AngelLestat

OMG, this topic is still going XD This only means that we are all interested in interstellar missions. (dev team: check) Haha, poor Velocity, he mentioned only one rule that gets in the way of FTL and all the followers contradict him with .... (well without any specific source). I get it!! if FTL is not possible, then it means that there is not chance to explore the galaxy in a modest time frame, or just chat with aliens, or get into war with them (that is where all the fun is it dont you?) or visit your grandma who lives in the lupus constelation. Damm! she really makes good cookies The fact is, we have some limits and we dont know if we can break them yet. So lets embrace them and use them to have an entertaining and challenge game. For example, if we would not have the gravity law, then the game it would be boring as hell. However if we have Relativist Law, then we can compete with other players to see who gets closer to the speed of light, and experience the relativistic effect to those speeds. We cant experience that with FTL. Using real concepts that not breaks any existence physics rule, maybe with some bonus help like the that already has ION engines it will be all that we need. But when many of you said that FTL is a possible technology and even some dare to say that it can arrive before beamed sails or other propulsion technologies. Do you really stopped to think what you are asking for? no? well lets make a list of requirements: 2 eggs, 1 milk, 1 cup of flour, opss sorry.. wrong list. 1- Relativity or Causality laws has to be wrong. 2- Thermodynamic, concervacion of energy has to be wrong. 3- Hawking radiation has to be wrong. 4- We need dark matter, and we dont know if exist or what it is, we dont know if we can get it or if it has the right properties that we need. 5- Hawking Chronology protection conjecture suggestion has to be wrong, Alcubierre metrics has sense only using a general relativity formules in the frame ruled by quamtum mechinics, so if we will have a merge theory this will not be allowed. 6- A way to send signals to the front of the bubble to control it. Tricky dont you? 7- Many times the energy saw in the universe training the exotic matter to an extremely thin band of 10−32 meters just to transport a small ship. This is not even practical impossible, this is physically impossible. 8- Other kinds of requirements that are not so important like listed above. Well, lets think that we have all the ingredients, now we can start to built it! mmm.. that is another problem, where are the schematics plans?? What materials we use and what properties they need to have for the different parts of the ship? We need to make millons of tiny black holes of exotic matter and place them next to each other preventing it from joining in perfect position. I can go on with the problems, but I think you already understood some of the drawbacks. So.. now lets check the beamed sail requirements: 1- We need materials very light and with good temperature resistance to improve our velocities. (We got them!, we can make this materials in small scale already in laboratories) 2- We need very good aim to brake using beamed sail or to reach speeds more than 0,5c (this is a technical problem that we dont reach yet, but is not a physics problem, there is not law that prohibit this. Also we can solve the brake problem using mag sails in destination.) That is it! One other thing: Using a solar sail with those materials passing near the sun we can achieve 6 % to 12% the speed of light with only a solar sail (payload a probe). Not beam, not accuracy problem, not collector, nothing. And we can brake in the destination star using the same technique. I will take the opportunity to answer some post that I left hanging.: I guess you dont have idea what poetry is XD You can cancelling all your orbital velocity and hanging somewhere motionless. http://wiki.solarsails.info/index.php/Tacking_Solar_Sails I want to do this in KSP with the solar sail mod to show you, but that mod do not work anymore in the 0.21 version. Of course you need a computer to manage that to the perfection. In my first reply I told you that you was the kind of people that no matter what evidence or logic we use, you will keep your ideas untouchables. You ask me about a lot of things and I answer you, you dint accept any of those. Like avatar montains. About projectrho I already told you, FTL for that guy is a JOKE, so even the pages that you show me are against you. And is all about rockets, so I dont know why you mention sails.. And that page is not updated with the last proyects or concepts. About beamed sails, even if you get very low trusth for unit of power. Is still more efficient that any other technology, because you always push the payload, you dont need any extra weight to push. Imagine KSP only the capsule, then you dont need engine to push it, so less weight, no fuel, nothing. And if you add a delta V of 0,5c then you will see that beamed sail is infinite more efficient that other propulsion systems.

