Spacescifi

Daily 25? What is that? A great start? Perhaps. It all comes down to the execution. The concept is really not a new one. It is really just one possible end result of a civilization. As opposed to the static evolution/revolution cycle that humanity knows as their reality. Fictional civilizations need not be that way.

Most all fictional civilizations, human and otherwise are based on reality. Real civilizations throughout history often have the support of their citizens in the beginning. But later such support fragments as citizens balkanize into their own factions. Then they split, new civilizations form, and the cycle repeats it self. Over and over. Barring that, a civilization is merely absorbed by another (read conquered). So... what do you think an actually harmonic fictional civilization would be like? Such words as these come to mind, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." A simple solution would be to implement the exact opposite of this. Where the primary goals of the average citizen and the government are one and the same. Thus having full support. Yet, to fully implement it, rebels would have to be dealt with swiftly. Thus the reason why many view utopias as dystopias under a paradisiac veneer. Of course, my ideas on how a harmonic fictional civilization could be are not the only ones. What are yours?

Excellent ideas. What is UDH fusion? I do think your solution to kerboloids hamster wheel inner sphere to be hilarious though. Interestingly, a saucer can also have other reasonable configurations still more practical than anything seen on popular scifi. Like a massive pancake with four smaller pancakes. One for each corner, each about 25% the radius of the big saucer in the middle. The four lateral saucers would be the engines, while you could get away with no engines whatsoever on the main saucer. The flat belly would be great for landing, as the spots for landing gear are numerous. The irony is that spin gravity is most useful for spaceships that have to worry about running out of fuel. Another irony is that not aligning a spaceship's crew decks with the engine thrust actually can make plenty of sense for a scifi SSTO. If the spaceship has limited fuel. Since getting stuff out is easier that way onto the planet, and you're going to spend waay more time coasting than thrusting in space anyway. So such a vessel would not reap the gravitational benefits of thrust g-force anyway. If anything, a saucer with limited fuel rockets only makes practical sense if it can shield itself from gravity somehoe while launching. Even then, to save fuel the saucer would be wise to fly like a frisbee upward rather than hitting all the air like a shield.

A good design if fuel is not an issue. However I do not see a way around reaaranging the furniture on the saucer. Unless you just make it simple with tents and portables. "Hey everyone! We are going camping on the inner rim! Let's get our tents and portable toilets. And be sure to put away your poo when it fills all your bags." If I understand Zubrin's idea correctly, it involves letting the engine out with a tether, and then using lateral thrusters on the engines to rotate the ENTIRE ship? Ingenious! I never had thought of this. I had always thought that putting thrusters near the rim for thrust would be problematic. What with the crew needing that area for rotational gravity. But it is not necessary, given your ingenious idea. Although the ship will need some thrusters along the rim for pitch and lateral roll, just not horizontal roll along the rim. By the way: I too like kerboloids hamster wheel approach, but I am not sure how to do it without fictional technologies. Given the crew won't be in a safe position due to every action requiring an equal and opposite reaction. The crew sphere would just roll backward, unless they could somehow dump that momentum elsewhere.

Yea I get what you're saying. But that is different from the original post. Where you get 3 chances and everyone alive presently can time-shift. No one else can. Which means that hitler could not rewrite history afterall. But some really old person could who is still alive.

Looks like Hitler will get at least 3 chances to win WWII. Who knows? Altered time lines here we come! Although who knows? Maybe after winning he just calls it quits and becomes an artist in the third timeline? Although other time shifters might likely screw up his plans so bad we may get something that makes WWII look benign. Like the cold war? Could happen a lot earlier now.

I have personal experience messing up electronics with magnets. I know this all too well. That said, the fiction part of scifi could easily allow for a magnetic insulator. Barring any real life ones in dense enough quantity that might work.

You have not heard of it, but you will be able to google diamagnetic levitation. The power requirements are ridiculous though, even for the frog levitation. But with sufficient power.... something a massive scifi spaceship could have, it could do it. Everything is repelled by a strong magnetic field, with the exception of ferromagnetic materials we are more familiar with (metals that are magnetic).

