Let's build a ship

hi everyone just thought i'd contribute a bit into this discussion.
i'm liking all the ideas that have been proposed/suggested so far, but what does everyone think of this?

Light Craft
Official Site
LightCraft on CNN

as you can see, their site was last updated way back at the turn of the century. so from this can we surmise that they've failed to achieve their goals or is this tech currently being used in a black project which we don't know anything about?

just my 2¢

[edit on 17-8-2007 by toreishi]

Are people here serious about actually building a space ship?;D You do know that Nasa can hardly afford one space suit, how are you all going to build a whole space ship?;p

reply to post by ZikhaN

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The whole pleasure for me of this thread is not wondering today about how we cost the building of a space craft but getting those interested on ATS to think about the craft and its engineering.

Do you think that the engineering behind the shuttle worried about the cost. I think not. They left that to the adminstrators!!! Today, I see us on this thread as the engineers.

Do have to worry much about the look of the craft we build in the space dock?

As we building in space, we do not to worry about the size of the craft (well other than the number of trips required to bring all the parts up)

So we have to conform to the stereotype of a space craft?

And lets assume we will build our craft with crew living, cargo bay and the ability to deploy and recover a landing craft of some kind, to me the next big question are the engines?

And are we just going to the moon or beyond. Me, I vote for beyond the solar system.

Alright, somepeople have some strange ideas.

"we will get nowhere without new engines"

Wrong, we will get to orbit, to the moon, and maybe a planet or 2 beyond it. New Engines are needed if we want to get to places quicker, and further.

Direwolf, im loving alot of your ideas.

You seem to have my idea in mind, too. which i like

Modular makes the entire thing much more possible, especially since places can be replaced as technology changes.

The laser powered Lightcraft is difficult at greater ranges due to the influence of gravity and things, also slowing it down is harder.

a good idea, but not yet.



here is where we need new engines, simply because the crew will be dead before they get back

which would be bad, right?

Many interesting ideas and concepts. It seems the design echos the purpose, in all practicality.

Oh so you're talking about designing a space ship? That's another thing^^

I believe we should have a cargo ship and a small crew ship that would be used to assemble the true solar system exploration ship in outer space similar to how we put the space station together. I think first you design a structure where you then can attach modules like engines, science, habitat etc.. to that would also allow us to replace them as technology advances.

We should think on the scale of aircraft carrier or submarine instead of lifeboats to explore our solar system. You could created shielded (kevlar etc..)areas where you could attach cheap multiple inflatable habitats to.

Once you have one or two of these built you would only need to fly crews and supplies up and back which also could be done while the mother ship is orbiting other planets.

Eventually you would create new engines. Then you could simply launch them to the mother ship..remove the old engines and fit the new ones. The same goes for advanced probes, radars, cameras. You could even have recoverable rovers etc.. along for the ride.

I think the Station should be dubbed "Primoris" meaning "First" in Latin.

...Or Maximus, meaning "Greatest" of course



This is why ive been going for space station with multiple medium sized ships. Simply so we can launch supplies in completly automated pods, straight into orbit.

New engines, i agree. Improving on the current types of propulsion would not be good enough. Some kind of new propulsion would have to be discovered. Rocket and ion engine expell mass to move the mass of the ship forward. Maybe something that does not do that, but instead moves the mass of the ship without expelling fuel.

[edit on 19-8-2007 by Earth_Entity]

that's if you don't carry the laser with you. imagine if you will an onboard nuclear powerplant to power the laser which will propel your lightcraft as well as to provide electricity for the ship. as for slowing down; well, there's such a thing as aerobraking.

image source: http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/brakeprof.gif


Light Propulsion
seen below is a lightcraft test flight photo, the caption reads: "As the laser pulses, it superheats the air until it combusts. Each time the air combusts, it creates a flash of light, as seen in this photo of a test flight."

image source: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/light-propulsion-test.jpg


off topic: nothing's impossible and we're all free to dream, dream on everyone.

[edit on 20-8-2007 by toreishi]

hmmm, actually that is an idea i like.

So, whats the smallest Reactor we could have which could power such a device?

maybe nasa can use like a roller coaster type design but make the roller coaster wide enough to fit the shuttle and make it one to two miles tall and really stable enough so storms won't hurt the launch coaster.And what they can do is put the shuttle on the coaster and have it hooked up to those lifts on the track and make the shuttle go up so fast once it hits that key point turn the engines on and release the attachments and your up in space three minutes later but i don't know if that will work just an idea.peace

The higher up a launch ramp goes, the more it has to contend with the elements and gravity.

Also, this would be prohibitively expensive.

I'll put my two cents in...

First is mission specific. From what I've read here there are two issues. One is the craft to replace the shuttle in that the shuttle is in simplest form a space Truck made to put stuff in low earth orbit. And the other being a craft for Moon return mission. These two missions would require vastly different engineering constraints.

I'll address a first flight and maned base on the moon as my mission specific craft. For space station service and earth to orbit freight hauling a unmanned ballistic craft. A simple update of the Vostok system we use now is very good and very few changes needed for that aspect.