Fox62: I will try, but google translate is worst than me. if by magic you refer to what many animals on earth already accomplish, then yes Maybe Kerbals enter in a himbernation phase when their lose temperature or liquids. Yes they would http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/fellows/oct01/597Kare.pdf Also you can launch these sails with less power, because you can make bounce the light many times with a mirror on top of the laser aperture, this will increase the efficiency by a lot. Becoming the most energy-efficient method to reach velocities of 0,1c. No, is not. Because you accelerate the whole thing in a short time. So it will not be so far when your aim starts to fail. And with all the instruments imprented in the same sail mesh, there is not G-forces problems. Yes, maybe 10 years was too much to ask. I dont have all the info in order right now. But I read a lot of sources about different researchs in the optic fields when I was trying to find a solid-future solution to the accuracy problem. And I found many papers that was very encouraging. All with different applications, but they well related and can work for the same. How I said, plasmonic, metamaterials, superlens, dielectrics, new lasers design and gain medium exchanges, would make huge advances in this technology. Also you need to have into account that at vaccum and with the new materials (graphene) with almost not heat problems, it will increase the efficience of lasers by a lot. I am not sure if I follow you.. Maybe if you install a maser in the collector besides the laser, you can use it to some in-system transfer, but it needs to be just behind your destination, so if you need to move the whole solar collector just to launch an small craft to the next planet is more energy waste that the one you gain. You can use normal solar sails without the laser beam. But it would not be easy. And you cant land with sails. I know.. You think that I only made a reaserch about beamed propulsion? I try to find any posibility to see if FTL can be possible. Even for a small particle.. or just a weird case in the quantum world. I find nothing. And even if we develop a new physic to allow this in 50 or 100 years. To make something like that practical it would take 500 years more; being positive. For you can be boring maybe, but you can find FTL in any game or movie. But here is a real challenge.. try to cross the interstellar sea with real proyected technology, all inside the frame of physic and real resources. We are in the edge of the sea, and like centurys ago, we have the chance to face it, again with "sails". If you have a computer and autopilot is too easy, if you need to do it manually then not so much. This all depends on how you implement this in the game design. But you know that is toltally possible if nasa do it. So I dont see the problem. Even at middle distance between sun and mercury, you know how much angle of degrees the sun will take up in the sky? only 4 from 360. So even if you place your laser there, and your destiny star is in the same inclination that our sun, you will have only 0,01 of the laser time push obstructed. So sailboats travel in the same direction as the wind? http://wiki.solarsails.info/index.php/Tacking_Solar_Sails I dint pretend to put my bet like an evidence. Is just an opinion. But now we know phosphorus can be remplaced by arsenic in the DNA, and that opens a whole of places where life can be found. I know that are just words and the ideas about how to implement this in the game sound very confuse taking the real deal. But I will try. Yes is what I thought, but if I want to suggest other kinds of interstellar propulsion systems, then I need to know. This was just to avoid the huge frensnel lens to focus the beam, and is not difficult find an asteroid close to the sun-alfacentauri focus point 600AU, and you have the laser to fire it and burn a little of mass from the asteroid and then use that propellant to counter the laser push. Well maybe in KSP is not so easy But well, we can discard all the accuracy problem from the game and that would be all. In my opinion you are not doing a good job, first because this is the most feasible idea from all, it has its technical challenges, of course. But is the best in cost-benefic and all using knowing physics. I dont want 150 yeas of time warp.. but 6 years in relativistic time at 0,6c to reach one star 4 ly away seems quite good for me. With a special timewarp to do that in few minutes. Haha, this last link that you share was very funny. I guess you dint read the top quote about FTL in that same page... First: Is a list of just names that all can be resumed to wurmholes and alcubierre drive, no more details about that. Second: This is the fun part, the webpage author quote said that he dint want to public that. But is a must taking into account how many star trek fans love it. But he recomend read this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light thank you all, this discucion helped me correct some concepts that I had wrong and learn some new ones. I will try to make a more accurate suggestion of how to include some more feasible populsion systems into ksp. Even if FTL remains, I will prefer to see this enter like final tier. And explain in a more orderly way this methods in the science section.

