Spacescifi

Anyone familiar with superheroes knows that some of them have the sense of superhuman hearing. From a worldbuilding perspective, I am curious if the human body would allow for greater hearing ranges without modifying the shape of the outer ear? How great of a hearing range could a humanoid have if the inner ear were modified?

It's also a real time ansible for FTL communication with no light travel delay. I kind of like propellant being finite but energy being virtually unlimited (since it does not have to supply it's own power to lase the fuel other than powering the uber magnetic field and whatever FTL drive the ship has). Also allows every ship with portals to have uber laser cannon... since they are getting the lasers from a power plant back home. With this technology you can go far but are still dependent on finding propellant. Fortunately virtually any source will do so long it is solid and non-ferromagnetic. Could even use moon rock.

Feel free to correct if wrong, but if the energy to propel the propellent is high enough, then you can increase your mileage so to speak more than if you fired propellant continously with a less energetic method. I am thinking that rockets convert heat and pressure into kinetic energy, and what limits them are a combo of limited energy available and material stress limits. What if we could avoid both of those in a scifi setting? Scenario: Instead of fusion, let us try to mimic it's energy level using lasers and laser portals. What is a laser portal? You know about stargates in scifi right? Same idea, only it only can send laser beams across. The spaceship engine design: I am not giving up on a proper SSTO just yet... mainly to use as an efficient crew transport shuttle and nothing more. So ithe dea is that the engine reaction chamber is spherical and also a vaccuum chamber. It is also lined with hundreds of lasers on it's inner walls, and the walls can generate uber magnetic fields. Propellant: Spherical balls of ice a meter wide each. Function: Lasers from an uber powerstation back on the homeworld fire lasers through the laser portal, which are to hit an ice ball that enters the vacuum reaction chamber through a plasma window that seals the vacuum reaction chamber. The lasers vaporize and turn the ice ball into plasma, which reacts with uber magnetic fields of the reaction chamber to shoot it out as plasma exhaust. The magnetic field is so powerful that it repels any stray gases or plasma from the exposion of the ice ball and instead compresses all of it it rapidly before shooting it all out as exhaust as a powerful pulse of thrust. The fiction: Magnets that powerful are fiction but if we could make them so they could do just that. A sturdy and thick nozzle will be necessary to not crack under the massive pressure from the powerful pulse of thrust from the exhaust plume. Best of all? Fusion level pulse thrust but without ANY of the nasty neutron radiation or any other fusion problems! It's a scifi scenario as per the usual, but I think it could mimic pulsed fusion well enough. By the way, the reason I am relying on a vacuum chamber and pulsed rocketry is because firing arbitrarily high energy lasers through a portal that is INSIDE a reaction chamber full of liquid propellant just seems... foolish. May blow the ship up. With a vacuum chamber and uber magnetic fields to compress and direct the blast of the ice ball, it won't be allowed to blow up or damage the ship. Nevermind the fact that the temperature differences of being in cold liquid propellant one second and then an inferno from an uber laser the next would likely damage or destroy a portal gate inside the liquid propellant reaction chamber anyway. Which is why I opted for ice balls. Feel free to critique.

So for a little bit of fun... who here loses their job on the bridge? My guess... "Mr. Worf, you are relieved of duty. Riker you are dismissed." Riker: "When do I return?" Picard: "You don't unless I pass out or die. I am sending you for any away mission we have since last I checked, looking after the crew is your job. I look after the ship." Picard looks at Deanna Troi. "You may stay." "Why? I have less command authority than Worf or Riker." "Just in case we need your empath ability when we hail aliens.... and you're easier on the eyes than either of them. Geordi: "Will I stay? Picard: "Why are you still here? Off to engineering with you!" Data: "Captain, are you OK?" Picard: "Never been better. You are also dismissed." Data leaves Picard, Crusher and Deanna Troi on the bridge, giving Picard a suspicious look before exiting and says "May I ask you a question?" "No you may not."

Good point. Well. I guess what scifi gets wrong is the sheer amount of automation. I think the only things and times that they won't rely heavily on automation is when success or failure is not mission critical.

What is a pilot's job then? Are they out of a job? Because we can automate sea going and flying vessels right now but often choose not to.

