For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[Spacescifi]

 

What it would take to build a real Ironman suit.

 

Not this weaksauce reality:

 

This:

 

So what would it realistically take? What could power and provide propellant?

Power: Antimatter catalyzed fission or fusion. Requires less than a gram of nuclear uranium or plutonium reacting with a similarly tiny amount of antimatter.

Point is, the suit can carry it.

Storage: This is where we have to make a material that is neutral to antimatter, since I do not trust a magnet to keep AM safe with it in a suit I an wearing. So fictional... for now.

Propellant: Fill the suit up partially with some water for high thrust propellant, and once at high enough speed open up a ram jet on your back and use air heated by AM as reaction mass.

Good enough to fly and land. Just be sure to fill up on water to launch again.

What do you think?

AM catalyzed fusion is awesome! We could even do mini Antimatter Reactive Compact (ARC) reactors this way!

Radiation is the only problem.

But no one said being Ironman gives a long life expectancy!

Edited June 19, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Power: Antimatter catalyzed fission or fusion.

I even know which part of that man should be made of iron...

P.S.
No, I don't mean toughness. I mean sieverts.

Edited June 19, 2020 by kerbiloid

[SOXBLOX]

Yeah, so remember, Marvel is sci-fi. Emphasis on the "fi". As for powering this thing, forget it. Batteries? Absolutely not. Hydrocarbons are one of our densest energy storage techniques, but they wouldn't work. A material "neutral to antimatter" . Has this even been proposed? Seems like a very unlikely entity to me.

I'd like to see someone run the numbers on cubic gauche. High energy density and no radiation. Could it work if we handwave the other issues?

Also, from an engineering standpoint, there's not even enough room in the suit for a reactor like that. Even if there was, how is the exhaust vented in the hands and feet? Not a lot could withstand that sort of thing. Rocket engines are metal for a reason, and metal is not known for flexibility and comfort. This would be a massive challenge to build. By the time you got done, it would look more like a rocket-propelled helicopter-like machine with a little tiny cockpit somewhere on it.

And ramjets. If you're thinking of going hypersonic in this thing, think again. You'd be cooked by air resistance. The SR-71 needed a heavy-duty cooling system for life support. It used the fuel as the heat exchange fluid.

If you want cool power armor, just do something more Expanse-style. Less cool rockets, but apparently effective.

Edited June 19, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[Spacescifi]

20 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Yeah, so remember, Marvel is sci-fi. Emphasis on the "fi". As for powering this thing, forget it. Batteries? Absolutely not. Hydrocarbons are one of our densest energy storage techniques, but they wouldn't work. A material "neutral to antimatter" . Has this even been proposed? Seems like a very unlikely entity to me.

I'd like to see someone run the numbers on cubic gauche. High energy density and no radiation. Could it work if we handwave the other issues?

 

 

Also, from an engineering standpoint, there's not even enough room in the suit for a reactor like that. Even if there was, how is the exhaust vented in the hands and feet? Not a lot could withstand that sort of thing. Rocket engines are metal for a reason, and metal is not known for flexibility and comfort. This would be a massive challenge to build. By the time you got done, it would look more like a rocket-propelled hovering machine with a little tiny cockpit somewhere on it.

 

Well... let's ignore the rocket hands.

Realistically I am thinking to put a ramjet rocket on his back.

So more ramrocket man with a titanium alloy suit than ironman.

It could be built. If we only had a neutral material for antimatter.

Maybe humans will find or engineer it one day in the future.

If humans have showed me anything over the decades it's this, where there is a will, there is a way. And there is always a price to pay, but hardly ever does reality say no you can never ever do that!

Edited June 19, 2020 by Spacescifi

[SOXBLOX]

5 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

It could be built. If we only had a neutral material for antimatter.

Maybe humans will find or engineer it one day in the future.

If humans have showed me anything over the decades it's this, where there is a will, there is a way. And there is always a price to pay, but hardly ever does reality say no you can never ever do that!