Well I dint notice, but taking into account my english level and how sleep I was, yes probably. The good about solar sail or solar presure into light materials is that you get a push. So you can float a sail (graphene solar colector) over the sun without any orbital speed. Or use this pressure to get other orbites that would be impossible in normal circustances. That push is almost equal to the laser push over the sail. But we need to add the laser weight and the laser recoil (not 100% sure about this) that is 1/2 of the force over the sail. E=2PC when photons bounce in the sail or E=PC Laser Recoil. The fact that I read hundred of papers about this and nobody mention were to locate the laser or a string of lasers. I ask to Geoffrey Landis (NASA NIAC) about this and sunlensing using a mirror and how to keep it there, and he told me that the real problem was the accuracy, that is not something easy and he explain me why, but it can be done, and about the laser or mirror position he said that there is not problem in that. But he dint give me any details. How I dint want to steal more time from him, I start to think and I realize that the mirror needs to be in a small asteroid to burn a little of mass to keep it in place, and laser is simple, find the exact point doing some math. That is correct in the case that you had orbital speed and your star destination is in the same inclination that kerbin. But why the star destination cant be in a different inclination? You can build the whole thing in kerbin orbit then you send it to the right orbit without spend any fuel. You use the colector area like sail (only 1/2 of power because it absorbs), there is a solar sail mod, you can test it, is not so acurate but it will give you and idea how good are sails for some maneuvers. That is the good part, you can not use this system to remplace all your normal rockets and interplanetary missions. The balance remains. In FTL case, you need to invent some weird conditions to deny the use inside kerbol soi. And one time that you have all the system setup, you will need keep sending stuff to that star, Is the only way to maintain a base there. That would be the first nasa attempts using beamed sail, with microwaves instead laser and a coated paint that would be vaporize and give extra delta v and high accelerations. But only work for close distances, for example, get 50 g for 1 day is not much against 0,3g for 3 years. But I understand what are you saying. We already now. 1 ly of distance is a lot! it will be the same than 4 LY. If you mean in the case of asteroid colission, i am not so sure. But one thing that we know right now, is that life can develope in millons of cases different than us. I will bet 5 to 1 that there is life in our solar system besides earth. haha, I am not an idiot.. But I dint see nothing wrong about floating mountains and number of limbs Floating mountains.. you know that the whole movie round about a supposed room-temperature superconductor? Well any magnetic field will trap a superconductor between their fields (these can not pass through), so it will float. (you had to have seen some video of this) And the thing here, is that those montains had a lot of it, of course humans in the movie dont mining that because is like a park reservation, something unique. They are not a totally assholes, also they think about turism. But how this mountains float? where these fields comes? Well Pandora has a very stronger magnetic field, they discover this planet measuring this kind of field, this is produce by the amount of superconductor that the planet has. But it has a high magnetic flux from pandora to the gas giant, and pandora is like moon, always gives the same face to the gas giant. And this magnetic flux its what it keeps the mountains floating. About number of limbs, I know that 6 legs or 4 legs and 2 arms is not the best from the energy efficient perspective. But all depends from the different evolutions paths that they come. Maybe a common ancestor was benefic to have that amount of limbs and now in pandora is a vestige from that path. Now we discover different species with weird abilities or limbs that we are not sure why they have it, until we discover some more and we realize why is usefull or not for that creature. You can find a lot of info in the pandorapedia. But take into account that James Cameron was advised for many evolutionists. You need to take the difference between 500 or 600 t and 350, that is the difference between when you accelerate the ship with antimatter fuel and when you dessaccelerate without fuel. So if your avarage is 400 or 450 then your power needed is 1 Petawatt. But they are in the year 2154, so if you make a graphic that measure how our energy consuption grows from 1900 until now and you proyect that grow until the year 2150, there are nothing wrong about that. About the efficiency, if the ships reach 0,7c, then the efficiency has to be 0,7c or greater. And already we have papers of photon rockets of antimatter that can convert the 100% of the energy into propulsion. Of course, the problem is always how you get the antimatter and how you storage it. Better a graphic: http://www.transorbital.net/Library/D001FA02.GIF You decouple 1 outer ring sail, then the laser bounce into the big sail, push this one forward and the light bounce and push the small sail (deceleration). Then you can have 1 extra stage to go back. The main problem of that is the accuracy, but is just a technical problem. This is where you are totally wrong. totally. I dont wanna explain this again in this topic. But I wanna understand your logic. First there is a big difference in realism between fall 8 meters and survive and fall 1000m (at vaccum) and survive. But for you there is not difference... You ask me with full details the design, values, and all the calculations and systems from a beamed sail, but you do not care the values, design, calculations, physics and values about FTL. First you need dark matter. That we dont have any clue if exist or not. second you need a lot. also a lot of matter. You need to put this matter in tiny fractions of space.. so black holes!, but all this tiny black holes needs to be in a perfect arrange without touch. How you make this tiny blackholes and you make a weird system to confind them... How you make this ship move or stop?? How you survive inside of the buuble?? and 100000000 more questions that i dont have the time to write. But to avoid more confusion, I will tell you what we can do.. I will make a new topic about how can be implemented a game mechanic with real tiers and ways of propulsions to get other stars, that has to be fun, easy and challege it. And then in the science forum section, I will put all the real reaserchs and explains about the real technology. but the game mechanic will have their differences. And it will be a system that increase the possibilities and gameplay.. not reduce or jump like FTL. Because go to other stars needs to be part of the game, part of the challenge, if you have FTL, is just get an extra ecenary.

Nuclear pulse is good for interplanerary travel, if you wanna go interstellar... the fuel ratio becomes imposible, even using graphene. Becoz the fuel is still almost the total mass of the ship. And you need mining helium 3 in jupiter or uranos, and the strong gravity field of these planets will discourage anyone. Beamed Sail is the best candidate for interstellar travel, and is not me who said that. Is NASA. They already launch 3 or 4 solar sails and they have more to come. Beamed Sail competes with antimatter in terms of speed missions without the main problems of antimatter. I am agree, it should be in the technology tree like first options, it will be enought to travel between a binary system or no more than 0,3 ly. The problem that you still need a reaction mass, so it become like a nerva engine with a little extra of ISP. This guy drop a suggestion to change the time warp in interstellar travel so we dont need to add "unrealistic systems". So we are giving examples how this can be done or what kind of realistic systems would be and how can be included in a fun way in the game mechanic. So we are not out of topic. List me the 50% bull part please. For me, there are only 2 crazy things about avatar, 1-navi are are really similar to us, 2-the fact that is economically feasible get 400T of antimmater for 200 T of superconductor. That even breaks the theoretical limit of energy used to get antimatter. I already explain that in my previous post, maybe not with all the detail, but I will, wait for it. Really? you aim your solar panels to the sun? And that black box which teleport sound so fun.... well not really.. I'm being sarcastic This excuse is so old and wrong, when someone will understand what makes a game fun or boring?? If you will have a kerbal that it needs to be inside an special capsule to re-entry, and then when your parachutes open you realize that there is a storm who push you to land and cut one parachute, then your capsule fall over a cow and you break a leg from that cow, then someone needs to come to take care of the cow.. That level of realism it will be boring for you??? You think that all the things that you mention are made on purpose? The only thing made on purpose is the planet scale, becoz if you will have the same size than earth, then you will take like 30 min to get orbit each time. And you cant use timewarp in that. What? In a star cluster the average distance between stars is 1 ly or less. Alfa centauri, our closer star is a binary system, their distance is 36 AU, and they have a third star proxima centauri to 0,2 ly. So I dont understand your connection with FTL. ------------------------------------------- What if I promise that it can be a way to introduce other star systems with real propulsion concepts in a fun and simple way without any game breaker thing or silly rulz excuses like "you cant use FTL inside kerbol system becoz the wiz of OZ forbids" to remains the game balance with normal rockets.

