Interstellar travel is just a matter -- make that antimatter -- of time

Heres an interesting article i found about the latest research into antimatter and its proposed uses for the near term future:

www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2004/08/08/ANTIMATTER.TMP&type=science

The article was interesting.
I didn't know antimatter can be that useful!

This is interesting from the link:

A millionth of a gram of antimatter is so small "you couldn't even see it on the head of the pin," Smith says. Yet it contains enough energy to propel an ultralight robotic aircraft "around the world three times without refueling...Howe and his colleagues have calculated that with 17 grams of antimatter -- barely enough to hold in your hand -- a robotic space probe could get to Alpha Centauri in 40 years.

This should be the ultimate source of space travel.

The person who wrote the article you linked used old information. Scientists have, since 02, been making large quantities of antimater! The author of that article should have done a little research. Ill post one link to a little more up to date information, but there is much much more out there for anyone interested. Just do some googles!

Antimater research is at high speed and withen a decade you will likely see some test propulsion engines comming to light! If I have time I'll post some more recent articles if I can find them.

livefromcern.web.cern.ch...

Anti-Matter is a amazing powersource. I have heard a kilo-gram of anti-matter would have something like the power of a 46MT bomb.

I always hear about anti-hydrogen could they make say anti-oxygen and then combine them and make anti-water?

Couldnt any element have a anti-particle?

Thanks for the link Xeven, very interesting. Like the previous article said about uranium, "At that time, if you said you'd need a ton of it, it would have seemed impossible. But nowadays, we have so many tons of it, we've quit making it."
I think within a decade or two there will most probably be a lot of applications for antimatter. Who knows, our first manned trip to Mars could be on an antimatter powered space craft?

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Anti-Matter is a amazing powersource. I have heard a kilo-gram of anti-matter would have something like the power of a 46MT bomb.

Only a matter of time before a country makes a bomb out of the stuff......

While researchers ponder on the question of how to store anti-matter,they need to redirect their attention to the production of it. A large amount of anti-matter is actually produced only to be destroyed shortly afterwards when it comes in contact with ordinary matter. Only a fraction is harvested and research conducted on. When I said redirect their attention to the production of it, I meant it should be used as soon as it is produced eliminating the need to design a facility to store it. Upon being produced, the anti-particles and ordinary particles would readily attract, so the problem there would be to contol the flow as to where an over abundance of materials is not introduced where the results be catastrophic. Another problem would be the extemely high operating temperatures. Materials Engineers would have to develope a material that could withstand millions of degrees Fahrenheit (highly unlikely) for prolonged periods of time on a very small scale, because engines the size of lets say, an ordinary Pringles can could put a fully-loaded space shuttle into LEO on less than a gram of this stuff. And then on top of this, build particle accelerators small and efficient enough to carry its weight, a containment field generator, a power supply for accelerator start-up and a way to sheild all the lethal radiation away from human operators of this craft, if any. This is highly volatile substance, in any form (i.e. positrons, anti-neutrons,anti-protons, anti-muons etc...), so the devices that produce would have to highly regulated to keep it out the hands of those who would want to make it into a weopon. For right now, it does make good science-fiction, don't you think?

[edit on 18/8/04 by Intelearthling]

Originally posted by dreamlandmafia
Only a matter of time before a country makes a bomb out of the stuff......

any breakthrough technology had it's time in peace and violence. it's just not possible to use a kind of technology for pure good use alone

I wonder how efficient the production of AM is?

What I believe they need to work on is storage, and handling. But the biggest factor is faster than light travel. We can't keep relying on slow space ships to get us anywhere. Even though laws of physics say the speed of light cannot be broken, laws in fact.. are meant to be broken. Once we understand space and time we should be capable of faster than light travel. With conventional engines... anything that involves combustion the closer you get to light speed the ships mass becomes infinite therefore it is pointless in using conventional engines. We will one day understand how to do it. Warp drive is the most probable way we will be able to. Scientists workin on it as we speak.