material constraints ruin the dream. Electromagnetic coils have been known to mechanically snap when generating extremely high Tesla strong magnetic fields. Momentarily at that. In other words, too much magnetism will break a magnet's parts. Unless we figure a way around that too. Perhaps through more flexible coil material that will bend instead of snap under the pressure. Once that is solved, then you have to figure out how to project a magnetic field 100 kilometers out to repel against the planet's surface. No? Perhaps you can repel the planet's air magnetically? That would be great, but would stiil require a realky large magnetic field projected out to perhaps 25 kilometers. Also make sure no metal is in range. It would be like shooting the ship.

Excuse me? Although perhaps that is the real irony here. Every alien behavior we can imagine humans have done before, although they do not necessarily act like that 24/7 though. For example, Vulcans have been depicted as proud, rascist, and overwhelmingly logical people. Klingons on the other hand tend to act like human bullies.

It depends on the weight of the spacecraft, and how heat resistant the hull is. If both are what is required, then even an only air breathing spacecraft could reach orbital velocity. That is the idea behind scram jet SSTO's. Although I will grant you that having extra fuel for more fine control of orbital insertion is always a good idea. Size matters because greater size requires higher thermal energy within the engine. Which limits how heavy a spacecraft you can send up to orbit or else.... BOOM! Unless you do it with rocket stages. Alternately we could just use pusher plate propulsion. But that is not part of the discussion.

While theoretically possible, that method would take so long that I would wonder hiw starfleet ever built a big fleet. When you have access to copious amounts of antimatter in a setting, why not use it for reaching space more effectively?

That flying heavy starships into orbit like SSTO's that weigh as much as a destroyer is not possible even with antimatter rocketry. Here is the article with research. https://kundoc.com/pdf-investigation-of-antimatter-air-breathing-propulsion-for-single-stage-to-orbit-s.html

So I looked up schemes for an air breathing antimatter SSTO. According to the researched PDF, the heaviest vessel one could lift with an antimatter rocket without having massive speed losses due to extra cooling resources would weigh about this. About a 500 ton SSTO. One that relied mostly on intake air with antimatter would need to be sleeker to escape the atmosphere faster. Burning more antimatter for more thrust won't work, as the cooling equipment required would cancel out the thrust benefits. Any vessel heavier than a passenger jet would need rocket staging to reach orbit or risk being too heavy with cooling equipment or blowing up midflight due to heat from using extra antimatter for thrust for lack of staging. So for a full on scifi example: To lift something like this into orbit most efficiently, you would need air breathing antimatter rocket staging.

I think the true litmus test of any fictional alien is how human or not human their civilzation is. So I will analyze fictional aliens of my own design to see how human they would behave. Race 1 Analysis: They lack anger/sadness. Have fear, joy, love, disgust, and surprise only. War: Could it still exist among them? I suppose, but the only way to prolong one would likely be a war of a love of idealogies. One side loving an idea enough that they view another as a threat and tell the other side to give it up or else. In war I would expect soldiers to be dispassionate about killing, and fearful when threatened, even though they would have to control it. Crime: I suppose. Maybe. You just would not have any crimes motivated by anger nor sadness. So probably few if any mass shootings, apart from those who are psychotic enough to enjoy that. Although people would not be angry with criminals, I could see them executing dangerous ones, to neutralize their threat to society. Life sentences and tons of red tape preventing execution I do not see happening there. Sex: Without anger or sadness, relationships between the sexes would be different. Suppose one fears their mate is cheating on them. They love their mate, but do not feel angry or sad, rather they feel they may lose their mate to another. What what do they do? It depends. If they become disgusted with their mate's behavior they may get a divorce, if they still love their mate they may challenge their mate's lover to a duel or ask their mate to choose between them once and for all. Race 2 Analysis: Sticks and stones may break their bones but words will truly never hurt them. Also they do not require association with others to be happy. They can be just as happy isolated as they are with a group. However a group CAN potentally make them less happy. They retain the full range of human emotions. Friendship: I think it would be more like a mutual ally. If you help me and I trust you, so will I. They may enjoy another's company for a time, but at some point they will want to be alone and all of them would understand that. Crime and war: A given. It's going to happen for the same reasons humans do it. Conflict: Since words do not hurt, I would expect conflict to be more physical or through threats and intimidation. That would sooner or later lead to isolation from the threat or violence. Duels may be popular again. What is your analysis?

Good post. Any pics of a magnetic orion? And I suspect the pusher plate may offer better thrust for large vessels... but I am not sure. Care to enlighten me?