In science topics it is, becoz science people tends to be more rigorously to the facts and details, even if the author is wrong, it will have a lot of request to fix the info. I lost you, when you said plasma you mean beamed propulsion inside the atmosphere or sailbeam which is a lot of micro sails accelerated to 0,1c in 1sec to imprint kinectic energy in a magsail? I am talking about the clasic method, only light pressure (Beamed Sail). This allow you very high speeds and is easy to implement and understand. How I said, if we allow himbernation, supplies is not such a big deal. About radiation shielding, beamed sail is the most efficient in that matter, becoz you only need to protect the payload. But in case of other propulsion systems, the Ship is more than 100 times the payload, this is mean that you need a shield 100 times more big. The sail does not need shielding. That was true in the 1982 with Robert Forward concept using aluminum. Becoz aluminum melting point is 900K and its weight is also a problem, so to get accelerations about 0,03g you need bigger sails to not melt-->more weight--> more power -->more heat Geoffrey Landis already prove in 1997 that dielectric materials make a HUGE improve against Forward concept, and now we have carbon nanotubes that makes a HUGE improve against dielectrics. There are 3 key parameters for a good sail: weight-strengh, melting point and reflectivity. Carbon nanotubes are a LOT more light than alumium or dielectric (something like 4 g/m2 aluminum and 0,01g/m2 carbon nanotubes, but the most important thing is its melting point (4500K), And this is not only 5 times better. This is like 100 times better, becoz for Stefan-Boltzmann equation your heats it will radiate by the square rule. For example, robert forward studie for a fly-by is Laser: 65 GW / Payload 1 / Acceleration: 0.036g, Sail Area 3.6 km Using dielectric and the same parameters we get: The laser is reduce to 448 MW (instead 65GW) The max acceleration for this material with the same payload it will be 42G (1200 times better) And if we use carbon nanotube instead Dielectric this values increase a LOT more. Just to mention, the sailbeam concept, using micro sails 10cm2, they will reach 0,1c in 1 second. So I hope with this last example, clear all your concern about the heat problems. Well.. That is a real concern.. Everybody who wanna strike this propulsion method needs to star with that. Is their only weakness for now. There are ways to do it. But is not easy. You need Huge lenses to focus the beam across interstellar distances. This is not a problem with a fly by probe with a 0,1c speed using microwave, but if you wanna make a 3 stage sail to go back from your destination the aim magnitude needed is many times more that we can reach right now. For example Forward idea was a 500km frensnel lens. Landis idea is a lot better, a string of small fresnel lens drop it in the way by the fly by mission. (fresnel lens is a 2 layer film, graphene would be nice) My idea is to use the Sun like gravitational lens to the laser, with a mirror in the focus point attached to an asteroid. There are already ideas to use this same concept for comunications and like a giant telescope, to see the planets of alfa centauri in the same way that we have pictures of jupiter or neptune. Of course is not easy, we need a lot of accuracy in our mechanism. But the new discoveries and advances in plasmonic, metamaterials, dielectrics, superlens, etc it will make this just a technical problem that can be fix. Is like if someone ask how a hard drive can move so fast and write and erace only tiny bits of info at that speeds? If we imagine the problem from the begining, it seems almost imposible. But small details and new algorimthms can improve our accuracy distance by a lot. Is only matter of time.. I will said 40 years or 80 years for a 3 stage sail. There are already many methods to solve those problems, but I dont wanna make my post so long. If you want, I can make a long post explaining each of this steps to solve all the accuracy problems with pictures and studies already made. How I said, is just a technical problem. That is very easy, there are many places when your laser may stay fix in the place, dont forget that you have a graphene collector that acts like a sail with the laser. This problem will be fix in just 10 years. I read a lot about laser, if you do a little of research you will see how fast is this field growing, we can do things that we thoght almost impossible some years back with lasers. This is becoz all the fields that I already mention. Plasmonic, dichonic, metamaterials, dielectric and a lot better understanding of the laser principles or quantim physics. This is not a problem. Invisibility cloak is just one of many advances in the optic field. But people it does not understand how much advances it would take to have something like that. For me, if you can do that, then you can make your own universes. There is not imagination limit to what you can do when you reach that point. And that's where all your landmarks crumble. Where you get that?? To make the laser and collector for the first mission, with just 2 design and 10 launch you can do it. And still will work for future missions, and it will be very easy to scale up. Also KSP can make more easy all this.. Is just game mechanic and parameters. And that NOBODY, sounds like NOBODY will build a space station in orbit! And as you know, everybody does. Really? what is this topic about? And what has unity engine has to do with the option of a different time-warp mechanic for interstellar travel? Haha, well that said a lot, you are not reading.. And no matter what I said or other folks said, how much evidence or logic we use, you will keep your idea intact. Good for you. Thanks for your opinion.

