Mechanical Mouse Industries Development Thread.

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

Hey, Dani (may I call you Dani? ), I see that in the WIP parts page you\'re planing to make a deep-space shield. I have a nice example here:

It\'s from Discovery Channels\' Alien Planet documentary. The starship Von Braun is a starship that was designed to send 3 unmanned probes to a alien planet, named Darwin IV.

The deep-space shield should open like a umbrella in my opinion. It would look nice.

[Dani-Sang]

Hey, Dani (may I call you Dani? ), I see that in the WIP parts page you\'re planing to make a deep-space shield. I have a nice example here:

It\'s from Discovery Channels\' Alien Planet documentary. The starship Von Braun is a starship that was designed to send 3 unmanned probes to a alien planet, named Darwin IV.

The deep-space shield should open like a umbrella in my opinion. It would look nice.

YOu can call me Dani - And yes... I was inspired exactly by that

[Lazurkri]

Great job with the parts! I use the dish for damn near every spacecraft I make, the red glow is neat....

Looking over your 'Upcoming parts/Concept ideas' I noticed you had 'Nuclear Engine'. I had several ideas about these, as 'Nuclear' is so general....

I had three main ideas for different 'Nuclear' engines; Fission, fusion, and Antimatter ( which I have 2 ideas under this department to voice).

Idea One:

Straightforward (Relatively) Fission rocket

I\'m basing this upon a concept I ran across on wikipedia, and thought it would work well with KSP. Essentially, using a Fission Reactor, you\'d pump Propellant (which also would function as coolant) through the reactor until it reaches a usable temperature, then vented out to provide thrust.

Several advantages to this would be that it could be used as a 'Long Duration' solid rocket booster, but one smaller and lighter than SFB nowadays. Or it could be also a Liquid Fueled rocket as well although if that was done, I was envisioning the Engine 'Leaking' propellent/coolant if activated but not providing thrust- You\'d also need a amount of time to allow for the engine to work up to operational temperature (I was thinking 5 minutes or so) and a small amount of fuel to 'Prime' the engine.

Of course, being KSP, there should be problems with this design, ranging from radiation issues to Rapid exothermic reactions.

Here\'s the wiki page-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_core_reactor_rocket

Idea Two:

Plasma Propulsion.

I realize Plasma engines are a type of Ion Thruster, but the ones we have aren\'t really what I was envisioning. Plus the ones we have are more geared towards Probes and unmanned craft. Also, they\'re not as powerful as the various designs I\'ve seen proposed. My main thought was a VASIMIR drive. Advantages to this drive over the Fission rocket would be no fuel leakage, and no radiation issues Disadvantages would be heavy weight for the Reactor ( Superconducting electromagnets require rather heavy coolant systems) plus extreme sensitivity to damage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket

Idea Three:

Antimatter

I have two ideas in this category, one using antimatter annihilation products as a propulsive force, the other using antimatter to 'spike' engine fuel. Both would be EXTREMELY dangerous, but would give you massive propulsive capabilities.... at a high risk of exploding.

Antimatter Rocket; Like in Star Treks warpcores, Antimatter and Matter would be mixed together in a magnetic bottle, then the resulting plasma would be vented out the bottom of the bottle to provide thrust. Advantages would be that you\'d get insane amounts of Delta-V for a small amount of fuel. Downside would be that the Reactor Chamber and the Antimatter Containment Unit would be both heavy as hell, Seeing as Antimatter can only be contained with Magnetic Fields, quite powerful ones, generated using superconducting Electromagnets; these are heavy.

Plus add in the fact that I was thinking to make the Antimatter engines even MORE dangerous would be the issue that if jostled too much (G-Forces hit the red area at all), the Antimatter would detonate. Of course, ANY amount of damage (Aka having parts hit it) to the Antimatter storage unit would result in immediate detonation.

Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion: Essentially, you\'d inject antiparticles into a Nuclear fuel; most likely fusion fuel. This causes nuclear fusion, essentially a smaller, less insane version of a Orion Drive in some designs I\'ve seen. Or you could use Antimatter with either of the two (Non-AM) engines I\'ve envisioned, and get a massive pulse of thrust, at the chance of causing a containment failure and immediate destruction of the spacecraft as Antimatter meets normal matter. To use the 'Spike' version you\'d need to add on a module above the thrust nozzles of the nuclear engines, a heavy one that like the AM rocket idea would be hypersensitive to impacts, but would have the advantages of NOT being hypersensitive to G-Forces (able to withstand being in the 'red zone').

You\'d also need a 'Controller' module that would inject AM in precisely timed amounts; manually adding AM would have a risk of containment failure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_catalyzed_nuclear_pulse_propulsion

I realize my ideas are 'Out There', but figured I\'d throw them out here and see if anyone would be interested.