I like project Orion and wish it was more well known in the media (scifi movies/cartoons). Consider the limitations of rocketry. Want high thrust? Accept short burn times and the need for dropping empty rocket stages. Want long rocket burns? Accept extremely low thrust. Want both high thrust and long rocket burn time? Accept high heat loads that will melt your rocket engine, or require so much coolant mass as to negate the benefits of having both high thrust/long burn time. More mass usually means less burn time. Or just use antimatter, which could provide enough thrust and long burns... but also could wipe out a small nation or state. Project Orion essentially does high thrust in short pulses of time, over and over again. It also has long burn time, due to having a lot of high thrust to weight ratio pulse units (small nukes or perhaps antimatter bombs). There is only one scenario where in my opinion rocketry could rival a pusher plate, and even then, a modified pusher plate design could beat it. An antimatter thermal rocket: The heat would be extreme, which is why only small amounts of antimatter could be mixed with propellant, limiting a vessel's thrust potential. An antimatter bomb pusher plate could have higher thrust as it it's reaction happens outside the vessel and does not have to be contained. So more antimatter bomb thrust, leading to some surprisingly hefty yet speedy large vessels. The only potential advantage I can see with rocketry and antimatter is that antimatter is not picky. Even if you ran out of ALL your chemical propellant you could feed the crew's waste products in as propellant to the antimatter rocket and it would still give good thrust and long burn time. You could even grind up parts of the ship and use it as propellant. Antimatter does not care. Cannibalize the ship. You can even feed unfortunate or dead crew members as propellant for your antimatter rocket. Since it is all fuel to the rocket. Antimatter is what provides the kick and the the endurance of the rocket, less so the propellant. With pusher plate propulsion this would be a lot harder to do, as all your fuel comes pre-packaged as pulse bomb units. So when you run out of fuel with a pusher plate, you're done for unless somebody is helping you refuel with more pulse units. Your thoughts on pusher plates propulsion vs rocketry? Did I miss anything?

True, but TV tropes already points out how the signals would not come in clear light years away. That is actual a huge reason why I do not use it. Besides, my depictions of aliens usually means they are like humanity plus. Meaning they have many of the things we do plus more, including TV and FTL. It's not better or worse a method per se, but if fictional aliens have FTL scanners good enough to learn english and stream TV lightyears away, they also would be able to spy on anyone using such broadcasts. Nevermind that FTL scanners could possibly be weaponized, inasmuch any normal lightspeed scanner can also be. You almost do not need starships unless you really want something from a planet. I just like the idea of boldly going to new worlds without knowing much, which a lack of super FTL scanners but a possession of starships does support. I wilk grant you that aliens could covertly FTL a probe into the solar system disguised as any astroid and learn stuff that way. However, I also like Cortez method because it has been proven to work so well he conquered a country. I also know that to speak a language fluently it helps immensely to spend time around the natives speaking it. EDIT: I guess I really never cared for first contact as the reactions are very stereotypical on the human side. "They will kill us all!" "What can you give us?" "Wanna be our new gods? We have a history of giving devotion to inanimate objects, ideals, animals, and each other, so why not you too?" "Uh, can we uh.... you know? Are we uh.... reproductively compatible?" That is the kind of stuff aliens will learn if they grow to understand humans. I am always interested in point 3 the most. Aliens and humans coming to understand each other and even tolerate or grow a friendship out of it.

Yes, it would work, especially if you did not pressurize the whole inside of i (air pressure loves to break corners). You would either need inflatable habitat modules inside (cheaper and less mass) or separate pressurized rooms (most mass required). Thanks. So saucers are out? Like if that Trekkie Nasa guy keeps it up encouraging some variation of the enterprise he may get demoted? The irony is ihat I probably should have stuck with the theory of general relativity, which claims that acceleration and planet gravity are identical. Which means gravity negation would cancel out all g-force during acceleration. Which means you can finally get the classic trek bridge while the engines are firing in the back.... only difference being that they are totally weightless unless they land the ship on a planet and toggle gravity negation off. That would make some variation of the trek design more feasible but still unlikely. About the only way it would be more likely would be if it could accelerate for days on end at 1g, which is impossible for modern rocketry.

Here we will discuss the merits of both. First Contact Stories: Pros: 1. You get to show how you wish, want, or think first contact should go. Cons: 1.You either have to contrive a way to understand human languages, or use the tried and true method that Cortez and the Spanish used with the Aztecs. Send a few alien misssionaries or slaves, have them learn the language and then pick them back up after two years. If humans refuse to give them up, forget about that planet or just start taking human slaves to learn their language while they teach you theirs. Either way it will take time, which is often at a premium in movies. 2. Humans and aliens are not familiar with each other, and to accurately depict this would take longer than a movie to truly do justice. Post Contact Stories: Pros: 1. Aliens and humans already know each other, so they also have translators already available, which is a lot more logical than somehow already having a translator that understands english in a first contact scenario. 2. You can tell ANY story you want, as long as it is not about first contact, and you can even go there, just briefly. Cons: Can't think of any. Can you? EDIT: I always find it amusing how on both Star Trek and especially the Orville how humans ask questions about their alien allies they should already know. If you do not know the basics about the crew members you will be working with closely and it is ALL on file, then how did that guy ever get to be a commander? Namely... the Orville's Captain and his near to nothing understanding of Moclans initially. Your thoughts?

