What propulsion method is best for space travel in the future?

1.) Ion drive

2.) Black hole starship

3.) Fusion Rocket

4.) Fission sail en.m.wikipedia.org...

5.) Halo drive arxiv.org...

6.) Horizon drive www.tsijournals.com...

7.) Pitch drive, Diametric drive, Disjunction drive or Bias drive ntrs.nasa.gov...

8.) Magnetic sail

9.) Nano electrokinetic thruster en.m.wikipedia.org...

10.) Nuclear lightbulb en.m.wikipedia.org...

11.) Nuclear salt-water rocket en.m.wikipedia.org...

12.) Solar thermal rocket
en.m.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: MaxNocerino7

Wormhole.

a reply to: MaxNocerino7

13.) Hitch a ride on a comet.

a reply to: MaxNocerino7

Nil !

Lets fix our own planet before we explore others.

Mousies!
In a zero g environment they can do amazing things.

a reply to: MaxNocerino7

you missed the Jump Dive.

Also Translation Drive is a thing in Sci Fi.

Yet another thread ... is this eight now?

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a reply to: pheonix358

Is that like a thumb drive?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: pheonix358

Is that like a thumb drive?

Not at all.

A thumb drive is when you walk along a highway and stick your thumb out to hitch a ride.

Nothing at all like the others and I must say, I have never seen an Astronaut with his thumb out.

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a reply to: pheonix358

Shirley, you jest.
www.imdb.com...

But that's just too improbable.

a reply to: pheonix358

Not allowed to make threads? You’re right. This isn’t a forum 🤔

a reply to: MaxNocerino7

It's not a writer's forum. Perhaps you should look for one of those.

I didn't know it was multiple choice.

Edit to Amend: As long as it has "Ludicrous Speed" it should work fine.

a reply to: Phage

now see mate! That is a reply to be proud of.

I wish we could all have the old Phage back.

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originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: MaxNocerino7

It's not a writer's forum. Perhaps you should look for one of those.

Um Phage ... um.

ATS Short Story Forum



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a reply to: pheonix358

Very good. Now scroll back up to the top of this page and see what this forum is.

a reply to: Phage

Yes I know.

That is why I gave him the link.

What ... no fun when someone pokes back?

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a reply to: pheonix358

Ad homs are not fun.

a reply to: MaxNocerino7
I would choose 13. None of the above.

All of those are slow and ineffective as all hell and then some.

My choice would be extracted and condensened unicorn farts which have been processed in the heart of a neutron star that is in the heart of a black hole, which is not in this universe. Its neither here, nor there, but its everywere and nowere at once.

Its also how all the cool kid space traveling species get around. The rest of the chumps, well there in the way way slow lane.

But I suppose those would do in a pinch. You know, considering what we have to work with now. They should get on it, like pronto, any one of those would do, even though they would not work all that well, or at all. But its better then nothing.

a reply to: Phage

Says the maestro of Ad homs.

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a reply to: MaxNocerino7
As if right now, 1 (ion drives) seem the most plausible as they are currently in use, and are generally very efficient.
I am very skeptical of the usage of anything sail related, not because they don't work, but more so due to our lack of understanding of solar winds outside of our own solar system. For instance ones that rely on photons for propulsion would greatly lack the means of propulsion further away from the sun, and would eventually run out of power as it exits our solar system.
EM drives and others that rely on related ideas seem plausible, but the way they function relies on the presence of magnetic fields (to my understanding at least) and acting upon those magnetic fields to push against for propulsion. This too would suffer once outside of a solar system.

The nuclear lighbulb also looks plausible, however it will suffer greatly from a need to dispose of excess heat, and this would greatly reduce it's capacity outside of atmospheres, unless it was traveling at great speeds allowing it come into contact with more matter that it could interface with and thus remove waste heat in that fashion in deep space.

For the initial phases, mostly stellar exploration, all of these are plausible (other than halo-drive and horizon drive) however I see something requiring the expenditure of mass being needed outside of stellar exploration, which invokes the "rocket equation" for all of them.

As for the Halo-drive and horizon drive, they are plausible, however they need another method of propulsion to get them into an instance where they can actually use their method of acceleration.

Due to this, I lean more so towards an ion drive that gets it's energy from nuclear fission. A runner up is Zubrin's nuclear salt rocket, as it uses the same method as an ion drive, just with a different means of acceleration of mass. The downfall of Zubrin's idea is that it would rely on an outside thrust force to get out of the atmosphere due to the radioactive nature of the mass being thrown, though to a far lesser degree than other NTRs. To be fair Ion engines have the same problem, but for a different reason, they currently lack the thrust to propel themselves through an atmosphere.