[Dani-Sang]

Hey Lazurkri,

Thx for the great write up and constructive Idea.

My idea for nuclear was just to create simple 'energy'. The Ion-Engine is already bit based on the VASIMIR cause I still have the idea to power it by 'ArKon', which is the kerbal equivalent of Argon. So Nuclear was for moments you couldn\'t rely on solar panels (which are scare atm, the situation I mean)

Anti-matter (ATM) is a no go for me. Since that relates more to super high speeds such as FTL and I will wait until that stuff gets into the game.

However I like your idea for Fission rocket. Sadly I\'m forced to following the progression of plugins because I can\'t make my own.

I add this text to my idea box and will talk to some plugin developers about this.

[Lazurkri]

thanks for the compliments!

About the antimatter, I never intended for it to be used in FTL stuff; There\'s plenty of Sci-Fi out there with Anti-Matter engines being used for sublight travel to the stars (Incidentally, look at the VentureStar from the movie Avatar; that ship is a antimatter 'Torchship', and it most certainly isn\'t a FTL craft).

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

For sub-light propulsion, I think that Fusion Reactors would do the trick.

[Alchemist]

So Nuclear was for moments you couldn\'t rely on solar panels (which are scare atm, the situation I mean)

One of such things is Munar night.

The other... well I once build a craft with ion engine to explore the solar system. The mission was to establish orbit twice further than Kerbin, then return back to Kerbin. When achived desired distance I looked at the panel power gauges: '25% - I should turn the ship properly... But it is turned properly! Almost forgot about light intensity on high solar orbits!'

[Kreuzung]

Using ArKon is possible, reactors/generators etc. will be.

[Lazurkri]

For sub-light propulsion, I think that Fusion Reactors would do the trick.

Intra-solar, relatively slow travel, yes, fusion would work. However, given the massive distances between solar systems, Anti-matter, on a thrust efficiency level, is really the only way to go for interstellar travel if you don\'t want to spend centuries in travel time; I forget exactly how much would be needed to send a ship to Alpha Centuari, but it would not be a lot, maybe about 10 pounds, give or take. Of course, you\'d need a lot of hydrogen for the AM to react with, but far, far less than you\'d need using purely hydrogen for a Fusion torch. Plus with antimatter you\'d be able to thrust at and sustain higher G\'s than with a straight hydrogen fusion drive.

[CAPFlyer]

You do realize that scientists are lucky to create about a teaspoon of antimatter at a time and keep it relatively safely contained right? Gonna take some serious leaps in technology and power generation before we can reliably do either fusion as a reliable power source much less propulsion source before we can even start thinking about producing anti-matter on any significant level.

Oh, almost forgot, that teaspoon of antimatter could do the damage of a 50 megaton Hydrogen device, so there\'s a good reason for not wanting to make much more than that...

[Phoenix Aerospace]

Yeah. To get enough of the stuff, we\'ll probably need massive solar-powered colliders orbiting at a similar distance as Mercury, or better yet, covering Mercury in nanotech power generation film. No, really. That was a legitimate proposal.

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

My view of alternative propulsions:

SRB The Starter of The Start, as I call it. The first thing that will leave an atmosphere.

Intra-Planetary (Ie. In-to-out of atmosphere, and vice-versa)

Liquid Fuel Engines Very Low-tech. Used by the newest spacefaring civilizations.

Intra-Planetary

Inter-Planetary

Fission: Low-tech, used by the starter spacefaring civilizations.

'Intra-stelar system' only.

Fusion: Med-Tech, used by more advanced spacefaring civilizations.

Slug-level Inter-Stelar

Intra-stelar system.

'Raw' Anti-Matter: A more advanced Mid-tech, get some Anti-matter, some matter, and trow the two in a reaction chamber.

Slow Inter-Stelar

Intra-stelar system

'Refined' Anti-Matter: Advanced-Tech, get some anti-matter, some matter, trow the two in a reaction chamber, and harvest the power it generates to use in FTL drives.

Inter-stelar

[rkman]

...Anti-matter, on a thrust efficiency level, is really the only way to go for interstellar travel if you don\'t want to spend centuries in travel time; I forget exactly how much would be needed to send a ship to Alpha Centuari, but it would not be a lot, maybe about 10 pounds, give or take.

For comparison:

According to NASA, to get a vessel the size of a space shuttle to Alpha Centuari using liquid fuel technology and allowing for a travel time of 900 years, would require more fuel than there is matter in the observable universe.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/scales.html

[Dani-Sang]

Hey guys,

I appreciate what you guys are writing. But remember, we only got moons atm where we can go at and this is just a satellite pack. 1 thing at the time

[Dani-Sang]

Can a admin close this thread as I won\'t be using it anymore.

[DYJ]

Locked by author request.