The point of any discussion is to learn, Is a win-win, even if you are right or wrong. Some time ago I had a discussion with other youtubes folks about how real was the ISV from Avatar. In that discussion I learn almost all that I know about rockets and interstellar ships, using formules and top studies papers about differents way of propulsion. So when I read comments against discuccion, is becoz someone want to keep his/her idea untouchable or they dont want to learn nothing. And is ok. But do not try to stop a discuccion only becoz you are not interested. And this response is more than anything for the other post I do not even want to quote. True. KSP make us learn a lot more about rockets, and when we land on the moon for first time, we had that feeling that we do it for real. No just pressing some keys in any space arcade game. Daedalus is an studie finish at 1978, and now was proved that was wrong in some details. Nuclear pulse or fusion drives are not enoght, maybe if bussard concept were right then fusion would be a good choice, but bussard ramjet produce more drag than propulsion. But well, I prefer than KSP skip that little detail before intruduce something 1000 times more crazy like FTL. But there is not need to get into that. Is what I am saying, beamed sail can reach really high speeds and it can add a lot of gameplay and is not a game breaker technology. So with a special timewarp mode only for interstellar ships all solve. Becoz there is not need to calculate structure physics when we have constant acceleration (there is not rocket equation with beamedsail). I know very well that old idea of harvester about a way to introduce other star systems using FTL. And many people asume that if he mention that idea is becoz there is not any option to introduce other star systems. First he is a very busy guy, and if you check wikipedia about interstellar travel, it said that beamed sail is the most feasible way to get into stars, but only mention one example studie made in 1982 that in numbers is very disappointment. So if someone reads that, he/she can think that to add fantasy FTL is the only way to introduce other star systems. But as I can prove, that is not accurate.

Hi Mrab2, Very glad to see your response. I already told you the differences. First the new materials properties and weight that are coming. Second, if you allow the hibernation option, then your volume decrease a LOT. Also in the ISS there is not inflate modules. I already show that you can use the sail like radiator and antenna or the acceleration like artificial gravity. The sail will help you to maneuver in the new star system. In that time some little shuttle like skylon can help you a lot. Or maybe 1 micro gram of antimatter to be the catalyst of a fussion engine to be able to take off from some planet surface back to the sailship. And it can be easy mining an asteroid to get hidrogen from water. So yes, it can be very different from a ISS, more considering that you not have to send all at once. Maybe not.. but lets make a list: Super conductor that works at room temperature, the material with higher melting point that we know. best thermal conductor, 200 times more strong than steal, convert electromagnetic waves into electrricity "perfect cell", flexible, transparent, is perfect to combine with other materials, is carbon so is cheap and 100 other great qualities... Seriusly read the other 100. http://www.pandorapedia.com/human_operations/vehicles/isv_venture_star It said 350T all the cargo, this include the 2 shuttles. For example it will be like this in metric tons: shield 5 + crew 20 + habitation section 30 + both shuttles 60 + cargo 250 + ship structure 20 + engines 10 +? radiators 10 + spheres 5, sail 20. For habitation section, 200 men/women, average weight 70 kg with an extra 70 kg on structure and cryo for each person. But we need to take into account that we dont need the 2 shuttles, why carry the 2 shuttles and then go back to the earth with the 2 shuttles? You can leave 2 in pandora and 2 in earth working with the 12 ISV. It said that ISV reach 0,7c, this mean that the engine ISP it has to be more than 0,7c by definition. It uses a magnetic nozzle, so these are some parameters that we can have: ISP - Total mass - Fuel Mass - Gamma ray used - Heat Release/s - Heat Absorb/s 0,77c / 1000 t / 650 t / 50% / 742 TW / 74 TW 0,95c / 860 t / 510 t / 88% / 139 TW / 14 TW 1.0c / 800 t / 450 t / 100% / 0 / 0 The 2 radiators release 24Tw, and if use the ISV sail like radiator it can release 130 TW of heat. Great, I am system engineering, I love to see different systems (any kind) and find a way to improve them. But you're forgetting something crucial that I mentioned. "With all the budget into that!" Lets see only the USA budget, NASA budget is only 1% of USA military budget... Now add the rest of the world. Also for the first mission you can use microwave instead laser. Microwave instruments are a lot more cheap than optic instruments. Is more dificult to get accuracy in long distances, but you can get bigger accelerations. In this case you dont need payload, all the sensors and instrument can be in the same sail structure, this will be also had a coated paint over the sail mesh, this gives extra propulsion at begining due to evaporation. A sail like this can reach 0,1c, it accelerate at 100G the first days. This idea is taken very seriously by NASA to move large payloads within the solar system or for ort cloud missions. To brake you can have a magsail, is just a superconductor wire, with this you can brake from 0,7c to almost 0 in 2 years without using fuel or energy. A laser at vaccum and 3K degrees can reach 30% of effiency with ease. And I am talking about to day normal lasers. If you add all the advance that we achieve in lasers to day that number can rise a lot, also add all the advances that we are getting in Metamaterials, dielectric, plasmonic, superlens, dichonics and nonoantenas and you will have your dream laser. The next particle accelerator it will be with lasers instead magnetic fields.. maybe that tells you something. Maybe new Irons come with thermal cutouts, and these are in case you keep the Iron prone. Do the math and you will see how much heat release by radiation and how much heat release by convection, it will be close to 1000W. Or you can put your hand close and compare with another product xd Mercury is 700K, half between sun and mercury it will be more than twice. Lets round in 2000K, then you need to reduce the 70% from the graphene efficiency, converts almost all the heat into electricity, lets said 700K left, and melting point is 5500K. So again, The rankine circle with extra radiator is just to get more effiency. And you mention "graphene with solar cells printed onto its surface" graphene is the same cell, it does not need a cell printed.

Add a purpose to all antennas that the game already has. If we add some sensor like temperature or pressure it will like to see its corresponding gadget to indicate the values. Also other instruments already mentioned to measure rocks or to find micro organism.