Ever tried flying by flapping your arms? I always hate telling someone "no" without giving an alternative, but here, I don't think there is one. There's a difference between a problem with a technically demanding solution and one with no solution at all.

As for a material which is resistant to antimatter, remember that AM will annihilate any normal matter it touches. Perhaps some exotic particle could resist annihilation, but it probably wouldn't be stable anyways. Even if there was, there are still more, likely larger, technical difficulties to overcome.

[Spacescifi]

20 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

 There's a difference between a problem with a technically demanding solution and one with no solution at all.

 

Yet.

The difference between a god and a man is that a man must build technology to do the kind of stuff a god can just do because they can manipulate matter and forces without a need for technology of our kind.

It's like a programmer vs an ingame NPC.

A programmer can literally make stuff from thin air, as he has resources NPC's don't have.

NPC only has what programmers let them avail themselves to.

Some of it is god-tierish even (nuclear explosions come to mind).

Edited June 19, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

Due to their nature, do mermaids excrete ammonia, uric acid, or carbamide?

[K^2]

Based on the tail configuration and other parts of morphology, my best guess would be that mermaids are mammals, not reptiles or fish. The scales present on depictions are most likely in error, and I would point people at ancient Roman depictions of dolphins, some of which, likewise, look scaly. It looks like early artists liked to draw scales on anything that looked remotely fish-like. If this is correct, considering majority of mammals do excrete uric acid in urine, with exceptions primarily coming from dry climates, I would expect the same to apply to mermaids. This would be even more likely if they are descendant from aquatic ape, in particular, if that's one we share ancestry with. This would put mermaids among closest relatives to humans, perhaps as close as some of the great apes.

[tater]

I had an odd thought.

Say you could install a little box on an outside wall of your house. The box has solar power, and batteries, totally self-contained. It has a TINY hole into your house (like a mm). It can have a hole that leads outside as well.

Inside the box are nanobots. Each bot can fit through that tiny hole, so 1mm wide by 1-2 mm long at most (maybe they are smaller?). Really hard to see. Anyway, the nanobots function like a roomba, but they have some sort of sensor that detects organic matter. So the tiny bots leave the box, and scour your house for tiny debris that normal cleaning might miss. They are tiny, so they somehow grab a chunk and take it away, then come back for more. Since they can detect to organics when they run into them, they preferentially remove the sort of debris that might attract household pests. Debris is maybe brought outside through the other tiny hole. Seems like a cool idea. Now, what if the box could make more nanobots, von Neumann machine style! If a nanobot gets damaged or fails, another drags it home, and uses it to make more. Ideally the bots could in fact use the material they collect as raw materials to replace themselves.

Spoiler

Turns out I already have these. They're called "ants." My immediate reaction was to put out bait traps to poison them, but now I'm beginning to wonder about my decision.

 

[kerbiloid]

Got ants, can't get rid of?

Oops. Didn't read the spoiler.

Edited June 20, 2020 by kerbiloid

[tater]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Got ants, can't get rid of?

Oops. Didn't read the spoiler.

Odd, right? I mean, they are pretty obviously doing me a favor, and I repay them with death. I suppose the larger issue is that they can get into the pantry, eat my food, get into the dog and cat food bowls, etc. Some people have a disgust thing going on with insects, but not me, I like them (outside the house). I suppose I don't want them crawling on me, past that?

[kerbiloid]

Maybe put an "ultrasonic nanobot repellent" in the forbidden rooms?

Spoiler

 

[Nightside]

58 minutes ago, tater said:

I suppose I don't want them crawling on me, past that?

Things will get bad when they discover the source of all the dead skin cells that they have been carrying around and decide to get it more quickly.