Well... this is scifi but theoretically sound. Ever heard of diamagnetic lithobraking? Would'nt work on mars (rusty surface would pull you in harder). With a superpowerful diamagnetic hull belly, you could hover a massive ship over the surface as air friction slows forward momentum down. Eventually the ship could use wheels to land. Granted the ship would need enough forward momentum to glide over the surface so as not too fall straight down.

Sounds like you have a sense of honor and commitment to the present timeline... family perhaps? I respect that. Given how many nowadays struggle with that. Yes, as story material it can be taken so many directions for a writer. Like, this would be a very interesting, almost harmless way to take over the planet for those that remain. Also the possibilty of dangerous, waay too smart children commiting crimes is too real. I do not want to hear about elementary school sex crimes by students who time shifted... but humans are like the living manifestion of Murphy's law. So I would hear about it likely. Too many freaks and sickos. Also science. All those dangerous projects like project Orion? We can do them in the original timeline now!

It has been said that a nova (NOT a supernova) would erode our atmosphere from all the radiation and cosmic particles). Googled it. I am rather certain that a supernova will plow through and vaporize it's immediate solar system

Long cylinders like you mentioned are like skyscrapers with landing legs. Toppling over is a concern. Also getting cargo down the long structure can be done, but I also do think a shorter structure would expedite the process. By the way, really large is as I said, large enough to comfortably generate 1g when the entire spaceship rolls. Or 900 meters across at least of spaceship rotating for 1g. As I mentioned earlier, pitch or yaw will also pull any crew to the ends if they are near there at all. So for all the space on cylinders, only the middle area is really ideal for crews.

For every action there is a reaction right? Should'nt the inner sphere move in the opposite direction? Unless that is the sci-fi part?

My threads are not all related, so not for this thread no.

Optimization for combat is not the goal. Optimization is for landing on planets and not having the crew fall to the ends of the ship every time it pitches or yaws. Because the ship is that massive. And spaceships need to be able to pitch, yaw, and roll without the crew worrying excessively. Without crew everything becomes easier though.

What do you think is the most optimal shape for a MASSIVE scifi SSTO spaceship that has lots of thrust and no need of propellant? When I say massive, I mean massive enough that 1 RPM will generate 1g at the ends? A cylinder? A disc/pancake? A sphere? While massive cylinder shapes work great for rotating stations that do not typically maneuver, on a spaceship it would be an inconvinience or worse. Imagine. All you want to do is flip the ship to do a retro-burn to slow down. With a long cylinder everyone is going to fall toward the ends with that simple manuever. Also, if a MASSIVE cylinder SSTO is built for rotational gravity, then the deck layout will be complex to s ay the least when it lands on planet. How dies it land? On it's butt? Stuff on the inner wall will wanna fall down. Does it land on it's outer side walls? The some of the stuff on inner walls will wanna fall onto the other wall! A saucer would be simpler for decks on and off planet. And so long a torus deck was constructed within the inner walls, then crew would be comfortable when anf if the ship decided to yaw, pitch, or roll in space. What about you? Perhaps you have more to add to this? Another shape or more information?

Although this thread has much farther reaching consequences than Primer. Consider just some of the implications: Crime: Commit a crime and get away by time shifting to when you were seven if you wanna go as far back as possible. Time cops: A time shift agency would be created. Special agents would be selected to time shift and catch criminals of the original timeline. Granted the crime would have to be quite serious to merit an agent chasing anyone back in time. How would anyone know: Subtle but noticable changes in the cells at a microscopic level would indicate an individual shifted. So I would expect roving CNA's taking blood samples and ID. If anyone is a criminal, a time agent will find out. Even if they are only 7!

For this scenario, you get three life reloads. Whic means that at any point in your life from 7 years old and up, you can go back to. But only THREE times. There is a catch though. Everyone else can do this too. And people nearby notice the effect visually (a flash of light) when a time shift occurs. Also, if you to choose to leave your current timeline you leave it forever, including everyone you know and love. Yet the original timeline continues without you. When you go back in time as a younger you (albeit with future memories from the original timeline), a new timeline is created. Questions: When and how do you use this ability? How would the world change? One possibility: An original timeline with earth free of most of mankind, since if most of mankind timeshifts within a year (very likely), that would be the result. More land, less people and nany abandoned homes and cities.

