List of new propulsion systems

[KerikBalm]

Stop relying on pop science articles, and note that it says may, not that it is expected to be.

There hasn't been a paper suggesting it might be since the 70's

Also, why use the 2017 paper when there is a june 2019 paper, whete they did lower the pressure, and it immediately became non metallic.

All this I have already covered on this forum ... The magic tech thread

Edited October 9, 2019 by KerikBalm

[OOM]

34 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Stop relying on pop science articles, and note that it says may, not that it is expected to be.

There hasn't been a paper suggesting it might be since the 70's

Also, why use the 2017 paper when there is a june 2019 paper, whete they did lower the pressure, and it immediately became non metallic.

All this I have already covered on this forum ... The magic tech thread

You still can’t calm down ...

Metallic hydrogen is the real thing that exists in nature. And its creation on the ground under laboratory conditions depends only on the directness of the hands and the level of technology.
Everything that exists in nature can be realized by man artificially. I don’t want to hear anything anymore.
Metallic hydrogen is not Warp Drive. Although ... there are black holes that manipulate space-time.

Edited October 9, 2019 by OOM

[Guest]

Oh man @KerikBalm you really have found yourself a cause, haven’t you? 

[OOM]

Let's end this useless argument and talk about reactors that we don’t know about yet. Because without reactors, I see no way how to build a high-quality space ship.
Moreover, none of the videos showed the reactor zone. And no one asked a question about reactors (or am I reading poorly)

Edited October 9, 2019 by OOM

[GoldForest]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Stop relying on pop science articles, and note that it says may, not that it is expected to be.

There hasn't been a paper suggesting it might be since the 70's

Also, why use the 2017 paper when there is a june 2019 paper, whete they did lower the pressure, and it immediately became non metallic.

All this I have already covered on this forum ... The magic tech thread

Anything can be made stable. 

Look at Artificial diamonds. You cook one long enough in the right temperature and right pressure, bam, you got yourself a diamond. But mess up, get the wrong pressure or you under heat it, you get yourself a lump of carbon. 

It's all about finding the right conditions, and obviously we either haven't found them, or can't produce them without some technological advancements. 

The impossible becomes possible all the time. 
Planes
Space Travel
Living on Mars.

Now, I've said my peace. I believe Metallic Hydrogen COULD happen and that it's not impossible. Will it be a stable metal? Maybe. WIll it break down? Possibly. Is it worth trying to make it? The results will say. The advantages are great, and we have nothing really to lose by not having it. MH might make super computers into ultra computers, but if we can't make it, then CNT super computers will do us just fine. 

[KerikBalm]

7 hours ago, OOM said:

Metallic hydrogen is the real thing that exists in nature.

...
I don’t want to hear anything anymore.
 

I never said metallic hydrogen doesn't exist. I said its not metallic at low pressure.

You may proceed to bury your head under the sand/close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears

4 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Anything can be made stable. 

Absolutely incorrect

[kerbiloid]

Let's change the question: which physical constant(s) should be changed to make the metallic hydrogen possible?
Maybe the KSP universe with its ultrasmall planets has exactly the required value?
If so, should it affect chemical properties of other propellants?

[ChrisSpace]

To change the mood a little from debating metallic hydrogen, this happened. Not 100% if this is real, can someone check?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

53 minutes ago, ChrisSpace said:

To change the mood a little from debating metallic hydrogen, this happened. Not 100% if this is real, can someone check?

Can confirm, nine hours ago by the course twitter time keeping thing.

[Xd the great]

On 10/9/2019 at 9:08 PM, KerikBalm said:

I never said metallic hydrogen doesn't exist. I said its not metallic at low pressure.

You may proceed to bury your head under the sand/close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears

Absolutely incorrect

Metallic hydrogen is stable at high pressure. It probably isn't at low temperature. If kerbals developed a skill for storing MH at such high pressure, I would certainly like to store said kerbals with MH too.

[Legoprodigy]

I wonder if the Kraken Drive will still be a viable interstellar propulsion system... Would be funny yeh?

[Drakenred65]

Ok guys Calm down.