False, the universe has no center. Each point of the universe is the center of the universe.. We are in the center of the universe from our view point. There was another video that explain that a lot better, but i cant find it. You had a ballon, you paint some points on it. Then you put a paper on the surface so the tint mark the points, then you inflate the ballon and you repeat the process with a transparent paper. Then you put the transparent over the first one and you make coincide any star that you choose, and no matter what is your choice, it will look like it is the center of the universe. So, there is no center.

First.. mechanical engines like cars (otto) are only 22 % of efficient and weight a lot. and when you run out of fuel you will have nothing where to go.. Like many other said, you will also need oxigen in case you are not in laythe or kerbin. also do not need a lot of batteries, only 1 small is needed to maintain constant current flow. You do not need to have much autonomy, what is the ponit? explore at night? take the kids to see the doctor? Liquid rovers totally pointless.

I said that is the most real design for an interstellar ship that was used in a movie. So I dont understand your reply. But if you said that is all no senses. Tell me with more detail what is wrong about the Venture Star. Something seems like no sense when we do not understand it. And how we are the ones who defines what is real or not depending our limited evidence, it will be always a lot of things without sense. We dont know that... is just an hipothesis. The only thing that we know is that einsten equations cant explain the movements of matter that we see with telescopes at super macro scale. There is only one evidence who can have different explanations. 1- Einstein law of gravity need some corrections. 2- Other universes. 3- dark matter theory that it does not said nothing in particular about what is "dark matter". 4- Something about the structure about our universe that increase the effect on matter. 5- thoudsen of other posibilities that we dont know or we cant imagine yet. Even the standard model of physsics has nothing to said about dark matter.. Not even a clue. And that model is almost complete. You can said that something exist when is prove it with evidence and model predictions. For example now we can said with a 99.9999999999999% that the higs boson exist becoz was prove it with that chance. Becoz we saw it and we measured it and all has sense with our mathematical models and predictions. And even if dark matter exist, we dont know if we can interact with it, or use it.. Or how difficult it will be.. We dont know NOTHING. There are other mathematical models who does not need the existence of dark matter or dark energy to explain the movement of galaxies or clusters. (no yet galaxy clusters) But not take my word, maybe Michio Kaku can explain that better. http://www.dnatube.com/video/28282/Michio-Kaku-on-Dark-Matter-and-Parallel-Universes

Kinda Agree. Now we are in free mode. So we can use any part that we want without worry in cost or tier. I guess that when we get the career mode, we will start with low technology and heavy vehicles and we will improve from there until maybe 50 years in our future. Yeah, if the tank mass ratio cant be fix, then change the ISP a little or maybe use another fuel like you said can be the solution.

The explanation that made Scoundrel to Scorpion was almost the same as I would done the last post to Mrab2 if I had the time. But I want to add something: This is like said GOD must exist because there is an universe. WE DONT KNOW! Is just an hypothesis, maybe there is not such thing like negative energy, maybe there are other universes who are interfering in some way with ours, or it can be other thing, we dont know! Trying to travel FTL before being able to reach the half of C is like trying to solve Fermat's Last Theorem before learn how to add. I read a lot of articles and studies about ways to avoid the light speed limit in macroscopic scale or in the quantum world, and every single method finds always a weird effect that prevents this to happen. The conclusion always is "nothing can travel faster than light" And it has something to do with the information and the real shape of the universe. I believe that the question about why the speed of light is how it is, inclose the bigger mistery of our universe. And jump our biggest limit and mistery just becoz we were start trek fans or we dont have the courage to face it; is silly, is like win a game without play it. But try to understand because is not so easy for me to write in English. First you keep mention ISS, but this is not a space station, and the materials that now we use can be 50 times better. Centrifuge?? why for? you can have a constant acceleration of 0,3g.. or if the technology aloud it some kind of hibernation so you dont need food or water (a lot less weight), why not? bears and thousands of other animals do it. Massive heat exchange?? WHAT?? You dont need, the same sail is the radiator, and it reflex the 99% or more. High power comunication? again.. Sail! The 10km2 concave shape is perfect for this. And it use laser instead radio, and the sun gravity works to focus in the same way that focus the laser beam. And against radiation you only need to protect the crew, no the sail. A superconductor wire will help a lot like shield. And you dont need power for that. Sense?? for who? You can send all the stuff that the crew will need before them arrive, and the first probes will improve all the info that you need for the mission. And how I said, you start from a small collector and a laser and you will scale up from there. And that takes time. How many time pass between each mission to mars? or saturn? But no! you want to send missions with less time frame that we do to our neighboring planets. 1 km2 of carbon nanotube weights 38 kg, The carbon nanotubes are made in a specific distance to reflect a specific laser frequency, a piece of this sail (hand side) was already made in laboratory. Graphene is 4 times more lighter than carbon nanotubes. But even if we take an average weight 30 times more lighter than ISS, you will have that you can send some crew in himbernation with only 5 or 10 tons. Other requirements can be send before and after. Is the same people! James cameron 1 year before the movie ask to peregrinno and other folks to design a real interstellar ship for the movie 1 year before. The ship takes into account many studies and update these ones. Of course all the details are omitted in the movie just as the pandora, but all have scientific support. The ISV is the most real design from an interstellar ship shown in a film. Even the size of the radiators match their true requirements. I made the math. Can you give me a source of that? I cant find it. It all places said 10 tons with the fuel. And you need to count that each 1 kbytes of memory in that time weight like 10 kg. Just to have in mind. In fact.. mostly.. yeah. And all the real missions are unmanned! 50 years with all the budget into that. Yes. I claim that. And it start with a unmanned probe. Really? an insult? haha.. Are you sure about your claim.. becoz it seems that you dont But I'll be glad when you convince me about FTL drives with the same technical details, I am waiting for... Maybe your connection will be off before that happens.. Why is that? A smoothing iron release 1500 watts. And 20kw/m2 is equal to 400w in the same smoothing iron area. And Graphene melting point is 5500 K at vaccum. You find the drastic side to all Even without cooling system and absorbing 20kw in heat, the graphene it would be ok. Higher the temperature it is, more fast radiates. But you are forgeting something.. "Efficiency", They reach in laboratory with graphene 70% of effiency, This is absobing light and infrared light (also heat), So from those 20kw/m2, You only need to dissipate 6kw/m2. And the rankine circle is to improve the Efficiency, and you only need a small surface to do that. How I said, Graphene can be folded and is very thin, You can send roll pairs of 10x500m and attach them into a spinning collector that will keep deploy by centrifugal force. Meanwhile you can sell the power to the earth to fund and complete the collector. I already answer that. But if you want, like homework. You can calculate using Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Taking the example of avatar ISV, the 2 radiators 150x400m can release 24 TW with a working temperature of 4500K. First: Any interstellar drive can be considered a weapon of mass destruction. But the beamed sail is the the safest method in that aspect. If you use Antimatter for example, you need to carry all that energy from the first moment. Instead the beamed sail produce the energy for each second of the trip. Also maybe you can place the laser behind the sun (lagrange 3). Or in jupiter (in this case you need to collect the energy using its magnetic field, but you cant use jupiter gravity to focus the laser, in that case you will need many frensnel lens that can be drop it by the first probe going there. The sail is not a problem, in fact, the sail are big to compesate the accuracy problem (is the most difficult to achieve, but is just a technical problem), If you divide the power into the sail area less the 99% you will get that there are not heat problems. Taking how much energy you will need to do antimatter or the low delta v with fussion, etc.. Beamed sail is far the best option, And you will find the same opinion in almost all interstellar science sites. Is the only feasible option by the moment. And the energy requirements and technology are unimaginably lower than "the fantasy" Alcubierre drive. is even embarrassing you've courage to compare about payloads. Yes, you always can find that in tabloid magazines aside the horoscope section. Thanks, I am very pleased to have you as a teacher But this smells suspiciously like perpetual motion, and would break the well established principle of conservation of energy. There you go. And is not the only principle that Alcubierre drive breaks. But is the most important, and nobody mess with the thermodynamics laws.