The moon mission requires several different craft. We would first need a habitat transport that would take a self erecting habitat with a supplies.

Then we need a unmanned cargo craft that is designed to only insert into lunar orbit a lander that would resupply the base. This could be a small add on control and thruster module that could be attached to cargo lander modules. These placed in orbit by small ballistic missiles then mated for lunar insertion by astronauts working out of the space station using small one man service craft. Those service craft could roam far from the station to assemble earth launched modules for the manned moon mission.

I would follow the Apollo craft design but on a larger scale in order to land a crew of 7 to 12. Since the mass would be beyond our technology to lift the craft and all thats required for landing and returning for a crew that size it would have to be made of several modules in orbit. A lander along the lined of the spider lander Eagle 1 but made from a long cylinder like a propane tank with inboard thrusters for landings and orbital return only. A drive module , crew module , communications module would remain in orbit for return to earth orbit. The shuttle style glide lander based on the lift bodies of the 50's would be used for earth return from earth orbit.

This way we limit the day to day supply and orbital insertion to unmanned craft limiting risk to astronauts and having a verifiable safety habitat on the moon before we land the manned crews.

By approaching the missions from several different direction we have fall back if one system has failures.

The program would allow flexibility as new technology comes online.

All of the technology is in place now to put this into operation from off the shelf hardware for most of the heavy lift aspects.

We have the capable to deliver and return a human from the earth to the moon so for me, any improvements we make to current technology will just make it easier to do sometime we can do already.

The challenge is to design a craft to go beyond the moon and out in the solar system and then beyond and that is where Octavius Maximus point is very valid.

Based on current technology we could get to the outer reaches of the solar system but not beyond.

So unless we can design an engine system to go faster than light then beyond the solar system is not a realistic idea............................unless you rethink the design and was the intention of the OP?

So what improves can we make the current engine designs?

I have seen the concept of a laser to drive a craft. If journeys inside the solar system, is this an option.

A space based laser that we use a drive a craft forward. My thinking here is this enough to drive a large enough craft to have value?

Once you start thinking about this more, you need to consider more and more than just the design of the craft.

In essence, do we need to start from the end objective and work backwards. If so, what is the end objective? And again, I fear this is moving away from what the OP intended.

I wonder why nasa etc hasn't considered using a massive balloon to take something to those extreme heights they're capable of then using a rocket to get higher and up to speed for orbit, the balloon could even be part of the ship and get compressed and moved back into pressurised tanks as the rockets start, this way the gas is not wasted and everything is reusable.

Its an interesting idea but is it even possible, weight, cost, complexity etc?

Either that or use a big rail gun on the side of a mountain to get loads into orbit, while using a small reusable space plane for delicate stuff and people.

reply to post by Freedom ERP

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Well unless you come up with new physics It cannot be done.. Even with the most exotic drive system the distance is too far for any massive object to get anywhere outside our little neighborhood. NO drive system that follows existing Laws can get us anywhere in the lifetime of say 3 -5 generations if we built a big ride and raise our kids ,kids, kids to be first folks to step foot on any planet outside the 8 we got here.... Unless Einstein was Wrong and Matter Can exceed c we are stuck to Ole Sol like moths flapping around a night light..

Now if you wana talk Gravitational Drives.. Read this Paulr.mays.com...

I got as far as postulating the singularityand my brain kinda went TILT. I'll have to go back over it later. I beleive that what he's saying is that if you used an inverse gravitational feild surrounding a craft, that under his Quack theory of Everything (I kinda like that name), you should be able to propel a craft beyond light speed without all the nasty side effects of relativity and homicidal mathematicians.
Sounds good to me, now I just have to build a device that generates an inverse gravity feild. I have a feeling that it's going to be a little more complex than wiring up an electromagnet backwards.
No matter what drive we use, I would think that the first stop would have to be the moon. And to get there comfortably, we need to throw out the idea that a ship has to be a certain shape. With no atmosphere to create drag and aerodynamic effect, the ship can be any shape or size you want. The limiting factors would be mass vs. thrust values and center of balance. If the drive is balanced properly, you could weld old tug boats together and fly that to the moon. This is of course a overstatement. I would see a robust and flexible design as a central core or frame work resembling a transmission tower. At one end, a set of thrust engines and at the other attitude thrusters. A control cabin to fly the ship and fuel tanks. You could then attach cabins and storage containers to the skeletal structure to configure the ship for what ever the specific perameters of the mission are. If you attached a fairly powerful tug type craft, you could also take containers or prefab units from the ships structure and land them on the moon.
I truly don't think that an advanced drive system is going to happen until we get off the planet and onto the lunar surface. Until we get past the atmosphere and Earth's gravity well to a place where we can study the real differences in gravitational effect and thrust in a vacuum, we don't know what we're up against.

Hey ZikhaN why ask taxpayers to pay ?

There are huge mining multinationals with massive financial resources who could stand to benefit hugely. I am sure if convinced they could fund this. It would pay however for society to draw up a charter of rules and obligations for all extraterrestrial commercial interests to abide by.