Stanton Friedman's thoughts on interstellar travel

I think I understand @stormbringer and tichy. One thing I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned is ununpentium. Could that be the answer? I also read that when energy creates matter it also creates antimatter, at about 301 to 299 ratio for positrons and electrons, respectively, and the rest is turn into radiation. So with an atomic bomb wouldn't that cancel pretty much all of them out, yet it doesn't. scienceline.ucsb.edu...

I admit it's been a long time science I studied any kind of physics or chemistry so much of it is over my head. So if a ship was creating antimatter it would need to also create matter and radiation as a consequence, which seems incredibly dangerous to me.

Edit: I will also add that most incidents of UFO phenomena usually detect high levels of radiation in the vicinity (where it landed) so that would fit with the antimatter theory somewhat.

a reply to: Sharted

I'm not sure wether Uup could be of any real use. Maybe (and there are a lot of maybe's) if you find a way to create more stabiilized versions of this element it (maybe) could be used as fuel for rather conventional propulsion systems but i never heard any real suggestion about how this could be used for anti-gravity-propulsion.

For a matter-antimatter propulsion-system you dont necessarily need to "create" normal matter. Either you just carry it with you (water for example, that also could be used as natural shield against cosmic rays and high energy particles from the sun) or you collect it on your way (H). However, to get a good amount of H the spacecraft has to have a high velocity and/or a strong magnetic field. At least this is the case for hypothetical systems like the Bussard ramjet.

The nearest future belongs to fusion-propulsion-systems i guess.

originally posted by: LogicalRazor
The only realistic solution would be to warp space as in the Alcubierre model, or jump large distances in an instant (Wormholes etc).

Perhaps no civilization will ever do this....perhaps our experimentation with gravity, magnetic fields....will lead to humanity achieving time travel. Maybe all the sighting are us ;-)

I've watched recently a documentary about Mars bases (ones I do not believe exist) and they mentioned only that the military have technology to teleport, again hardly believable.

The only way of TELEPORT I see are either shortening the distances greatly like using wormholes that may exist in space...

OR
Travelling from one place to another with the blink of an eye. I do not see how teleport like transferring particles from one place to another with preserving the subject is possible, so it is nearly not believable teleportation exists, more like worm holes/stargates

a reply to: LightYearsAhead

The thing that makes me disbelieve in teleportation is that the entire subject would need to be transferred instantly due to conservation of energy. If even one atom was missing who knows what might happen. So yeah, I don't see how teleportation can happen. I know they've managed to "teleport" small atoms but it isn't really teleportation it's just copying.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: Tichy
a reply to: JadeStar

Maybe one doesn't even need to visit the "neighbour" to get a sufficient amount of antimatter (antiprotons), that is enough to serve as fuel for spaceships or probes for interplanetary travel.

Based on the PAMELA experiment, a group of scientists could show, that there's a certain amount of antiprotons, trapped in the magnetosphere of our earth (and are a result of interactions between cosmic rays and the terrestrial atmosphere).

I'm not sure if it really could serve as a potential pool but it sounds promising.

Some even speculate, if there couldn't be huge amounts of antimatter particles trapped within the magnetosphere of Jupiter, since he has the biggest magnetic field within our solar system.

Not only is everything you just said true but there are additional sources of antimatter in the solar system every place that has a magnetic field,the sun, and the heliopause even thunderstorms on earth. Furthermore over the years our ability to manufacture antimatter have improved at a greater than exponential rate. the last news i read was an article that said we could produce about a gram a year with just one machine. antimatter power is growing up fast.

EDIT: there are several space ship designs that can do a mission on less than a gram.

ICAN series:

Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion:

en.wikipedia.org...

140 nanograms to mars in 30 days! Wheeeeeee!



AIM and AIMSTAR series.

orbitalvector.com...

28 micrograms per 10K astronomical Units

I speculate that even a small amount of antimatter fuel would be too tricky to store onboard, for a interstellar capable starship. It is theorized that only a small amount of antimatter survived the big bang --- other than antimatter being manufactured some way by intelligent civilizations ---- only a small amount of antimatter remains in some black holes.

antimatter is indeed dangerous but technology can already handle it and even more advanced means could make it even safer.

present day tech for the amount needed requires combining it into anti-hydrogen which is dimagnetic (replelled by a magnetic field.) then it can be levitated or held immobile in a magnetic field. freeze it to a slush or solid in a vacuum so it does not sublimate. spin it with a magnetic wave form. and shave off bits with a laser as needed. the spinning is so it is shaved evenly and does not become wobbly.

but in the future we may be able to convert matter into antimatter as it is needed to feed the reactor. or we may be able to hold it in matter missing the annihilation partner quarks necessary to initiate annihilation. or we could make quasi-matter of exotic components such that the walls of the container cannot annihilate with the antimatter at all.

annihilation of antimatter despite what get taught in popular articles is not a sure thing. 33 percent or more of the time the antimatter does not annihilate on contact. this is because the wrong quarks in the particles make up meet. so the parity match does not happen. if you make matter of the wrong quarks then for a particular species of antimatter then you could prevent explosions.

and if you made weird matter out of something other than protons and neutrons well anti protons and anti neutrons could not annihilate with it and al you would need to maintain is a vacuum.


in case you wonder: we can already pull positrons out of the quantum vacuum. it would take a lot more energy to pull anti protons out of the vacuum but the principle is proven with the positrons.


there is a start up company that will build an antimatter generator and supply labs around the world with small but remarkably bigger that you would expect samples. this implies they have storage pretty well down. to the point they can expect thier containers to arrive at remote labs with antimatter still in them.