Spacescifi

For what it is worth, in the movie (shown in video) one racer stops racing because he knows he is risking his life, and he values his life, or rather, the fact that his wife would be hurt terribly that he died on the track. In real life the two racers had an amicable rivalry, and the blond racer who won the final race 'lost' in that he succumbed to alcoholism and a lifestyle of sleeping around with a lot of partners. Later on after wasting much of his fortune he went to his former rival who helped get his life back on track and even helped him get a new job (after both of their racing careers were over). In the end the blond racer died first, probably from health effects of his lifestyle, and his former rival died later on, but he spoke well of him in interviews. Remarking that the rivalry between them actually made him a better racer... even though it almost cost him his life (IRL Nikki Lauda DID almost die in a racing crash).

I will preface this by saying that this a regarding a fictional consideration. I was curious whether or not a humanoid lifeform could have the capacity to do their number 2 in the bathroom a bit different. Namely... convert all of the solid waste we call poop.... into one mighty epic fart all at once. Granted the conversion would take time, and their inner stomach organs would need to be different to accomodate for that. Yet I don't see anything where known physics gives this a hard no yet. My main concerns are: 1. I suppose they would need a higher metabolic rate than us, since their bodies do more work than ours (actually converting all poop into gas to fart out all at once. Meaning they may need to eat more than us too. More work requires more energy. More energy requires more fuel (food). 2. The solid to gas process may or probably will cause them to sweat, since solids become gas through heat as far as I know. So they likely would want water. Bad. Or ar least find a place to cool down. Maybe a pool. 3. The main reason I came up with this is that I wanted the humanoids to have their own biological propulsion... kind of like this... minus the need for water as they as using bio-gas (waste converted gas). In orbit inside the spaceship it would be even more fun... albeit kinda a dangerous given the thrust and hitting bulkheads it could even serve as an astronauts last ditch back up for thrust inside their spacesuit... provided it had a port to release the um... exhaust. Did I get anything wrong physics or biology wise? What do you think? How much thrust would an average adult's waste er... provide? Like the how many pounds or less of thrust? Since specific impulse is meaningless as they use all the thrust at once and spend all day building up for another fart from the foods eaten.

Your joke is wrong. 1g won't be enough to stop something moving that fast.

It is an enjoyable game, and can be heartwarming, heartbreaking, or even life affirming.... how you play matters. It is also not the game I feel I need to quit, as it does not take loads of time to achieve or reach endings. The space game I am considering quitting required over 6,000 spaceships killed to unlock new levels assuming no cheats enabled. Just to kill one ship takes at least a minute, or several if it's uber. Usually ships attack in packs 6v1 (six versus you) anyway, leading to battles that can easily last ten min each, not counting travel time. It's not worth the time. Regarding life, death, and what is worthwhile, I think the priority chosen should be both worth living for and worth dying for. There should be no discrepancy, neither should we readily admit we would regret it badly if tomorrow was our last day or someone else's we cared about.

Necessity is the mother of invention some say. Plot is also the the mother of invention. I always did want to use those asteroids. But waiting days in zero or low spin g to crack hydrogen from a space rock to get propellant seems absurd when I can slice and dice them with lasers,,and then attach them as RCS and spin up or down to my merry content (would take a while to run out of a big asteroid RCS). Zero g is bad for health. Negative matter is VERY weird stuff. I read that it is pushed away when you pull it, but attracted when you push it. So if you saw a negative baseballl on the ground and picked it up, you would find getting it off you difficult until you found a way to pull it, which would propel the ball in the opposite direction. Let go completetly and the ball will fall upward into space and eventually reach escape velocity LOL! A star trek more in line with modeen physics that had both localized gravity fields and negative matter would not use impulse drives. They would use diametric drives, which split the ship in half while it accelerates chasing the other half that is pushed away just ahead. Using a combo of negative matter and localized gravity fields.

I agree. However... in life the question only you can truly answer is what are you willing to lose to win? Sometimes the price tag is just not worth it. Like would you take back hundreds of hours of gametime if you knew someone you cared about would die suddenly? Taking back your gametime to spend it with them? That is just one rather striking example, but to suffice to say, gaming is often but not always about winning. We can get the same feeling of winning actually doing things that are profitable for us and others. I am not saying gaming must be quit altogether. It only needs balance. Life>gaming. Not gaming>life. Relationships matter more than games. One game I played that I play more for the ending variation and character development is this one. https://qirien.itch.io/our-personal-space The moral of the story to me is that heroes don't have to wear capes. They are heroes simply by helping out and giving of themselves. Being unselfish makes a big difference in the game, or you can also be totally selfish and watch the fireworks. Either way you will probably learn something new.

