Best Theoretical Spaceship

[kerbiloid]

A personal wave function adjustment device, colloquially the "waver".
Looks like a pendant you wear on the necklace.

You touch it, give a verbal command (the factory default is "Sha-zaam! Ta-daaamm!"),
and the probability of your presence drops down to zero at the initial point, and jumps up to one at the destination point.
So, you just disappear and reappear like if you always was there.
(I said "was" instead of "were" due to inattention to emphasize the uniquity of your instance at every moment.)

Oh, yes, a ship.

Spoiler

Just to sleep in bed and hold your things.

 

Edited June 21, 2020 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A personal wave function adjustment device, colloquially the "waver".
Looks like a pendant you wear on the necklace.

I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg,
Ron stole Meggy's heart away
And I got Sydney's leg.

- It is a sci-fi thread after all.

[KSK]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg,
Ron stole Meggy's heart away
And I got Sydney's leg.

- It is a sci-fi thread after all.

Take me apart, take me apart. What a way to roam. If you have to take me apart to get there, I'd rather stay at home?

 

[Guest]

It's basically the same principle as the infinite improbability drive. Say hello to the bowl of petunias, and don't forget your towel.  

[kerbiloid]

The best system is no system. The best spaceship is no spaceship.
So, just get resonant to the Universe.

[p1t1o]

On 6/19/2020 at 12:52 AM, Spacescifi said:

 

Barring a way to do warp/FTL, nothing tops antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse.

It's basically project Orion using antimatter to trigger nuclear explosions.

Given the vast energy of antimatter reactions, little in the way of reaction mass is needed.

And by little... I mean wayyy less than a kilogram.

So this:

In the mid-1990s research at the Pennsylvania State University led to the concept of using antimatter to catalyze nuclear reactions. In short, antiprotons would react inside the nucleus of uranium, causing a release of energy that breaks the nucleus apart as in conventional nuclear reactions. Even a small number of such reactions can start the chain reaction that would otherwise require a much larger volume of fuel to sustain. Whereas the "normal" critical mass for plutonium is about 11.8 kilograms (for a sphere at standard density), with antimatter catalyzed reactions this could be well under one gram.

Several rocket designs using this reaction were proposed, some which would use all-fission reactions for interplanetary missions, and others using fission-fusion (effectively a very small version of Orion's bombs) for interstellar missions.

 

Long story short: So long such a ship had some spare SRB's for relaunch, it could go just about anywhere, land, and return.

 

The TWR compared to propellant mass is ridicolously high here.

 

What do you think?

I think it beats any torch ship...especially in a race to the moon or even mars.

Care to challenge that?

What do you think?

Since I am betting that the heat rejection mass or propellant mass will make the torchship lose the race anyway.

Having more thrust with less mass with less waste heat is generally excellent for any spaceship.

 

EDIT: Not sure if KSP has antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse but it should,I think.

 

If we are only talking interplanetary, why mention FTL/warp? Even good old cold-war orion has great interplanetary performance, your AM catalysed version would simply be the "sports" version which would have better performance. Yes possibly the best theoretical performance for in-system use.

With, however, the large caveat of there being no known way of producing or storing any usable amount of AM.

If you are considering human interstellar travel at all, the low exhaust velocity and Isp essentially kills all fission-based ideas, even fusion is lukewarm at best.

 

This is one of my favorite theoretical papers on interstellar travel (AM beam-core), well worth reading cover to cover:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060601234257/http://www.aiaa.org/Participate/Uploads/2003-4676.pdf

Spoiler alert: interstellar travel is super-hard, even with the most exotic and optimistic hypothetical propulsion methods barring fictional FTL/warp drives.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by p1t1o

[Guest]

Actually, there is a fusion technology that could get up to the level needed for interstellar flight:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist3.php#fszpinch

It's the closest thing we're gonna get to an Epstein drive, assuming it works out. This thing is pretty badass, though it would still need a pretty huge ship to make interstellar travel practical.

[Spacescifi]

8 hours ago, p1t1o said:

If we are only talking interplanetary, why mention FTL/warp? 

Spoiler alert: interstellar travel is super-hard, even with the most exotic and optimistic hypothetical propulsion methods barring fictional FTL/warp drives.

 

 

 

 

 

1. Because scifi races being and developing in separate star systems is a scifi trope I choose to follow, even if travel between systems must be contrived to make it more practical.

It all comes down to whether I like how it looks visually AND what it capable of meeting plot needs.

I have come to this conclusion: Scifi trope vessels have less main nozzles/engine ports, more realistic ones have more, and if you have one big nozzle for everything then we are talking some kind of AM monster thermal propellant or plasma rocket.. at least with realism turned on. Since bigger nozzles can spread and handle heat loads easier.

2. I know. Which in part is what makes it interesting. It's a challenge, and if written properly readers will know it to.

No such thing as... lay in a course to sector 123 and that's it.

More like, "Set engines to 1g, stay on course for 2 hours, shutdown, and retroburn for 55 minutes. Shut down, then do an orbital insertion."

[cubinator]

On 6/20/2020 at 11:20 PM, kerbiloid said:

A personal wave function adjustment device, colloquially the "waver".
Looks like a pendant you wear on the necklace.

You touch it, give a verbal command

"Yip yip!"

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

"Yip yip!"

Yes, it's also a standard command for the serial interstellar ship:
"Let's go to where we planned. Don't bother me with numbers. Come on, do it!"

(Though, the waving jump pendant is a hi-tech from their future sci-fi.)

Edited June 25, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Spacescifi]

On 6/18/2020 at 8:10 PM, K^2 said:

It's a bit like having a discussion on what's the best car to get to the next town over, and you're insisting it's definitely a bicycle, because you can get it up to your apartment and store it on the balcony. I mean, that has utility, but if we're talking about going a bit further than your neighborhood, a car's definitely more practical. And the fact that you have to keep it in a garage, even if you have to take a lift down, is hardly an inconvenience worth discussing.

 

 

From experience I can tell you that biking to the next town or city over is quite doable.

In fact the go anywhere feeling is kind of liberating, as bicycles really are not quite as constrained to the same rules cars are, and you can park virtually anywhere.

That is the advantage of antimatter catalyzed pusher plate technology... if we ever get good enough to develop it.

It takes spaceship utility to it's logical extreme.

You can go anywhere in the solar system and back so long you have water to refill your boosters for landing, antimatter will provide the energy while water propellant provides the thrust.

The bombs provide both high specific impulse and high thrust.

Basically a pulsed torchship.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

A pentaborane bike.