Atomic or metallic hydrogen engines , both simple chemical reaction and some of the more elaborate Fusion drives that some have suggested are at least mathematically  possible which ironically makes them as realistic as the Fleets of Orion Drive space ships, or long term space Colony’s as in most of the population is born, lives out there lives, and dies their moon colony’s. Both in theory are doable. But no one currently wants to actually build them. Well apart from those in Mars One, and that one oilman that Apparently wanted NASA and Russia to build and launch them.  

 

Back on point though that kind of mathematically or theoretically possible type of drive is the only realistic, for a given value of realistic, way of getting to a nearby star system.

 

you also have to realize that we’re talking about a game that is based on at least one currently extremely theoretical concept. That someplace else has sentient and sufficiently intelligent to support a space program and are hell bent at exploring the universe foe whatever reason life. Getting nit picky about how possibly engine x is is just silly.

 

[herbal space program]

My only beef with metallic hydrogen is I can't see what it really gets you. Is it that much denser than ordinary liquid hydrogen? Even if it is, that only reduces the volume of it you need to carry, not the mass. Meh!

[Bill Phil]

5 minutes ago, herbal space program said:

My only beef with metallic hydrogen is I can't see what it really gets you. Is it that much denser than ordinary liquid hydrogen? Even if it is, that only reduces the volume of it you need to carry, not the mass. Meh!

The advantage, I think, is that the hydrogen can sent off monatomically. This improves ISP quite a bit since it’s a function of temperature and molar mass, the lower the molar mass the better the ISP.

That said it might be for a completely different reason.

[SpaceFace545]

Hey everyone I am new to the forum but, can we keep our focus on the new propulsion systems coming to ksp2 not a debate if metallic hydrogen is probable or not. 

[OHara]

2 hours ago, herbal space program said:

metallic hydrogen [ . . . ] I can't see what it really gets you.

Extremely high energy density.

When hydrogen transitions from metallic to H2 it releases much more energy than any combustion reaction.  So if we imagine Kerbals can contain the metallic form, and make nozzles to control the very hot H2 produced, it would serve as monopropellant with an Isp around 10 km/s or 1000s.   (See http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ for details, both proven and speculative, nicely clarified.)

The corresponding engine has what I guess is a magnetic nozzle to handle the heat, and I suspect this engine might serve as a step in the in-game lore of Kerbals' development of magnetic nozzles for nuclear engines.

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, herbal space program said:

My only beef with metallic hydrogen is I can't see what it really gets you. Is it that much denser than ordinary liquid hydrogen? Even if it is, that only reduces the volume of it you need to carry, not the mass. Meh!

(I think this is still on topic at the moment, as we're discussing how an engine confirmed to be in the game works.)  It's not just that it's denser.  It's that it's three phase-states away from stable, and denser, and cryogenic, and monotomic, and super compressed.

When you release it therefore, it undergoes all the phase transitions, reverts back to normal pressure, etc.  All automatically, and all on it's own.  And each of those transitions gives off energy.

The end result is a low-mass engine that works like a monoprop thruster - with better ISP than nukes.  And it doesn't require a reactor core, radiation shielding, or major cooling to operate.  So all the high-mass parts of your propulsion system can be cut out, and your fuel is your propellant.  This means the TWR for the engine itself is huge - and you still have a great ISP.  The only major downside is the tanks have to be more massive than most other fuels to contain the pressure.  (With how much more massive depending on how meta-stable it is.  If it's meta-stable at relatively low pressures and high temperatures, then the extra mass is minimal, and it's all worth the effort.  If it's not not very meta-stable, the extra tank mass swamps the gains.)

[herbal space program]

55 minutes ago, DStaal said:

  If it's meta-stable at relatively low pressures and high temperatures, then the extra mass is minimal, and it's all worth the effort.  If it's not not very meta-stable, the extra tank mass swamps the gains.)

Yeah, I can see how the phase transition itself could store a lot of energy, but my bet as to what physical substance could contain it effectively is essentially nothing.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

8 hours ago, herbal space program said:

My only beef with metallic hydrogen is I can't see what it really gets you. Is it that much denser than ordinary liquid hydrogen? Even if it is, that only reduces the volume of it you need to carry, not the mass. Meh!

It's the fact that we haven't demonstrated it can ACTUALLY be metastable; meaning the properties of a Metallic Hydrogen Engine aren't known. It's basically all conjecture from estimates from the late 70's that have already been demonstrated to be off the mark numerous times.