It does not have wings, but it's RCS is linked to it's main drive so it uses that to maneuver. Thrust vectoring allows it to do airplane/helicopter like maneuvers in atmosphere. With the obvious side effect of really powerful exhaust that blows everything nearby away from exhaust gust alone. I saw no real need to expound on the details of the drive, but if you must know, I went full scifi on it. Nothing that we knows would indicate it is possible, but if it was the story will answer that question. Hyper-ray rocket: Photons provide very weak pressure. What if their pressure was increased a great deal? That is what a hyper pressure ray rocket does, called hyper ray for short. Since hyper means above or beyond, and it definitely goes beyond what normal light can do. Uses mirrored nozzles and an emitter down the throat to shine white rays that may as well be rocket plumes but are not. Same effect but all you see is the light in the nozzle while hearing the roar of it's thrust and seeing ground dust blown away at launch. It has a second application though not related to rocketry. Lasers. Hyper-lasers that rely on high pressure rather than excess heat to do damage. Even better is the fact that hyper lasers can use a wide continuous beam setting to simply blow a person back. Or use a concentrated narrow beam to punch holes in something via powerful pulses. Spaceships use the same weaponry, think of them as lasers that literally hit like kinetics. Of course with range the beams spread out so the damage they can do is reduced. Very good at missile point defense.

I just had a crazy idea that could work! Use spin launch to yeet a spacecraft up so that it is caught in adhesive netting in the 'hole' of a massive torus balloon, which is held in place by long tethers on the ground. Then boost the rocket until it reaches another net hole of another higher balloon. Allow the balloon to transfer gas as a fuel source so that it begins to descend, then release the rocket and boost and rinse and repeat with another balloon until you cannot. Could possibly SSTO with this with the rocket.

That will be a multi-kilometer wide balloon. You really won't need to pitch up though. Make a massive torus (donut shaped) balloon and have the spacecraft and booster hanging down the hole. Then once at altitude release and boost away. Would be slow but effective.

I read online that pilots will use foot pads for yaw so there is that. Since joysticks are only good for pitch and roll as far as I know. The ship does not have to do 3g nonstop for years. It can fly so long since it is designed for solo exploration. It only uses 3g to escape 1g planets with ease. Interplanetary cruise is 1g for the gravity for the crew. 3g in space would only be for emergencies or urgent missions.

It's been a long time.... yoke for the U-shaped double stick right? Flight yoke? Thanks.

The scenario: You have a scifi SSTO large vessel that can accelerare for years at a maximum acceleration of 3g or less when fully loaded with cargo, yet higher without it. It is capable of vertical lift off and landing as well as doing airplane like maneuvers in an atmosphere. What flight control instruments are best? My thoughts: I fancy the U-shaped double flight stick that airline jets use, only the one for the SSTO would have these features: Yaw (pivot the sticks away from you with your wrists) and you yaw the ship. Pitch by pulling up or pushing down the sticks, and roll by pulling sideward. I like it over a joystick because I dunno... joysticks look like.... cheap videogame. Unprofessional. What you think? For all I know joysticks may be better... at any rate some other control method would likely be needed for VTOL.... probably button or voice control.

I was thinking.... if it would be practical to create an airship to orbit SSTO? The idea would be to rise up into the high atmosphere, and then use plasma rocketry to reach orbital velocity. Possible or not?

Magnetic fields come from mass, amd I read somewhere that certain stars have uber magnetic fields that are so strong they would kill before a person's spacecraft ever hit the star. Question: Is the size of a magnetic field dependent on it's mass? And what is the limit of the strength of magnetic field dependent on? I presume magnetic field strength depends on magnet material strength as well as power avaliable and waste heat management

Math was and is a weakness of mine.... and my current situation hardly makes studying to improve it an easy thing to do.

I warmly suggest hybrid rockers using liquid oxygen and solid propellant potassium alloy. Better thrust than pure chemical rocketry and easier to process and manufacture as well too. I think wilderness refueling practically demands hybrid propellant rocketry. Pure chemical requires a bunch of heavy compressors and large tanks that take up a lot of volume, which can largely be reduced with hybrid propellant rocketry.