solar sail - kerbol system Fission - kerbol system Nuclear Pulse - Kerbol and 0,1 ly Microwave sail - between kerbol and 0,1 ly Beamed sail - (Best choice), from 0,1 to 10 ly Fusion - kerbol system to 0,1 ly Fusion activated by antimatter Antimatter Kerbol system to 10 ly Antimatter and bussard ramjet Beamed sail + Antimatter + fusion + bussard ramjet + mag sail Micro black hole propulsion Zero Point Energy FTL - After this point everything is possible.. Goku teleportation sounds better.

MRab2: This will be fun. You want to send 1000 tons to another star? You cant send even 1000 tons to the moon XD And why you need to send all your stuff in one trip? This is beamed sail, what is mean that one time that you have all set up. You can use it to send anything you want how many times you want, and you can scale up the laser power wherever you want. And 1000 tons??? If you would build a interstellar ship, you need to use the best materials that you can find, becoz each kg count by a lot. Graphene and carbon nanotubes are very close to reach big scale production. We are using that in tennis racquets right now. Graphene is 200 times more lighter than steel to the same strength, but lets say that we use low quality graphene, only 30 times more light. The first step is not send the titanic to there.. of course you will start with a small probe like everybody else. Or your first mission to jool was 500 tons? For example if you see the weight estimation for the venture star (avatar) is 350 tons. And is a cargo ship! And the power of 1TW that i mention was to get 1g, you dont need 1G! you can do it with 0,3g and it will be also great. Like I said, the first step can be send a mirror that can be use it like telescope, telecomunication and like focus lens, it needs to be in the focus point from kerbol and the star that you want to visit. So you can use the kerbol sun like a giant telescope using the gravity like lens. Then you can learn all you need to know about this star system. You will can see even if the planets had trees or not . Second step, you build your power colector with roils of graphene. Why? you need to send people? And you are concern about servicing in KSP?? when some post back you was talking about FTL? hahaha In that distance the power that you get by m2 is 20000w, here in earth is 1300w.. so there is a little of difference. Also you will need a radiator of the same material with a rankine cycle to improve efficiency. Then you mount the laser in the same spot and you pointed to the mirror in the focus spot, this mirror needs to be on an asteroid, so you can burn a little of mass of the asteroid to compesate the laser thrust. The sail can be made with 2 stage to brake, or 3 stage to come back. Why you dont read the wikipedia about alcubierre drive, that is the basic step to start talking about that.. How I said... read... and then read more. To bend space, you need energy, the rules of the thermo dinamics are the strongest rules from all.. They always are right.