[magnemoe]

On 6/19/2020 at 6:58 AM, SOXBLOX said:

Yeah, so remember, Marvel is sci-fi. Emphasis on the "fi". As for powering this thing, forget it. Batteries? Absolutely not. Hydrocarbons are one of our densest energy storage techniques, but they wouldn't work. A material "neutral to antimatter" . Has this even been proposed? Seems like a very unlikely entity to me.

I'd like to see someone run the numbers on cubic gauche. High energy density and no radiation. Could it work if we handwave the other issues?

Also, from an engineering standpoint, there's not even enough room in the suit for a reactor like that. Even if there was, how is the exhaust vented in the hands and feet? Not a lot could withstand that sort of thing. Rocket engines are metal for a reason, and metal is not known for flexibility and comfort. This would be a massive challenge to build. By the time you got done, it would look more like a rocket-propelled helicopter-like machine with a little tiny cockpit somewhere on it.

And ramjets. If you're thinking of going hypersonic in this thing, think again. You'd be cooked by air resistance. The SR-71 needed a heavy-duty cooling system for life support. It used the fuel as the heat exchange fluid.

If you want cool power armor, just do something more Expanse-style. Less cool rockets, but apparently effective.

Yes fiction,  one obvious thing in the clip is that he is climbing fast towards 40 K feet, he loose power and immediately start falling, he is also flying without wings, very visible at the end of the long fall or other rapid course changes. In practice he would need to fly the suit like an rocket or helicopter. And you would obviosly want to use some sort of jet engines so you use air as reaction mass. 

Realistically, you do not want to even if you could. For one yes power armor is very plausible in an sci-fi setting. However they are articulated suits of armor, have fun designing one who handle 0.5 BMG hits, you have to make an mecha and then you are better off with something like an bradley or stryker, you can still exit it in your power armor
You can make planes A-10 and helicopters Apache who can survive 20 mm AAA guns. No its not immunity as you have plenty of weak spots but you have decent odds. And you are way better armed as in machine cannons and guided missiles. 
In an hard sci-fi setting this difference will still be there, just scaled up. Your boron nanotube armor can survive BMG outside of hands and other weak spots. The aircraft has good chance against 40 mm guns and has an laser to counter SAM's. 

[tater]

On 6/20/2020 at 4:00 PM, kerbiloid said:

Maybe put an "ultrasonic nanobot repellent" in the forbidden rooms?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I tried one of those in my carport to keep rodents away. To test the efficacy I put a mousetrap directly under it. Eventually the mousetrap caught all the mice (that or all the deaf ones).

[kerbiloid]

27 minutes ago, tater said:

I tried one of those in my carport to keep rodents away. To test the efficacy I put a mousetrap directly under it. Eventually the mousetrap caught all the mice (that or all the deaf ones).

Was there a caption "This side toward enemy"?

Try to rotate it 180°, maybe it propels them instead of repel.

Edited June 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

Or maybe there there is "Made in Hamelin" somewhere.

Then you should put it next to a pool, so the rodents will gather and sink.

[SOXBLOX]

Hamelin... Oh, I get it.

[EchoLima]

Are there distinct "direct" and "relay" antennas IRL, or does that only exist in KSP?

[SOXBLOX]

Hah! There are all sorts of antenna types! There are whole textbooks on the subject. I don't think there's really a distinction between direct and relay IRL, though, because any antenna transmitting to a relay is a direct antenna from the perspective of the relay. Perhaps I misunderstood your question?

[Spacescifi]

 

It occurred to during a worldbuilding session that after analysis, pure carnivore humanoid scifi races are impractical at best to ever make it to the space age, impossible at worst.

Why? What does it mean to be a carnivore?

1. Sharp teeth used primarily for cutting fresh meat into clumps so that one can swallow it whole. They do not chew. At all. Not only that, meat is your PRIMARY nutritional source. Eat other stuff and you will become ill and eventually die.

2. Predatory instinct is high. Meaning other creatures not you are either considered food, a threat, or a friend. Either way, if they die, they are once again viewed as.... meat.