Hmmmm... how about the Python from Elite dangerous? Dimensions 87.9m x 58.1m x 18.0m Pilot Seats 2 Multicrew Yes Fighter Hangar No Hull Mass 350 t And I reckon any container ship due to it's sheer size would have g-force issues with the crew during maneuvers unless they are doing it really, really slow.

Video game type maneuvering? You know, like if I wanna roll aa a big ship I roll, not necessarily super fast, but it should not take say... more than say a few seconds to do a complete revolution... those kind of speeds.

Cute pic. Is the guy Russian? I am acutely aware that Russia has a lot of dealings with Asians since they have a country larger than several put together and border china.

Sometimes reality is wilder than fiction, since it conforms to physics rather than plot. Example 1: Let's say you have large a spaceship capable of constant 1g acceleration. That's great in all... for gravity, but what happens to the crew hen the ship does other maneuvers? Like pitch, yaw, and rolling? For starters you cut off the main engines and coast for a bit before you engage the thrusters to do the maneuver, but as for the crew? They should be strapped into their seats or hold on to something. I say this because unless a big ship turns slowly, there will be g-force felt by the crew, enough to make them fall towards a nearby wall or something. With that in mind it really affects the interior design of a spaceship's habitat to prevent disasters and injuries. For example, no furniture that is not bolted to the floor, and likely metal dishes that stick to magnetic tables so that the chance of getting impaled by utensils is lower during a maneuver. The free floating junk that astronauts play with is to be avoided wherever possible on large spacecraft with significant crew numbers.... especially ones that include families and kids. Example 2: Orbital maneuvers can be weird at times. For example if you are in low orbit any planet and want to dock with another spacecraft orbiting some distance ahead of you what do you do? Astronauts in the early days tried the intuitive thing they would do on earth, thrust forward to meet the craft, but each time they did that they they noticed the craft got farther abd farther away until they were nearly out of fuel. Turns out that the best way to get near an orbiting spacecraft that is ahead of you is to lower your orbit by retro-thrusting backward so that gravity pulls you into a tighter and faster orbit. I suppose at close range this would not matter much, but at distant ranges it will... meaning retroburn at distsnt range for rendrzvous, but at close range you are probably so close that you the orbiting spacecraft simply does not have enough time to 'curve' away from you. I also know that at high enough speeds of linear acceleration that you could pass up an orbiting spacecraft but you would not dock with them because if tried you would crash more than dock because of the difference in speeds. Anything anyone wish to add?

I cannot enjoy Star Wars at all ever since I have been on KSP forums. It really pains me to say this.... but EVEN Star Trek has had more realism than Star Wars lol.

Okay what if we omitted the pistons and just put an oiled plate in the back before detonating the nuke? How much g-force are we talking for say.... a spaceship on par with the second stage SpaceX starship for weight? I would to think that with liquud breathing the crew could still survive the extreme gees, since have not tests shown that humans can survive tens of gees (like 40-60g) under liquid breathing? At least someone claimed as much online once.

Not infinite... just a few years... which to us virtually is infinite since real high thrust rockets last less than a thousand seconds of thrust. Really having such missiles does not mean they can necessarily catch up with spaceships. If anything such scifi tech makes the galaxy safer. Why? Missiles are best used for intercept, so they are GREAT as orbital defense swarms. Any enemy missile or spaceship must plot an intercept course for such a planet, and believe you me that any industrialized planet will have far more missiles in orbit than virtually all but the most uber space fleets can muster. Quanity and concentration of force is a quality all it's own... something planets can do in orbital space with ease... especially with my scifi drive. RKV's may be deadly, but they are also quite easy to destroy because of how fast they move even a grain of dust could obliterate them.

True... but remember that.... when has the last time the USA fought a peer power? When you already have air superiority because you have taken over a weaker country and their air fields, the only real fear of a counter attack you face is an RPG by a local who would have to get past drone patrols and soldier patrols to do so. Worst case scenario would be if a more powerful rival sold or gave more advanced surface to air handheld weapons to locals, then the spacex troop transport would be in grave dangerm

I know.... but that really would not help in a SW like setting with of ships. In that case ship size missiles would be viable. I like my idea better. Allows for more utility... even an ironman like suit lol.