3 facts maybe you don't know about antimatter

[caballerodiez]

Hi! 

I would like to share with you guys some facts you might not know about antimatter:

1º - Recent studies suggest that an antimatter spacecraft could achieve up to 70% the speed of light, reaching Proxima b in just about 6 years.

2º - The maximum time that antimatter has been stored is 405 days.

3º - According to the former Fermilab physicist Gerald Jackson, antimatter rockets could become a reality by 2050.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIgpTrmKUZs&list=PL3RiFKfZj3ptaxqH3te_eKz1ge_CxQxjw&index=1

What are your thoughts about antimatter propulsion?

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

The trick is, of course, actually making the stuff. Sure, there are other problems too, like storage, shielding at relativistic speeds, etc., but first and foremost we've only ever made a few hundred proper atoms of this stuff, much less hundreds of kilograms of fuel. Storage might be tricky, and the risk would certainly be too great to launch this stuff from Earth, so it would probably have to be manufactured in space.

 

...Overall, it's perhaps the best we've actually "got" (as in, the best technology we know should be possible) for interstellar travel, but it's still quite a ways away... I don't think 2050 is a good estimate, though.

 

Taking this a bit further, to get the right amount of antimatter for one ship, we'd need a dedicated particle accelerator in orbit, perhaps with several rings (particle accelerators aren't designed for mass production- discovering a better way to make this stuff would be really helpful here), blasting way 24/7 with the assistance of some humongous power source of some kind (antimatter would also help this problem, but of course you wouldn't have antimatter to start with, so you'd need a more "conventional" fusion reactor). In order to build that in the first place, we'd need a thriving space economy that can actually transport the materials and giant particle accelerator segments around- that we *might* be close to having in 2050.

Once you have antimatter spaceships,  interstellar travel should be completely plausible and we would even be able to, I don't know, maybe land on something or at leas slow down instead of flying by at relativistic speeds like Breakthrough Starshot would be doing. But, of course... all of this is a long ways off.

 

Man, all of this is reminding me how it would really suck if FTL travel isn't possible somehow. Antimatter would be just about the best there could be, and while it would undoubtedly allow us to finally explore the stars more literally, it wouldn't allow us to ever make that any kind of regular thing, or stray too far from our stellar neighborhood. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of interesting targets within 20 light years of us, but what about 10,000 light years away? What about other galaxies? And, most pressing among the individual scientific questions to arise here, is 20 light years enough to find another intelligent civilization?

 

That's enough random futurism for today.

[Bill Phil]

Antimatter catalyzed (caralysis isn’t quite right, but whatever) microfission or microfusion is a cool potential propulsion system.

[kerbiloid]

Quote

3 facts maybe you don't know about antimatter

3 4 facts.

0. There is antimatter in KSP. (In KSPI-E upd. and in NFT).

Edited April 15, 2019 by kerbiloid

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

3 4 facts.

0. There is antimatter in KSP. (In KSPI-E).

Far Future Technologies (in development NFT expansion) has it too.

[KerikBalm]

On 4/13/2019 at 3:35 AM, caballerodiez said:

1º - Recent studies suggest that an antimatter spacecraft could achieve up to 70% the speed of light, reaching Proxima b in just about 6 years.

Ummm... its not even recent, that's just a consequence of the rocket equation and antimatter rockets having an exhaust velocity of the speed of light.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/engines.php#nomogram

Good luck getting enough antimatter so that about 47% of your wet mass is antimatter (and about 47% of your wet mass is matter to mix with it)

[p1t1o]

We already have to get cold fusion and flying cars working by 2050, now antimatter rockets too? We got work to do people!

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

13 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

We already have to get cold fusion and flying cars working by 2050, now antimatter rockets too? We got work to do people!

As we should already have skatehoverboards, we can just put a  car on several flying boards,

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

On 4/15/2019 at 3:18 AM, KerikBalm said:

Ummm... its not even recent, that's just a consequence of the rocket equation and antimatter rockets having an exhaust velocity of the speed of light.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/engines.php#nomogram

Good luck getting enough antimatter so that about 47% of your wet mass is antimatter (and about 47% of your wet mass is matter to mix with it)

While I've heard that there is no way to get a conventional Bussard Ramjet to work, I'd expect it to provide all the [normal matter] reaction mass you need.  This could seriously decrease the wet mass needed and help break the rocket equation even more.

- difficulty: as you hit relativistic effects, loose hydrogen flying at you looks more and more like high-energy electrons and protons approaching.  You'll need "navigation shields" in any event, but *capturing* said matter will be even more difficult.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

While I've heard that there is no way to get a conventional Bussard Ramjet to work, I'd expect it to provide all the [normal matter] reaction mass you need.  This could seriously decrease the wet mass needed and help break the rocket equation even more.

- difficulty: as you hit relativistic effects, loose hydrogen flying at you looks more and more like high-energy electrons and protons approaching.  You'll need "navigation shields" in any event, but *capturing* said matter will be even more difficult.

Yeah, the normal matter isn't the tricky part though... at current rates of antimatter production, if we just smashed atoms 24/7, it would take 1000 years to make 1 nanogram of antihydrogen... forget about anything measured in kilograms, or regular grams for that matter...

 

We would need something a bit more specialized, which I'm sure is possible, but would take a LOT of effort- and a lot of energy, as in actual energy, we'd need fusion first-  and I can't see such a system take shape bgefore 2050.

After such a system is developed... I'd give it 10-25 years for our first interstellar antimatter rocket to launch. Makes a convenient onboard power source, too, while you're at it.

Edited April 16, 2019 by ThatGuyWithALongUsername

[Dropbear67]

Another fun fact. a PET scan works by detecting gamma rays created by matter/anti-matter annihilation inside your body.

"In PET the gamma rays used for imaging are produced when a positron meets an electron inside the patient’s body, an encounter that annihilates both electron and positron and produces two gamma rays travelling in opposite directions. "

http://www.iop.org/education/teacher/resources/teaching-medical-physics/positron/page_56317.html

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, Dropbear67 said:

Another fun fact. a PET scan works by detecting gamma rays created by matter/anti-matter annihilation inside your body.

"In PET the gamma rays used for imaging are produced when a positron meets an electron inside the patient’s body, an encounter that annihilates both electron and positron and produces two gamma rays travelling in opposite directions. "

http://www.iop.org/education/teacher/resources/teaching-medical-physics/positron/page_56317.html

So we have sources of positrons.  How long till we find a source for the anti-nucleus?