Won but lost. When you win at a game are you really winning? One game I am considering quitting altogether I just realized via calculations that it would take days even weeks of the free time I have to win... and that is with a few cheats enabled! When you decide to lose or give up your gaming to pursue what is more important, then it is like this.... Lost (the game) but won (your life).

The original post is implying if we ALL had it..... never growing old. Nonetheless.... mankind is not mature enough yet individually or civilizationally to handle such great power nor responsibility. The more time one has the less reason they get to justify excuses for things they should have done but did not. Living forever kills any excuse given based on a lack of time. There is only care or care not. It is arguably a good thing humans don't live forever nowadays. We would probably stockpile antimatter bombs like we do nukes, and ruin a lot of stuff through other means as well. To not even speak of culling (too many people not enough land).

.From Google: People also ask Do we really know what gravity is? However, if we are to be honest, we do not know what gravity "is" in any fundamental way - we only know how it behaves. Gravity is a force of attraction that exists between any two masses, any two bodies, any two particles. Gravity is not just the attraction between objects and the Earth. NASA (.gov) › gsfc › starchild › docs What is gravity? - StarChild - NASA Alcubierre requires what may as well be called fictional matter, inasmuch negative matter as far as I know remains an idea that works out mathematically but has never been detected.IRL. Asteroid ablation RCS is not most efficient, but on a long 5 year mission like the enterprise, it is a cheap trick that would work.

Antigravity requires mass to push against. Not interested in reactionless, as there are easier options that work just as well. Ironman repulsors make little sense as depicted, mainly for propellant reasons as it never seems to run out. You got me there... yet I realize now that a very simple solution to the propellant problem exists that I doubt even KSP allows for... yet. Even luminal warp is good enough to fly to an asteroid in our system in a reasonably fast time frame. Most asteroids orbit slowly (a few kilometers per sec) so it won't take much rocket propellant to match their speed for landing. If at least part of the ship's surface is either adhesive or has a way to attach an asteroid each on at least four points for axis control, that is enough. Powerful movable lasers do the rest. Maybe on mechanical tentacles? The main benefit is that it is ULTRA cheap, and a virtually unlimited resource of high thrust propellant. Moons only provide even more. So why take tons of finite redources with you when you can live off the land so to speak? It's cheap (at least as cheap as luminal warp) and the resources are more or less endless. So long you have working lasers. Asteroid and moons are now viable propellant. High thrust at that! No need to do chemical extraction of water from rock... that is tedious. Nor any need to sit by a sun frying yourself as in Elite Dangerous just to collect hydrogen. When asteroids are unlimited and have higher thrust. You just have to warp to them.

Sure. But what will it react with? All mass requires reaction mass to work or energy. Space only affords radiation. So I suppose one could use an ablative hull and use extendable lasers powered by solar and nuclear to ablate it as an RCS system. Getting more hull would be for landing. Make a liquid paste of dirt of any world and stick it to the hull for RCS reaction mass. Wow... that could save on all the trouble with rocket propellant!

There is arguably a weight limit to how heavy one will want to make a spaceship, even if it has KSP antigravity and warp drive. Why? The heavier the ship, the larger and more powerful your reaction control maneuver rockets need to be. Also more propellant is required unless you do not mind it taking hours to roll, yaw, or pitch (I imagine most KSP gamers would). Make a ship too heavy and mere RCS begins to look like proper chemical to orbit rocket engines LOL! At that point I will call the ship too heavy. Main Question: How heavy in tons can a spaceship become and still use RCS that is underpowered compared to the main rocket engines (either chemical or NTR chemical)? What would be the max crew of a vessel that was not too heavy like this? My guess? Not a lot, since crew require a lot of reaction mass to maintain that dwarfs them in mass anyway. My guess? Fifteen sounds reasonable, which coincidentally is the same crew complement of a small klingon bird of prey from star trek. A 120 crew complement ike the original Enterprise seems unlikely for a SINGLE vessel. Since it is far easier to make smaller vessels that are easier to propel. Another great irony is that it seems that even with KSP antigravitt and warp, spaceship weight is arguably ALWAYS lower than ocean vessels and with less crew as well. At what tonnage is a spaceship too heavy? Precisely where it's reaction control rockets have as much boost as chemical to orbit booster rockets! Any more thoughts to add? Thank you for your answers!

