Antimatter Propulsion Engine Redesigned Using CERN's Particle Physics Simulation Toolkit

Latest simulation shows that the magnetic nozzles required for antimatter propulsion could be vastly more efficient than previously thought--and built with today's technologies.

So these guys focus on the exhaust velocity--the speed of the particles produced in matter-antimatter annihilations as they leave the rocket engine.

Any thoughts?

Wouldn't antimatter instantly negate any matter around it making the entire project completely wasting everyone's time?

Give me a break.

reply to post by litterbaux


Actually what this link explains is that the technology is sound for safely collecting anti-matter and making use of it. Today we collect anti-,matter all the time and it does appear naturally

Recent work has found that antimatter is created naturally above storm clouds, providing the first means by which the substance is produced naturally on Earth.

space.about.com...

Then there is also the sun...

ANTIMATTER FACTORY ON SUN YIELDS CLUES TO SOLAR EXPLOSIONS

The best look yet at how a solar explosion becomes an antimatter factory gave unexpected insights into how the tremendous explosions work. The observation may upset theories about how the explosions, called solar flares, create and destroy antimatter. It also gave surprising details about how they blast subatomic particles to almost the speed of light.

space.about.com...

What is a Penning trap?

en.wikipedia.org...

Any thoughts?

Well I'm for any research and/or development that could lead towards breakthroughs in long-distance transport, particularly space travel. However, this sort of thing seems like it could be extremely hazardous; from what I've heard about antimatter, from a theoretical perspective at least, if something were to go wrong... things would go VERY wrong. As in, a release of energy that could destabilize the atmosphere, level entire cities -- you know all that jazz.

'One gram of antimatter annihilating with one gram of matter produces 180 terajoules, the equivalent of 42.96 kilotons of TNT.' I.e 23 grams per megaton. That pretty much spells disaster for the planet if the wrong set of hands gets hold of some.

It would take about a table spoon of anti-matter to go to the nearest star and back. Technology like this would allow for humans to survive as well.

In the wrong hands the Cold War should have resulted in a nuclear disaster. The Cold war is over and we are all still here.

Moving at 70% that of light would enable us to access the solar system and with ease.

Consider an Asteroid the size of the United States made entirely of Iron, turned into steel by humans.

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by litterbaux

 

Actually what this link explains is that the technology is sound for safely collecting anti-matter and making use of it. Today we collect anti-,matter all the time and it does appear naturally

Recent work has found that antimatter is created naturally above storm clouds, providing the first means by which the substance is produced naturally on Earth.

space.about.com...

Then there is also the sun...

ANTIMATTER FACTORY ON SUN YIELDS CLUES TO SOLAR EXPLOSIONS

The best look yet at how a solar explosion becomes an antimatter factory gave unexpected insights into how the tremendous explosions work. The observation may upset theories about how the explosions, called solar flares, create and destroy antimatter. It also gave surprising details about how they blast subatomic particles to almost the speed of light.

space.about.com...

What is a Penning trap?

en.wikipedia.org...

Any thoughts?

The energies required to maintain a Penning trap with a sufficient field size to keep even a small amount of antimatter isolated until required (many years?), is likely to be prohibitive.

Originally posted by Kashai
It would take about a table spoon of anti-matter to go to the nearest star and back. Technology like this would allow for humans to survive as well.

In the wrong hands the Cold War should have resulted in a nuclear disaster. The Cold war is over and we are all still here.

Moving at 70% that of light would enable us to access the solar system and with ease.

Consider an Asteroid the size of the United States made entirely of Iron, turned into steel by humans.

Any thoughts?

Not to be too much of a wet blanket, but a good push could get us to the nearest star, it would just take a very long time.

Despite the cold war being over, we have had nuclear disasters. We have not had an antimatter disaster.

Also, the same equation that explains the output of nuclear explosions (E=mc^2) also explains the energy output of matter-antimatter interactions.