I dunno. Interestingly a tachyon rocket is basicslly the same idea. Superluminal exhaust means high thrust and high delta v according to this article. https://www.tor.com/2018/08/17/when-will-sf-learn-to-love-the-tachyon/ I used quotons since I figured FTL photons should be more or less harmless compared to FTL particle exhaust. Would not wanna be in that ship's wake.

Interesting, yet I must admit what interests me most is the navigation aspect. How to get from point A to B, how easy or hard, and how long it takes. As a side point, I just realized today another reason besides WMD not to use constant acceleration drives. It breaks scifi space battles and forces them to be.... realustic believe it or not. Consider this, it is a fact that often in scifi spaceships will drop out of warp and be 'stopped' relative to an enemy vessel in space. This would only be possible if the FTL method dropped the ship out on the same orbital trajectory AND velocity of the enemy ship. They never audibly acknowledge this, but that is clearly seems like what they're doing, since they never bother mentioning the need to adjust trajectory and speed before they go to warp. With such an ability, spaceships would be dominated by newtonian physics, and if ships can warp in at 300 kilometers fron each other, orbital maneuvers may not matter much. Since for all intents and purposes both ships would be stabding still relative to each other until they decide to accelerate. Now here is the point: With rocket engines used to cover that 300 kilometer distance from a relative dead stop, it can still be done in a manner of minutes. Yet if fuel conservation matters a lot ships won't. Missiles, normally vulnerable to running out of fuel and viabilbility long before they reach their target in space, actually can here. In a reasonable amount of time too. With constant acceleration drives on both ships and missiles, this scenario would change. Making the combat distances grow bigger while also making ships near useless against fleets of missiles that can outrun them due to lower mass. Try as a ship might, it can neither outgun nor outrun a swarm of consrant acceleration missiles. Even uf it has a constant acceleration drive of it's own. With limited fuel rocket engines on both missiles and ships, spaceships at least have a chance against missile swarms. EDIT: Alternatively, you can still allow spaceship constant acceleration without FTL that compensates for it while avoiding WMD How? Aliens are culturally mature enough not to resort to such wanton destruction. Or they have weapons that are super precise and penetrating. While avoiding massive destruction of property. Think like phaser beams, except they can actually phase through walls and solid objects, only striking what you want.

Thanks. Assuming mankind went full Kerbal on this (commit to building it anyway), and nations allowed it for once, I think it could work. BTW.... I had no intention of it shipping crew. I intended for it to be a cargo shipping rocket to the ISS or whatever orbiting spacecraft we have up there. Basically send a rocket up with ONLY crew, then supply it with cargo from the SSTO cargo rocket which follows it up to orbit.

So I have heard of scram and ram jets. Ideally you would have an SSTO rocket capable of doing both, due to changes in airflow effecting thrust. Would it be better to have both scram and ram jet ability and a nuclear thermal reactor for plasma jets? Or would it be possible to get by using a limited fuel scram/ram jet combo? The only advantage would be less weight Yet not being able to use air itself as your only propellant is an advantage only the nuclear reactor has, even though it makes it heavier. Also it can switch to combustion rockets when the aor becomes too thin. What do you think?

Hmmm... that depends how often the aliens conquer worlds and transform rhem into utopias where they and others can live. I think a human identifier would be appropriate, assuming enough are allowed to remain. Just so that any future alien visitirs or tourists know who lives here. Otherwise, if complete and utter destruction of humanity is what they want, then they can name it whatever, since they will have consigned humanity to oblivion. Out of sight, out of mind.

If there was a medium where light's speed could be accelerated dramatically, how much faster would the speed of light need to be to generate thrust on par with SRB's? Also, what side effects would occur on the medium (gas or solid, whichever you prefer)? I think heat exchange is a possibity since the medium is doing work on the light. What are your answers and thoughts?

Namin a planet Romulus because of it having native romulans actually makes sense in Star Trek. Given how many fictional races there are and how many homeworlds. Plus the fact that likely every race calls their world Earth because Earth just means dirt or land. Post-contact we are no longer alone Earth needs another name, for aliens to call it of nothing else. Since you can be positive they won't call our earth Earth because it was never their home. How about humana?