Antiprotons found around Earth

reply to post by Legion2024


a brief reply from me would be any planet with an active magnetic field.
2nd
f.

I don't see what's so surprising that they're talking about this being a fuel source for future space flight, they aren't saying when or how that will be done just now, only talking in terms of big concepts for the future. Using matter/anti-matter reactions for space flight is not a new idea, in fact it's considered the best bet for how we will be able to fuel trips to other star systems. It's probably the best, if not only fuel efficient enough to be used to reach relativistic speeds.

But these are technologies that are likely centuries in the future, at best.

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

What we see in orbit now would be (with many caveats) a source of FREE antimatter. This changes everything, but my concerns about cost and practicality remain.

Catching and storing is WAY cheaper than creating the stuff. The anti-matter itself can no doubt fuel the machines being used to keep it trapped. It converts 100% of matter/anti-matter to energy upon annihilation. Compare that to, say, the nuclear reaction that fueled the Nagasaki bomb: of the 6.2kg (14 lbs) of Plutonium in that bomb only about 1g (0.035oz) of material was actually converted into energy, enough to produce a a 21 kiloton explosion. At a 100% conversion rate to energy, there's a lot of potential energy being scooped up and stored.

I wonder how much anti-proton material might be trapped in the electro-magnetic belts around Jupiter?

Originally posted by LifeInDeath

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

What we see in orbit now would be (with many caveats) a source of FREE antimatter. This changes everything, but my concerns about cost and practicality remain.

Catching and storing is WAY cheaper than creating the stuff. The anti-matter itself can no doubt fuel the machines being used to keep it trapped. It converts 100% of matter/anti-matter to energy upon annihilation. Compare that to, say, the nuclear reaction that fueled the Nagasaki bomb: of the 6.2kg (14 lbs) of Plutonium in that bomb only about 1g (0.035oz) of material was actually converted into energy, enough to produce a a 21 kiloton explosion. At a 100% conversion rate to energy, there's a lot of potential energy being scooped up and stored.

a) I agree what storage is "cheaper" in terms of energy than actual production. In fact, if you make antimatter in the lab, all you do is just using a fancy energy storage system, i.e. you are not really tapping any natural source.
b) even with antimatter, there is no 100% efficiency of conversion, if you want to convert to say electric current. Besides, comparison with a fission bomb is largely irrelevant, since most of fissile material was dispersed during the actual explosion.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
b) even with antimatter, there is no 100% efficiency of conversion, if you want to convert to say electric current. Besides, comparison with a fission bomb is largely irrelevant, since most of fissile material was dispersed during the actual explosion.

In modern weaponry, as opposed to 1945, the 'burnup' of fissile material is pretty substantial, i.e. most of the uranium and plutonium is turned into fallout and contributes to yield.

Of course this counts only potential energy of fission to daughter products and not the full mass-energy equivalent of the nuclei themselves.

Originally posted by mbkennel

Originally posted by buddhasystem
b) even with antimatter, there is no 100% efficiency of conversion, if you want to convert to say electric current. Besides, comparison with a fission bomb is largely irrelevant, since most of fissile material was dispersed during the actual explosion.

In modern weaponry, as opposed to 1945, the 'burnup' of fissile material is pretty substantial, i.e. most of the uranium and plutonium is turned into fallout and contributes to yield.

I couldn't find links for anything larger than 40%, and this was for boosted weapons. It's not important anyway.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
b) even with antimatter, there is no 100% efficiency of conversion, if you want to convert to say electric current. Besides, comparison with a fission bomb is largely irrelevant, since most of fissile material was dispersed during the actual explosion.

My point was to illustrate just how much energy a matter/anti-matter reaction would produce. If only 1 gram of material being converted produces that much energy, imagine how much energy is available with, say, an automobile's gas tank worth of anti-protons.

Originally posted by LifeInDeath

Originally posted by buddhasystem
b) even with antimatter, there is no 100% efficiency of conversion, if you want to convert to say electric current. Besides, comparison with a fission bomb is largely irrelevant, since most of fissile material was dispersed during the actual explosion.

My point was to illustrate just how much energy a matter/anti-matter reaction would produce. If only 1 gram of material being converted produces that much energy, imagine how much energy is available with, say, an automobile's gas tank worth of anti-protons.

edit on 6/22/2012 by LifeInDeath because: (no reason given)

Oh, to that, I totally agree. No argument.

I think (again) that the principal issue here is whether you can harvest a tank worth of antiprotons for free. Making them in the lab, as you can see, will be more than prohibitively expensive.