3. Feast or famine routine. You can go days without eating, but when you do eat you feast like a king or queen, sharing a large kill with family or friends.

It has been said that with at least human i intelligence that a carnivore race would discover animal husbandry, and start the much more efficient process of raising cattle and herds for food instead of hunting it down.

I doubt that.... even with human intelligence. Why? The predation drive is strong in pure carnivores (cats for example), which means I really doubt they would have the self control to wait long enough instead of killing/eating whenever they get hungry.

I mean... just as an example, consider the human drive to reproduce. Granted it helps that doing so is pleasurable but the instinct to do so is so hardwired that we have never ceased to do so for thousands of years. Now consider if we were obligate carnivores. Our predation drive would be just as strong, as we woild need meat to survive.

Conclusion: It's cool to make cat people, but after analysis it is rather unlikely they could develop an advanced civililzation without a steady, reliable food supply. All advanced human civilizations start with that.

So give the cat looks all you want, but they had better be omnivores like humans if they actually developed space travel.

And having carnivore teeth won't jive with that given the instincts carnivores have which will prevent them from ever having a stable and reliable food supply.

So ironically, giving humanoid cats human teeth is plausible... just means they eat everything... just like us.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Spacescifi

[magnemoe]

8 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

 

It occurred to during a worldbuilding session that after analysis, pure carnivore humanoid scifi races are impractical at best to ever make it to the space age, impossible at worst.

Why? What does it mean to be a carnivore?

1. Sharp teeth used primarily for cutting fresh meat into clumps so that one can swallow it whole. They do not chew. At all. Not only that, meat is your PRIMARY nutritional source. Eat other stuff and you will become ill and eventually die.

2. Predatory instinct is high. Meaning other creatures not you are either considered food, a threat, or a friend. Either way, if they die, they are once again viewed as.... meat.

3. Feast or famine routine. You can go days without eating, but when you do eat you feast like a king or queen, sharing a large kill with family or friends.

It has been said that with at least human i intelligence that a carnivore race would discover animal husbandry, and start the much more efficient process of raising cattle and herds for food instead of hunting it down.

I doubt that.... even with human intelligence. Why? The predation drive is strong in pure carnivores (cats for example), which means I really doubt they would have the self control to wait long enough instead of killing/eating whenever they get hungry.

I mean... just as an example, consider the human drive to reproduce. Granted it helps that doing so is pleasurable but the instinct to do so is so hardwired that we have never ceased to do so for thousands of years. Now consider if we were obligate carnivores. Our predation drive would be just as strong, as we woild need meat to survive.

Conclusion: It's cool to make cat people, but after analysis it is rather unlikely they could develop an advanced civililzation without a steady, reliable food supply. All advanced human civilizations start with that.

So give the cat looks all you want, but they had better be omnivores like humans if they actually developed space travel.

And having carnivore teeth won't jive with that given the instincts carnivores have which will prevent them from ever having a stable and reliable food supply.

So ironically, giving humanoid cats human teeth is plausible... just means they eat everything... just like us.

 

I say main problem would be to get hands. Hunting is actually nice for learning strategy and group coordination, wolfs and lions does this on instinct but planning would be better like how to chaise prey trough an chock point. 
Humans got their hands becsue we spent many millions years living in threes before being forced down to the ground. 
Don't see that happens easy with an predator, perhaps its lots of larger perdators so they need it to hide? Or hunting animals in trees for time?
Now you could be an very social and smart predator without hands who would be an obvious trap. 

You second problem is that your food supply is lower than humans since you only eat meat. So lower population would should give an slower development. 

[kerbiloid]

Are there a lot of pure predators in nature among the highly developed species bigger than a cat?

[kerbiloid]

Also cats & dogs could not develop a civilisation because they sleep 20/24.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Also cats & dogs could not develop a civilisation because they sleep 20/24.

That's what your cats want you to think.