This is for questions even google won't answer... at least it has not with me so far. Anyone else can post a new question after the previous one has been answered sufficiently. Question 1: Perhaps the European KSP forum users know the answer? What was the purpose or function of various types of classical music during the baroque and classical/rococco periods in Europe? A quick google search says that a French king named Louis died, and the lighter, happy sounding music like what Mozart is known for grew as a result of the people that used to party in the king's palace partying at their houses/mansions instead. That tells me little though. What was the purpose of a symphony? Was it like the concerts of today where people sit and listen quietly? Because strangely enough I read or heard somewhere that Mozart's 41st and last symphony was supposed to be played at a casino hall! I suppose while patrons gambled? That's a lit different than the solemn concerts we know today. What was the purpose of concertos? Solemn concert? Or background music to a picnic or festival? And what about divertimentos?! I read they ACTUALLY were for social events... Mozart is said to have composed his 11th Divertimento for his sister's birthday. So I am guessing it is... background music? If all of this is really true it saddens me. Since I would love it if there was a normal festival (does not have to be one celebrarting classical music) that actually played classical music as the background music. Or even picnic music! It is sad that people think of classical as stuffy concert hall music for prideful persons when it's original use appears to be background music for all sorts of NON-concert hall ACTIVITIES. What do you know on this European?

I was thinking almost the same. An easy fix I think is a bimodular Orion, fly module ahead towing the 'umbrella', and leave the other one behind it to throw the nukes at the umbrella. Result? A really long bola whenever both modules engage RCS.

Those of you that know of the Medusa variant of project Orion... one thing troubled me. If the spaceship begins to yaw or pitch or maneuver, will the tethers move along with it or will they just get tangled? Because otherwise they would have to pull in the 'umbrella' before ANY maneuver. What do you know? On this?

The last DOA I will consider is the giant space station in LEO for centuries. Or ANY big spacestation in low orbit for centuries. IRL the propellant cost... either in nukes or chemical will break at least some countries financially into bankruptcy. Now once it is in low orbit, atmospheric friction will slowly but surely try to deorbit it through the decades. Just to prevent deorbting it will once agaim either take considerable amoubts of propellant or bombs because of station mass alone. Unless you are using solar sails, which may mor may not work good enough before the atmosphere deorbits the station. This will take decades but will happen, assuming zero propellant is spent maintaining LEO. My point is that scifi space stations as depicted are as far as IRL is concerned resource hogs and always would be.... barring scifi tech thay transcends the limitations of rocketry and pusher plates. The only way they could really justify a presence is above an uninhabital planet that has tons of platinum or metastable metallic hydrogen on the surface.

If you and others had biological immortality (aging won't kill you) would you rather buy or build items you use? For once you could not make the excuse "I don't have time so I must buy!" I would probably start off buying, then use my nonwork time to become skilled enough to build stuff of my own. Once I became sufficiently skilled, I would hire myself out. Eventually the goal would be not a jack of all trades, but a master of all trades that concern me, at least involving anything I use regulary. Toothbrushes? Check. I can make them. Automobile? Yep. Spaceship. Give me some time but yeah. You get the picture. What about you?

Another one is a lack of modules on starships/spaceships. Granted, they often are SSTO's in scifi, but even then modular designs that can break off from the ship is arguably a wise move. Since I cannot see any disadvantages, only advantages, especially for crewed vessels. Since they are more roomy than a tiny shuttlecraft and most importantly... can carry more reaction mass. Small ships in real life will have the lower top speeds, compared to larger ones if they both are designed for high speeds. Purely because one has more reaction mass and a bigger heat sink as well.

Well... self replication requires fuel even with biology. The only available fuel source I can think of is radiation (starlight, sunlight,) which could even work when building at such smalk scales. Time is all it needs like you said. Once they reach more rich fuel sources (planets) they can switch over to mass fuel.

A synthesis of biology methods and machine advantages, with the advantages of both with some attempt to mitigate their weaknesses. It may not be a true living thing, but if it can mimic biology far more than modern tech that's plenty good.