In scifi sometimes spacecraft have the ability to defy gravity by being weightless on a planet. For the sake of discussion, we will allow the the ability to defy a planet's gravity only (still will feel acceleration from engine thrust). Also has the ability to toggle this on or off, the weightlessness inside gravity wells. Implications of gravity defiance: You do not need orbital velocity to reach space, and your escape velocity is literally however fast you wanna go and however long you want it to take with a given rocket engine. What I am not sure about is the optimal shape for a spacecraft that can defy gravity like the OP. Shapes available: Cylinder: Classic rocket shape would still work, although the urgency to reach space is not longer as much, given the fact that gravity cannot pull you back down so long your gravity defiance is on. Saucer: This has one advantage, namely for reentry, it slows the ship down faster, and when used in combination with gravity defiance, you can slow down on reentry even FASTER. Sphere: You can rotate faster than any shape in space or in atmosphere. I am not sure what advantage this really serves unless you need a spacecraft that is exceptionally maneuverable. Extra: The gravity defiance is a free resource, the rocket engine and spacecraft parts are real using real rocketry and thus not free. So given the costs and resources involved, what would be the most optimal spacecraft shape for escaping a planet and then traveling in space and also for reentry? I like the saucer shape, but I have a hard time seeing a guy at NASA letting it through because his superiors will say they save money with the rocket shape due to less drag. But a NASA guy who was a Star Trek fan would push for the saucer shape and may either get demoted or lose his job in the process. That's despite the fact that I think saucers look awesome. Your thoughts?

Assuming neither side used missiles (seldom the case in the modern era) the answer is probably not. Since VTOL aircraft are probably heavier than normal fighter craft are due to extra equipment. Which would negate any advantage in combat. VTOL is for VTOL. Not combat. Assuming you made a craft weigh the same as a normal craft the answer is just a maybe. Dogfights require slower speeds, and most nowadays kill at high speed with missiles.

Best? That really depends on what you want to do, how safe you want to be, and how long you you want the trip to take. Some of the drives listed are theoretical and have not been proven to be possible to make. Others like antimatter and fusion only get their best performance at temperatures that would melt your engine. So can they break even almost with nuclear for performance in space, since rocket engines cannot survive the heat that would allow one to run antimatter and fusion engines at much hotter tempertures for longer burn rates and higher thrust. Photon would wreck everything behind it for miles. Pusher plate is possible but is kind of like a lowered powered photon drive that still wrecks stuff for miles behind the ship. For practicality, speed, and safety optimization, meaning we CAN do it, it would be nuclear or ion with a nuclear reactor. Both are slow, but nuclear is faster. That said, none is good enough for scifi unless you are willing to accept and deal with each drive's drawbacks.

I know. You could get somewhat longer exhaust burn times with a NTR chemtcal propellant, and therein lies how chemical fuels mighr still prove useful. Looking at a scifi future, if mankind ever produces copious amounts of antimatter and a foolproof storage system, and way to manage the waste heat, then an antimatter thermal rocket chemical propellant could fly for days on end at 1g. For that matter, it could even be an SSTO, although on the initial liftoff it will likely rely on rocket stages that will detach to save fuel for space travel.

Good points you made. I guess I was thinking of the scifi humanoid space miner, but givem the power requirements versus mass which is always expensive in space, likely human crewed ships will be specially designed for FAST travel. I am talking project Orion pusher plates being like the airliners of the solar system. Whereas robotic mining ships will be the slowest and probably the heaviest spacecraft around once loaded with rock. Not to mention all the processing equipment. Ha... a human ship could even rendezvous with a mining ship to get a chemucal propellant fill up. Mining ships are mobile fuel bases... just really slow.

Upfront costs are higher with a moon base but so are profits in the long run. Once the base and magrail are built, the base could process and mine far more in less time than it would take to select and hunt down profitable asteroids.

Wow. If the power thay is required is that high it may take too much reactor mass to justify it on a ship. Which kills asteroid in situ spacecraft processing.. Moon base mining and processing is still viable though.

I waited for 20 minures to get my food, snd when I got it, it was cold. So I complained to Manager Gowron that his cook is awful, and I would not serve this food to my dog and wanted a refund. Gowron just glared at me with his big bug eyes and said, "Enough! I will settle this!" Gowron went to the back and said louldly, "That human over there makes the claim that you are a horrible cook and that not even a Tarq could eat your food. What do you say to that?" The klingon cook said I dishonored him and his house, and jumped over the counter and whipped out a knife, meanwhile Gowron returned and offered me a knife. "What?! I just want a refund!" Gowron stared at me again witth his bug eyes. "Will you engage in honorable combat? Or not? If not, you may leave." "What about my refund?" "Defeat the cook in honorable combat and you may take that and all that belongs to him, including his wife and children. Do you accept this challenge?" I walked out. So be warned if you come here, only ask for refunds if Worf is manager during the day. Do not go at night. Or else you may have to deal with Manager Gowron and his crazy but awful night cook. I give them 2 stars, inasmuch they gave me an entertaining story to tell and worf is good... when he is on shift.

No. I only wanted to know the power levels involved to give me clue as to what it takes to power it. How to make one matters not... not for fiction anyway.