Fisica See is a lot more easy than physcsiaishiscs. the first car was built in 1890 and not everyone knew how to drive it. What I mean is that scientists now care more about what they say, because they can lose her/his credibility. And I mean in the papers that they publish. Not what they said like opinion. For example, scientists today only mention a discover when they can prove it with 99.999999999999% of certainty. But fun quotes anyway Well, that depends how big is your payload. You can speed up tiny and thin diamond sail to almost the speed of light in just some seconds with a gigawatt laser. Course will disintegrate, but is possible. You get 6,7 Newtom by gigawatt, This mean 1 pod at 1G equal to 1 TW. To get this amount of energy you will need aprox 5 km2 of photovoltaic cells made of graphene, very thing very light at middle distance between sun and mercury. Of course, meanwhile you finish to build that, you can sell the energy to the planet. But you forgot to add that alcubierre drive also breaks many other physics rules like cause and effect and some others. So we need a new physics just to see if can be possible or not. And even if is possible, the amount of energy that will need it will makes pointless the practical use, even if we are a GOD civilization. What is more easy? walk 10 steps to open the door, or bend all the space between using 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 more energy to reach the same place? About Chewbacca, maybe he wants to feel like an Ewoks king..

Maybe in his own language.. How about in Spanish and Portuguese too, my languages.. And you are quoting a phrase that precedes the scientific method. Now we do not make the same assertions with the same carelessness. How I said.. We need a new physics only to said if is possible or not. yeah yeah yeah... i know very well how big are those distances. i dont need the kinder garden examples XD But how I said, even with 4 ly distance, I can show you how it will be possible in the next 50 years make an interstellar ship to do that in only 7 years with beamed sail. Not if you use beamed sail, this would be only for interstellar travel, there is not easy way to use it for trips inside kerbol system. So the balance remains.

That is the problem, when you speak about FTL, you are speaking about magic drive, there is not other way to see it. Maybe 500 years into the future, with a new know physsics, we can said.. yes.. can be possible, but it will take 10000 years more to do it.

In the list of things to not suggest is FTL, he is not suggesting that. I am with you, and other thing; all distances scales in KSP is 1/10, so if our closer star is 4 light years, in KSP it will be 0.4 ly. And if we take the average distance in a star cluster it will be less than 0,1 ly, and if we take triple or binary systems then the distances are much shorter. With a time warp mode only for interstellar travel and a convenient propulsion system there is no need to introduce any unreal ftl system that will brake the game balance. A beamed sail system can do the work. Even for distances of 4 ly with 1g of acceleration and exhaust velocity of 0,7c.

The isp of nerva engines can reach 1000 with ease, and if we use better materials so the core can reach higher temperatures then the isp increase even more. All those values that you mention are from the 60s. The best way to make a nerva engine is with radiators to release the heat using a brayton cycle so we not need to shutdown the core, and we will generate electricity when we dont needed to thrust. The good about nerva engines is that only needs H2, this is the half of the fuel that chemicals rockets needs and we can get this from water, using the core to separate h2 from water and we have fuel again. So any asteroid or little planet (duna) with water it would serve to supply. http://www.gizmag.com/nasa-nuclear-cryogenic-propulsion/25772/ http://www.penny4nasa.org/tag/nerva/ http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Documents/Augustine%20Commission%20Reports/Rover_NERVA.pdf

It will be nice to have an electric propeller. We cant use turbine engine at eve, but we could use electric, and how is closer to the sun it will be perfect for that. But if we get that, I would like to see more balance with the solar cells. We need the square rule by sun distance/atmosphere density and it will be nice a better aerodinamic system. The multiple winglet bug removes all my desire to fly.

I still think that even removing the extra dry mass when we use h2 or h2+lox we will not get any extra benefic than use fuel+oxid. And that's without considering the extra drag that we will get from a big tank in real circustances. I guess when we set our engines with h2+lox our engines isp needs to be a little higher than the ones already set it.

I was doing more test, and it seems that you are right Lone wolfling, the dry tank mass is the problem here. It was hard to see it becoz I was using big tanks from the nova punch pack and when you use big tanks the effect increase, so I had a craft with 44 tons full weight and without all the H2 was 20 tons.. The half of the weight was dry mass.

I did many tests in orbit and the delta V that I get is still damm low. So is not a gravity problem. I am not agree. Yes.. the tank mass ratio can in fact have something to do. But the huge difference that we saw in performance it need to have another cause. Something tells me that KSP is converting only the half of the fuel into thrust when it use only H2 We have the normal fuel ratio of 0.9 and 1.1 for oxidexer that the game usual use. So... Is possible that when the mod tells to ksp that it has only H2 to burm, then it use 0,9 of H2 and 1.1 extra of H2 to get the same thrust? So it will burn 2 times the H2 needed? That will explain why we get less than 1/4 of the delta V that we get in the same weight example without the mod.

But you really did some testing with nerva engines using this mod??????? And I mean with the 0.21 version You saw the images that I post in the example?? how can you say you do not find anything unusual about that??? Is a 6T engines with 300 of thrust and 900 ISP, then 13000 of H2 and one little capsule. And I get like 2000 of delta v in vaccum. BUT.... you still cant find nothing wrong there... haha And when I mention about remplace the isp value of the nerva engines with a crazy number, is a simple way to fix something that is not working how it should. I know that the nerva isp value is not the problem.. The problem is somewhere in how the game engine calculates thrust using only H2. AND THERE IS THE PROBLEM. Becoz we never need carry big payloads to mars or jupiter. And becoz is NUCLEAR, so it has its risk. If the rocket explodes in our atmosphere we will have some eco environment problems. This is the proof that you dint see my previous examples.