If a space faring scifi civilization has the means to seriously bring down the resource cost for space travel, then space travel would be finally opened up to the many. As long as space travel consumes resources at a gluttonous rate (mostly propellant with tanks) they will never ever have a world where space travel is as common as flying in passenger jets. This is especially true in settings where spaceships do not require propellant as we know it. Modern economic methods even break with such a scifi civillization, since if space travel is that cheap, you do not need to mine stuff for resources for on site utilization. It is arguably cheaper to just haul everything you need with you and make it super resusable. Mining is still reasonable if you're turning an asteroid into a new 'house' (habitat) in space, or if trying to colonize a mars-like world is the goal. But hauling tons of asteroid platinum ore from space back to the homeworld is also viable too. I guess my point is that for a scifi massive space faring civilization, extreme technological reusability is their main requirement they would need to even exist. Technology usefulness would be rated for durability and reuseability. Both of which would need a low enough resource threshold that space travel is common. What this would imply is massive leaps in technological growth as well as associated indusry. To the point where extremely durable and reusuable technology becomes affordable to most on a planet. To be sure, modern tech would be considered primitive more because of it's lack of extreme reusability and extreme durability than whether or not it works optimally. When I say extreme durability and reuseabilty, I am implying tech continuous use rates without needing repair that is on pair with biological systems. Biological systems are a form of technology considerably more advanced than anything man does, inasmuch it can replicate itself. It also takes years before a human body begins degenerating while operating, never turning off the whole time (sleep is still an operation). Super advanced technology should be on the same order of magnitude, with the added bonus of an off switch to increase the total operational lifetime when not in use. For example, a car can drive for hours before needing to turn off and refuel. To drive for years on end, decades even? That... is akin to biological operation copied as technology. That would be the biggest tech game changer to me when it comes to scifi tech. Not what is done, but for how long without turning it off to recharge or refill, and whether or not reproduction of the technology is possible using the same tech. Tech that can operate continuously for years on end without repair and can reproduce itself? Just... wow. Give me a computer that can do that and you would have a library that would NEVER lose information since it is always growing. Give me a car that can do that and I would never have to buy a car twice unless I wanted a different type altogther (car reproduction at work). So yeah... wow. What do you think on this matter? Because I think it matters little if you have AM or warp drive or even FTL if reusuability is not far better than what we have now. It would or should scale up I think. Not down. Because the only other option is manual reproduction (which is what we already do), which involves using raw resources to create new tech upon failure of old tech from continuous operation without shutting it down.

Another DOA trope is many of the things the Captain says in Star Trek. One notable one is "Divert auxilliary power to engines." In the shows and the games, doing this usually gives a speed boost. The term is probably borrowed from Roddenberry's navy days, like so much else in ST. While diverting auxillary power to engines with virtually unlimited reaction mass (the ocean) on a navy ocean vessel can improve max speed, in space things are a bit different even though it can still improve overall speed. Reaction mass is limited, and how much power you divert to anything is limited by waste heat loading. Too much and you burn. And it is not as if simply diverting more 'power' can improve thrust, although it can improve delta v top speed. In other words, diverting power to engines is not even an emergency term like ST would have you think, since extra power only improves delta rocket efficiency up to a point anyway. That point being whatever power/heat that won't melt the engines. For speed boost during an emergency what they would say (if they wanted realism) is "Light up the auxilliary AM (Antimatter) thermal boosters! Get us out of range and warp immediately!" Basically high thrust gets you up to the top speed of whatever engine you're utilizing at the moment. The more 'power' thermal energy pumped into this process the higher your top speed will be in the end (when you run out of propellant oh no), but that WON'T necessarily improve how much thrust your vessel is putting out in an emergency. How much thrust you get depends on the mass flow of propellant. The dense ones give higher thrust, but lower top speeds (when we run out of propellant). Less dense ones require a lot more volume per tank for the equivalent top speed a smaller tank with denser propellant could reach. So ideally, a spaceship captain would want a rocket engine with an ability to swap between various stored propellant tanks depending on the needs of the current episode. This is actually an engineering challenge but can be done, although it is more complex and thus more expensive than standard rocketry engines.

Have you heard of hyperbole? Exaggerating to make a point? What I will say next is not hyperbole. Does the universal laws really change or does man's understanding of them change or grow? The universe does not adjust for man. Man must adjust to it, or otherwise attempt to bend the universe to his will.

It lives! Sorry... could not help myself. Speaking regarding EM drive. Seriously though, even if it's a fluke they just might learn something new they do not already know. Compared to the complexities of politics and human ethics/laws, science is downright simple. At least the rules do not shift back and forth nearly as much... not if it is GOOD science anyway.

Check your mail I cannot post it here. A question.