I am coming into this thread a little late, but we need some focus. To my limited knowledge here is what we actually need to develop first and foremost.

1. Propulsion
2. The craft's structural composition
3. Life support
4. Inertial dampeners

This is all that matters at the moment.

Here is my quick off-the-backside-of-a-napkin design for a small 3 people spacecraft to make the trip to the moon:

1) shell: aerogel-enhanced with nanotubes. Seamless shell so as that to minimize fractures; strongest material on Earth; also the lightest material.

2) nuclear power generator. You'll see why later.

3) two coils across the spaceship which produce big watts of power and create an artificial electromagnetic field. Used for protection of the internals of the spaceship from radiation etc.

4) artificial gravity using a very rotating sphere like a rotating hard disk motors. Hard disk motors create so much centripetal force that's impossible to separate them from the floor when they operate. That's why you need the big electricity. And you need big electricity for this.

5) nuclear blast propulsion system enhanced by laser thrust. I don't know if it works, or if the lasers could react with the nuclear reaction to enhance it. I suspect that something might happen.

The spacecraft will be so small that it can be launched from an airplane and then get out of the atmosphere from high orbit.

For a trip to Mars, a bigger spaceship would be required, with more luxuries, with a much higher degree of sophistication and technology not yet invented.

I wonder If a quantum effect can be used to enhance a spaceship's propulsion in relativistic speeds; for example, quantum tunneling or something like that.

I had a dream about us using sound (vibrations) waves to propel a ship through space. In my dream the sound waves some how created a gravity pull, hole, something.. in from of the ship. The ship would follow the hole (pull)and the hole would continue to move out in front of the ship. The only power required was a fairly large naval nuclear reactor. I know there is no sound in space but could vibrations cause space to pull you along like gravity?

Is that even possible??

Sounds dumb I guess. Just a dream I have had every once in awhile.

Hi Direwolf!

I'm a newbie here at ATS, but I REALLY LIKE THIS TOPIC!!!
How about a laser-powered earth escape and re-entry vehicle?
This type of sapcecraft would be advanced, lightweight, economical and more importantly - DOABLE!
Check out this website...
[url=http://www.lightcrafttechnologies.com]
Lots of work to go from this early prototype to a functional, safe, manned vehicle.
No new physics is required!

Once long, long ago, in apart of my memory that still works, there was an idea that sounded pretty good. The idea was to use two adjoining mountains, and build a rail system. You used gravity assist going down the first mountain to build up speed, so that when the rail went back up the second you could reach the end of the rail with enough boost to get out of Earth's gravity well with a lot less fuel and strain than is now the case.

Basically, with this idea, all you would need is a rocket powered jet. The jet to carry you above the atmosphere, and the rocket portion for further space travel.

I was sitting here reading for a while and I think I figured out a way to get the ship into space with very little fuel.

I was looking at the Japenese Maglev.
Just using Magnets alone it goes at 500kph.
I say we have a track about 30 km long.
The escape vessel will be on the track with the ship attached.
Once the ship has reached the max speed of the track its engines engage.
Unlike the current shuttle. It is already moving at high speeds.
So the fuel will not me wasted on getting off the ground.
At the end of the track it will be curved straight upwards.
When the ship gets to the end it ejects the escape vessel and
Pushes the throttle on the engine.

That solves a big problem with the current space shuttle.
Most of its fuel is wasted getting it off the ground.
With this the Magnets keep the ship off the track but uses the track to guide it.

That way the fuel can be used to just drastically increase the speed.

I don't really know if I just stepped into some kind of Sci-Fi movie or not, but you have my full support in building this thing. You have my knowledge on your side, though I'm just a rookie I have some sence of advanced propulsion. One thing that's most obvious is that in space basic aerodynamics don't apply, so in order to counter that engines can have thrust vectoring to create more manuverability, also what can be done is add fly-by-wire technology. Also this is what I noticed on a modern aircraft called the Su-27 is there's a "panic button" so to speak on the top right section of the yolk, and it instantly repairs the flight to level flight patterns perhaps something like that can be added to the aircraft intended to be built.

[edit on 27-9-2008 by ian32nd]

a huge barrier is the atmosphere so if we could set up a launch station in space attached to earth by a carbon fiber cable and use elevators to transport energy and parts wed save unimaginable amounts of fuel. this is possible but building a space port would require spaceships in the first place. Japan plans to build an attached space hotel. With this set up your craft wouldn't need to have wings or be aerodynamic, you might not even need an engine if you had a magnetic launch system on the launch pad but youd have to take a short, 20-30 min elevator ride to get to and from the station.

the "fuel" should be electrical for many reasons but making it travel up a 60km wire might be inefficient due to resistance, tesla had some wireless energy transfer technology so lets get some of that.

Why not a reinforced derigible?

Able to hit up to 250mph in Earth's atmosphere, out of the atmosphere use ion propulsion.


Those NASA ballons hit what....20 miles up? They only stop when helium gas in the balloon matches the density of the air outside the balloon. What if those NASA weather balloons had a reinforce structure to keep form in a turtle shell shape and you had a ion thruster to start giving it propulsion to start propelling it forward to get momemtum to start working its way up?

Only reason i mention it is because of that US Company working in Russia making the new space station modules that are inflatable.

What about a cable, probably made of carbon nanoshizzle. That has a system within it that converts heat into electricity, that will be used to power the ascent / descent of any craft running up / down it. It could use super cooled stuff from space to cool the super heated stuff in the hot bits. Then build a space depot, that's got domes and shizzaay for growing food and whatnot in to feed the bods that work around that bihatch. Self sustaining, give them space hippies a bit of slack, know what I'm sayin' ?

Anyhoo, then use some of that fast growing vegetable matter in a system that forces it to decay and produce methane, then harvest that methane to power those big ole' donut shaped plasma ring power plants that get hotter than the sun and make power to power some huge, epic ole' ships that run betwen the earth orbit depot and the moon / cosmos.

While I'm on a roll showing you good folk of earth how to make a giant leap into deep space travel, I've got one condition.

I'd like to have a job up there, any job, as long as I could wear some sort of colour coded overall, with a few groovy insignias on it and some dirt / grease on it too to make it look like I was always busy. Maybe orange or that Plymouth Roadrunner Super Bird Green ( If you're not familiar with this colour its time to google that Piyamp) , but that's not so much of a condition, but more of a nice.

So yeh, Cable car to space, onto big ships, than have the ships unloaded on the moon, or further away, by clones of say maybe, hmmmmmmmmm, tough one.....

Who's well known, but both rugged, tough , yet reliable.............hmmmmmm,

I know, clones of Han Solo to do all the unloading and associated logistics. Hoth, or standard black waistcoat dressed, I'm not fussed.

To make this rubbish ramble have some worth, I'll leave you with this...............................

You need to have the capability to have permenent human habitation within space, so that means a self contained, self sustainable bio system. That could be pioneered here underwater or something first. Unless you want to use robots................I've seen alien though, and the thought of my robot going crazy and secreting milky blood all over the shop, when all I want is a shipment of toilet roll, or the next years dehydrated water is too much to entrust to our automoton brethren. So people need to be able to populate space on a permenent basis. Sort that and the sky's the limit !!



Maybe