He continues to attempt to impart this information, but people either don't want to or fail to understand what he's saying. So lemme try to give the tl;dr.

Metallic Hydrogen IS predicted by current physics, and we're rather close to creating in a lab setting (We may have already)

However the discussion isn't about if Metallic Hydrogen exists or could be used as a fuel. The discussion is if Metastable Metallic Hydrogen exists.

What is "Metastablity"? In general it's where a compound or substance is "Trapped" at a higher energy level than it's ground state, but for some reason cannot spontenously transition back to the lowest energy state (This gets REALLY complicated). So the substance appears stable for all intents and purposes, it can be handled and worked with fairly easily even. But once additional energy overcomes whatever funk is preventing transitioning; BAM! All that penned up energy is released as it reverts to the lowest energy state.

Metallic Hydrogen was predicted to remain in a metallic state even after the immense pressures were released, this would make it much denser and easier to handle than H2 or LOX. It would also mean an immense amount of energy would be released upon reverting back to gas.

However current experiments have not shown this to be the case, as it rapidly transitions back to a gas or liquid depending on temps. All of these are at much higher pressures than predicted it would take.

NONE of this means that metastable Metallic Hydrogen CANNOT exist; it's simply that we haven't PROVEN it's existance and the calculations that appeared to show it were WRONG.

EDIT:

I decided to put my money where my mouth was and look at some actual papers on the subject, the ones from 1968, 1974 were strangely locked behind a account. But i found 3 papers from a russian nuclear resarch university from 2016-2017 detailing a mathmatical simulation predicting a metastable form of Metallic Hydrogen that could appear at 500 Gigapascals, along with it's superconducting transition. All current experiments have been well below this threshold.

Star Theory could've talked to these authors for some kind of basis for their engines, that doesn't really change the current state of things. But it does mean there's at least active interest in the scientific community for Meta stable Metallic Hydrogen.

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by Incarnation of Chaos
I don't know everything

[herbal space program]

9 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

What is "Metastablity"? In general it's where a compound or substance is "Trapped" at a higher energy level than it's ground state, but for some reason cannot spontenously transition back to the lowest energy state (This gets REALLY complicated). So the substance appears stable for all intents and purposes, it can be handled and worked with fairly easily even. But once additional energy overcomes whatever funk is preventing transitioning; BAM! All that penned up energy is released as it reverts to the lowest energy state.

...And your ship explodes spectacularly. I like where this is going!    Seriously though, I think mining Helium-3  from asteroids as the only way of making your fusion drive work would make a lot more sense as a rare resource-limited interstellar propulsion method.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

2 hours ago, herbal space program said:

...And your ship explodes spectacularly. I like where this is going!    Seriously though, I think mining Helium-3  from asteroids as the only way of making your fusion drive work would make a lot more sense as a rare resource-limited interstellar propulsion method.

Fusion drives are also something that we know for sure are physically possible, so i would have to agree.

[ChrisSpace]

7 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Fusion drives are also something that we know for sure are physically possible, so i would have to agree.

I really hope we get something like this:

https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-epstein-drive.html

[Incarnation of Chaos]

1 hour ago, ChrisSpace said:

I really hope we get something like this:

https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-epstein-drive.html

I still don't understand the difference between an epstein drive and a fusion torch tbh

[Superfluous J]

11 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I still don't understand the difference between an epstein drive and a fusion torch tbh

If they called it a Fusion Torch people could point at tiny little things and say that fusion torches wouldn't do that. By calling it a ________ drive they can just say "no it works that way because professor ________ discovered it"

It's the same concept (executed roughly one billion times more poorly) behind the rebooted Star Trek's "Red matter."

"It's like dark matter but it's red so it's different in the ways we need it to be for the plot and also to look cool."

Edited November 14, 2019 by 5thHorseman

[Incarnation of Chaos]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

If they called it a Fusion Torch people could point at tiny little things and say that fusion torches wouldn't do that. By calling it a ________ drive they can just say "no it works that way because professor ________ discovered it"

It's the same concept (executed roughly one billion times more poorly) behind the rebooted Star Trek's "Red matter."

"It's like dark matter but it's red so it's different in the ways we need it to be for the plot and also to look cool."

Welp that's one of the most honest answers i think i'm gonna get xD

I'm actually a big fan of the expanse, but the hype around the epstein drive i couldn't ever understand.