List of new propulsion systems

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, Jebster (Cog Counter) said:

Would that be some sort of hyper drive?

Nope.  Here's a good read on it:

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#mif

Basically, it's in the structure of how the drive operates - but it's just a fusion drive: High ISP, moderate to decent thrust-to-weight.  The type of thing you need for realistic interstellar ships.

[KerikBalm]

No.

[kerbiloid]

Even Alcubierre?

[NHunter]

I think, it was explicitly said that Stock KSP2 will NOT have any FTL engines.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

On 9/14/2019 at 10:49 PM, kerbiloid said:

Even Alcubierre?

The alcubiere drive is a combination of known physics (space time bubble) and unknown physics (negative gravity mass) and some crazy level engineering issues like the energy levels required.

Is not that we just don't know how to create negative mass yet, we don't even know if such a thing can exist outside the mathematics we invented to understand space time.

So far, it's the most plausible way to travel faster than light and at least creates a framework for similar systems, but it doesn't really tick the "known physics" box. And unlike worm holes, only involves killing everyone if things go wrong. But I'm ok with it not being stock. It's not like it won't be a mod within the time frame I'd want one in.

 

[Francois424]

Just having vessels that can reach 10-20% of the speed of light would be fantastic imho, as long as they don't take 4 years to reach it, of course (A few months might be ok tho).
There's no need for warp drives of any kind.  But I'm sure some will be modded in eventually regardless.

[Xd the great]

15 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

There's no need for warp drives of any kind.  But I'm sure some will be modded in eventually regardless.

STAGING EPSTEIN DRIVES.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

40 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

STAGING EPSTEIN DRIVES.

150 of them per stage. You know...

 

[mcwaffles2003]

On 9/10/2019 at 12:02 PM, Jebster (Cog Counter) said:

Would that be some sort of hyper drive?

no, "fusion drive"

[Nikolai]

17 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Is not that we just don't know how to create negative mass yet, we don't even know if such a thing can exist outside the mathematics we invented to understand space time.

OT wrinkle: It's not that we invented the mathematics to understand spacetime -- it's that we were playing with mathematics as its own logically-consistent diversion, and a particular subset of it happened to describe what we think is happening with spacetime rather well.

This kind of thing keeps happening, and we're not sure why.  It's kind of like having a hobby where you knit sweaters according to certain rules, and then some time later, a bunch of dachshunds happen by, and some of the sweaters fit those new dachshunds perfectly, even though the rules we used were rather seriously limiting and we really had no idea what a dachshund was when we started our work.

Unnecessary nitpick, but I personally find it fascinating.  As you were. 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

10 hours ago, Nikolai said:

OT wrinkle: It's not that we invented the mathematics to understand spacetime -- it's that we were playing with mathematics as its own logically-consistent diversion, and a particular subset of it happened to describe what we think is happening with spacetime rather well.

This kind of thing keeps happening, and we're not sure why.  It's kind of like having a hobby where you knit sweaters according to certain rules, and then some time later, a bunch of dachshunds happen by, and some of the sweaters fit those new dachshunds perfectly, even though the rules we used were rather seriously limiting and we really had no idea what a dachshund was when we started our work.

Unnecessary nitpick, but I personally find it fascinating.  As you were. 

Yep, it's quite fascinating. See also Higg's Boson, positrons, etc. The issue with negative gravity mass is that it's not predicted, just not excluded. And no one has even hypothesised how some could be made. That said, someone could stumble on that tomorrow. I'm betting it would be expensive. Like serious investment per atom expensive. But once that's done, then it's just engineering and bubble shape cleverness.

[Chilkoot]

On 9/15/2019 at 7:10 PM, TiktaalikDreaming said:

So far, it's the most plausible way to travel faster than light and at least creates a framework for similar systems

There's also the whole breaking causality problem...  Whether causality is immutable in this universe remains to be seen.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

24 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

There's also the whole breaking causality problem...  Whether causality is immutable in this universe remains to be seen.

(this is me failing to resist the urge to let this go seeing as it no longer has anything much to do with the topic)

Causality is one of most interesting victims of FTL.  And always reminds me of the Douglas Adams HHGTTG quote

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

EG: Just how much of the universe is disturbed by something breaking causality?

[Chilkoot]

17 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Causality is one of most interesting victims of FTL.

You know, it makes pretty good intuitive sense that we can't push something up to or beyond the speed of light mechanically.  It also seems to make sense that if we were able to modify space, we could transplant something from A to B faster than it would take light to travel through the regular space in between.

But messing up causality... that's the one that really bakes my noodle.  I think if you asked 5 different Cosmologists about it, you'd get 5 different answers, and I don't have nearly a strong enough intuitive understanding of it to even hazard an educated guess.

[Vanguard319]

I wonder if we'll see Pulse detonation engines or dual-mode scramjets. Gotta get those spaceplanes into orbit somehow, and while R.A.P.I.E.R.s are nice, they're just not efficient enough for my taste.

[Guest]

On 8/24/2019 at 12:32 AM, nubeees said:

 

It surely isn't one, being on a big ship with spherical tanks and all, but this also resembles an aeroplug engine.

