Which kind of power would future frigates adopt to make them hover in atmosphere?

[Cesrate]

Jet engine? Airscrew()? Aeroionization propulsion? Mass Effect drive(:D)?

[NASAFanboy]

In the future, I think the main starships would stay in space, but would each carry shuttles to ferry things around. Have you seen the Venture Star trying to reeneter? Not.pretty.

So, if the Reapers attack, they will face no.resistance on the ground, EXCEPT for.... global warming. Hurricanes, flooding, our tetonic activity, our weather, and I hope their allergic.to earth. Otherwise, we are screwed.

[Panichio]

Big, big balloons. (I'm a scientist.)

[NASAFanboy]

Big, big balloons. (I'm a scientist.)

Somewhere on a planet, circa 2576...

Trooper: Sir! The enemy is shooting out our ballons!

Commander: Oh crap. Fire th- All personnel to escape pods, this thing is falling like a rock!

Alien: These humans are idiots. Who uses ballons nowadays, anyways? BANG BANG! There goes their mothership.

[SunJumper]

How about good old-fashioned Aerodynamic Lift?

[Scotius]

Anti-gravitation cores made of exotic matter.

[Cesrate]

Anti-gravitation cores made of exotic matter.

You can freely talk about it only if we found one…

[SunJumper]

What about gravito-meissnerism? The Meissner effect, but with gravity!

[WestAir]

How about good old-fashioned Aerodynamic Lift?

Most likely I'd say. Wings don't require fuel to keep things afloat, they let objects move at a wide range of speeds from 20 mph to hypersonic, they work at any altitude from the ground to several hundred thousand feet. Any new or old technology (like baloons or anti-gravity) would be hard pressed to match the epic capabilities of a wing.

Lift ftw.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Mass Effect drive(:D)?

I lost it at this.

I mean, why not?

[Rune]

Well, there's propellers. Assuming you have a compact and light fusion reactor (probably part of your main drive) you can get essentially unlimited electric supply, and then electric fans can be just as effective as wings, and allow hover. Wasted weight outside atmo, but... it would look cool as boop.

[NASAFanboy]

Well, there's propellers. Assuming you have a compact and light fusion reactor (probably part of your main drive) you can get essentially unlimited electric supply, and then electric fans can be just as effective as wings, and allow hover. Wasted weight outside atmo, but... it would look cool as boop.

*Sees the UNSC Unity being held up by several thousand propellers*

[Banbite]

Magic! Or antigravity or repulsorlifts, pretty much the same thing

[VVP]

*message deleted*

Edited April 24, 2013 by VVP

[NASAFanboy]

Hot air balloons

That means the alien forces will shoot down our starships so easily.

[Nibb31]

Since space frigates are pure fantasy, I see nothing wrong with magic keeping them in the sky.

But if you really want to, we can pretend that our balloons are made of indestructible unobtanium. Or we could just fill the star frigates with lighter than air unobtanium gas.

[Xellith]

Vaccum technology?

[georgexiro]

First of all, I guess frigates would be built in space because they would require a vast amount of money going to fuel to transport a "pre-built" ship in orbit. After that.. maybe a nuclear fusion propultion system??

[Holo]

Antigravity most likely.

[leopardenthusiast]

I don't see anything particularly large ever leaving orbit, aside from damage causing an engine malfunction. You'd be more likely to have shuttles (which would have to be SSTOs, because you might need to land somewhere that doesn't have the equipment to refuel spacecraft), and just keep the main craft in orbit.

[3_bit]

Nothing, we could build a version of the Matrix, plug ourselves in, and make the laws of physics different so they CAN hover without any reason other than that Gravity doesn't affect them, at least in that realm.

[WestAir]

Would life be worthwhile in a perpetual simulated reality? If all our senses were 100% augmented to this new reality, making it impossible to differentiate it from reality, would it become more important than reality to our society?

[NASAFanboy]

Since space frigates are pure fantasy, I see nothing wrong with magic keeping them in the sky.

But if you really want to, we can pretend that our balloons are made of indestructible unobtanium. Or we could just fill the star frigates with lighter than air unobtanium gas.

Eh, it MIGHT work. But, lets leave these to TV and books for now.

[NASAFanboy]

Nothing, we could build a version of the Matrix, plug ourselves in, and make the laws of physics different so they CAN hover without any reason other than that Gravity doesn't affect them, at least in that realm.

Really? This is the least promising future we will have, being stuck on a single planet with some "auguemented reality" and some stupid "hive mind"

[aquilux]

I think it'll be two pronged. The first part will be some sort of manipulation of the higgs field. The second part will be some sort of buoyancy so that it won't have to use as much energy to hover and so that it won't fall quite like a rock. I think the easiest thing to use for buoyancy would be vaccum. Things float because they're lighter than the stuff around them, what's lighter than an area of absolutely nothing? They have the added benefit of not weighing any more than they already do this way. They could easily open specially built compartments, or even voids (spaces between utilised areas, usually difficult or impossible to get to) to the vacuum of space, then close the hatches/valves and bring that vacuum down with them.