How Scifi Repulsors That Actually Repelled Could Work

[Spacescifi]

 

Forget Ironman. Wanna see how a repulsor engine would REALLY work if it adhered to it's namesake (repulsion) and newtonian physics?

Yes you do!

I admit I am borrowing from the KSP antigravity mod, but also expanding on it.

A repulsor engine would generate thrust by repelling all mass in front of it using....repulsor 'rays' (yep I know....don't say it). In accord with physics, if mass is repelled, the ship is thrust in the opposite direction.

Unlike KSP's mod, a repulsor that repelled all mass would blow much like a rocket...just minus the plume... an invisible plume if you will. Still expect dirt shockwaves to blow accross the ground on takeoff or liftoff.

Since thrust is based purely on mass repulsion, once the vessel reaches vacuum, it could still repel off the planet's atmosphere,  since the repulsor 'rays' travel at light speed anyway. Just expect to fly along a curve or otherwise to fly directly upward from the planet if using repulsors in space. What you cannot do is point your repulsors at deep space and fire the engines and expect to get thrust.

Nothing to repel against.

Borrowing from KSP's antigravity mod, I think it is a GREAT idea to drain the least power close to a planet's surface, but suck up the most the farther one gets from a planet in space, to the point of simply not having the power to operate them.

Yet I will expand on this by saying that for the repulsors, power drain will be low so long a ship is surrounded by mass (atmosphere).

Thrust is most needed near mass anyway, and repulsors work equally well on in asteroids in space too!

In fact, one could push asteroids or even accelerate them while the ship accelerates in the opposite direction.

Once the distance becomes too big the power drain would not allow more repulsion anyway.

At any rate...inside an atmosphere...you could repel...I mean fly, indefinitely since the power drain would be low (mass all around you to repel against). Only once you get to vacuum will the power drain start to creep up.

So there ya go. Repulsors that are more newtonian and repulsive than Ironman's, which basically look and behave like magic rockets.

And for you rocket aficionados, yes the ship still needs normal rocket engines, at least if it want to thrust in space far away where repulsors would require exorbiant power to operate.

Or simply to thrust in a direction where there is no mass in range to repel off

The good news is... so long you also use other scifi staples *cough* like FTL/warp, the tyranny of the rocket equation is largely defeated.

 

Although for long missions, refueling off planets or asteroids is a need for the normal rocket engines.

 

Unlike the repulsors which could run off multiple nuclear reactors. Until the reactors died anyway or ran out of fuel.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

According to Galilean relativity principle, when you jump up, it's either you are moving away from the Earth, or the Earth is moving away from you, nobody cares.

So, if a 100 kg human jumps up at 3 m/s vertical speed from the 6*10²⁴ kg heavy massy Earth, it's like he makes 6*10²⁴ kg of propellant move away from him.

Applying the conservation laws (6*10²⁴ /100 * 3 ~=2*10²³ m/s), we can see that by jumping up, the human should approach ultrarelativistic speed and reach the stars without a rocket at all.

Also, he even doesn't need a spacesuit to get to the closes stars by jumping, because the time will relativistically shrink, so he gets to another star between breathings.

(Let's  name him Skywalker.)

Edited October 23, 2020 by kerbiloid