[nubeees]

On 9/18/2019 at 2:46 PM, Rocket Witch said:

 

It surely isn't one, being on a big ship with spherical tanks and all, but this also resembles an aeroplug engine.

I've never seen that before. Thanks for the link!

[DStaal]

IGN's breakdown of the trailer provides a couple more details.  First off, this is confirmed to be a metallic hydrogen variant:

Secondly, this is referred to as a 'compound drive':

Though I wouldn't know what they mean by 'compound drive'.  Do they just mean similar to that compound areoplug in construction, where it's basically a cluster of smaller drives of some sort?  Or is there something else going on?

[GoldForest]

4 hours ago, DStaal said:

Though I wouldn't know what they mean by 'compound drive'.  Do they just mean similar to that compound areoplug in construction, where it's basically a cluster of smaller drives of some sort?  Or is there something else going on?

Compound engines just mean it uses two engines to power one system.

An example would be the turbo-compound engine, which used a jet turbine and a piston engine. The exhaust from the piston engine would be sent into the the turbine and would spin it up, and the turbine would add more power. 

In the concept of rocket engines, I assume it uses one fuel and two engines with one nozzle or something to that effect. 

I'm guessing it's a metallic hydrogen engine that feeds excess hydrogen into a conventional hydrogen engine after the metallic hydrogen breaks down into liquid hydrogen or gaseous hydrogen. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by GoldForest

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Compound engines just mean it uses two engines to power one system.

An example would be the turbo-compound engine, which used a jet turbine and a piston engine. The exhaust from the piston engine would be sent into the the turbine and would spin it up, and the turbine would add more power. 

In the concept of rocket engines, I assume it uses one fuel and two engines with one nozzle or something to that effect. 

I'm guessing it's a metallic hydrogen engine that feeds excess hydrogen into a conventional hydrogen engine after the metallic hydrogen breaks down into liquid hydrogen or gaseous hydrogen. 

Makes some sense, assume this would give the engine gears, you could run it high isp low trust or high trust but lower ISP. 
It would however share the weakness with an ship using both chemical and nuclear engines in KSP 1 in that you need to bring extra oxygen who can only be used in the high trust gear, benefit is that you don't need to bring liquid hydrogen or other fuel. 

[GoldForest]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Makes some sense, assume this would give the engine gears, you could run it high isp low trust or high trust but lower ISP. 
It would however share the weakness with an ship using both chemical and nuclear engines in KSP 1 in that you need to bring extra oxygen who can only be used in the high trust gear, benefit is that you don't need to bring liquid hydrogen or other fuel. 

You wouldn't need to bring extra oxygen per say. It would all run off a single oxygen tank, and Metallic Hydrogen is just super compressed hydrogen, so you could actually take more liquid oxygen from the start because you could have a smaller metallic hydrogen tank than a liquid hydrogen tank. Of course, this is just me speculating. 

Edit: And actually, you could probably store the metallic hydrogen (Because theoretically it will be stable and won't break down by itself) inside the liquid oxygen. Hydrogen won't burn without an ignition source. So you could take one giant tank of liquid oxygen with metallic hydrogen mixed in, and add a flame to the combustion chamber, and bam, you got yourself a single tank rocket. 

Edit 2: Of course, they could pair metallic hydrogen with metallic oxygen (Solid oxygen). Of course, this would make the engine more like a solid rocket booster, but as long as you can shut it off, I wouldn't mind a solid rocket engine. And of course, making the oxygen metallic means it would be compressed, and there fore need a smaller tank, meaning smaller rocket. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by GoldForest

[DStaal]

10 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Compound engines just mean it uses two engines to power one system.

An example would be the turbo-compound engine, which used a jet turbine and a piston engine. The exhaust from the piston engine would be sent into the the turbine and would spin it up, and the turbine would add more power. 

In the concept of rocket engines, I assume it uses one fuel and two engines with one nozzle or something to that effect. 

Or it could also mean a cluster of small engines that all output into the same plume.  'Compound' just means 'made up of separate parts' - it doesn't say anything about how those parts relate to each other.

[GoldForest]

5 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Or it could also mean a cluster of small engines that all output into the same plume.  'Compound' just means 'made up of separate parts' - it doesn't say anything about how those parts relate to each other.

This is true too.

[KerikBalm]

On 10/3/2019 at 10:59 AM, GoldForest said:

actually, you could probably store the metallic hydrogen (Because theoretically it will be stable and won't break down by itself)

No, stop repeating this.

No recent theory/predictions/experimental results support it remaining metallic for more than a few picoseconds after pressure is realesed

[GoldForest]

6 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

No, stop repeating this.

No recent theory/predictions/experimental results support it remaining metallic for more than a few picoseconds after pressure is realesed

https://physicsworld.com/a/the-quest-to-create-metallic-hydrogen/

 

Quote

Metallic hydrogen may be a room-temperature superconductor. It may also be metastable – that is, it may remain metallic hydrogen even when the pressure is lifted.