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by Kashai
It would take about a table spoon of anti-matter to go to the nearest star and back. Technology like this would allow for humans to survive as well.

In the wrong hands the Cold War should have resulted in a nuclear disaster. The Cold war is over and we are all still here.

Moving at 70% that of light would enable us to access the solar system and with ease.

Consider an Asteroid the size of the United States made entirely of Iron, turned into steel by humans.

Any thoughts?

Not to be too much of a wet blanket, but a good push could get us to the nearest star, it would just take a very long time.

Despite the cold war being over, we have had nuclear disasters. We have not had an antimatter disaster.

Also, the same equation that explains the output of nuclear explosions (E=mc^2) also explains the energy output of matter-antimatter interactions.

Actually that first line was kind of funny,, by a nuclear disaster I was referring to a nuclear winter.

As you mentioned in your other post collecting anti-matter on Earth takes
a really long time.....

Antimatter production and containment are major obstacles to the creation of antimatter weapons. Quantities measured in grams will be required to achieve destructive effect comparable with conventional nuclear weapons; one gram of antimatter annihilating with one gram of matter produces 180 terajoules, the equivalent of 42.96 kilotons of TNT (approximately 3 times the bomb dropped on Hiroshima- and as such enough to power an average city for an extensive amount of time).

In reality, however, all known technologies for producing antimatter involve particle accelerators, and they are currently still highly inefficient and expensive. The production rate per year is only 1 to 10 nanograms.[1] In 2008, the annual production of antiprotons at the Antiproton Decelerator facility of CERN was several picograms at a cost of $20 million. Thus, at the current level of production, an equivalent of a 10MT hydrogen bomb, about 250 grams of antimatter will take 2.5 million years of the energy production of the entire Earth to produce. A milligram of antimatter will take 100,000 times the annual production rate to produce.(or 100,000 years)[2] It will take billions of years for the current production rate to make an equivalent of current typical hydrogen bombs.[3] For example, an equivalent of the Hiroshima atomic bomb will take half a gram of antimatter, but will take CERN 2 billion years to produce at the current production rate.[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

There are of course other experiments today in relation to the problem of containment....

Scientists are working on ideas to use ‘magnetic bottles’ (with inhomogeneous magnetic fields acting on the magnetic moment), or ‘optical traps’ (using lasers) but this is still under development.

angelsanddemons.web.cern.ch...

Compared to collecting anti-matter on Earth, collecting near the sun would be vastly more effcient, due to the amount of energy available for supporting the trap. Anti-matter is very attractive when it comes to the future of space travel. but when it comes to power on Earth yes very dangerous. Our world economy is dependent upon resources, the lack of making it more difficult to survive.

The amount of resources that could allow for say employing every adult on Earth, is realistically not available here. When speaking of say 100 to 300 years from now, lends to another disaster, related to population.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai


While there are many advantages to the storage of antimatter in a weightless (orbital) hard vacuum environment like space, the problem of containment would reduce only to have a greater problem in shielding. Space (especially as you approach the Sun) is an energetic environment and stray particles would be likely to deplete your store of antimatter faster than you can capture it.

There are also questions of how you would choose to store the antimatter. Would you store it as anti-atoms or molecules or would it be best to store it in three separate traps according to charge (or absence thereof). I believe that the latter storage method would probably be better for extending the storage term than storage as atoms.

Of course, nothing has the energy density of antimatter so, yes it would be useful for space flight.

That being said, most of our energy resources are ultimately sourced from our Sun. It makes logical sense that as demands increase, the capability to provide the required energy from terrestrial sources will cease to be practical and this is likely to drive us into space to harvest power more directly from our star.

The group that gets there first and corners the market, being able to supply ALL the Earth's energy, will completely change Earths political and economic environments. It is towards that particular goal that space research should be targeted, IMHO.

Once we are largely free of our dependance and interdependence, we will likely have the resources and motivations to pursue more esoteric and less mandatory goals.

If we do not destroy ourselves beforehand, it is obvious to me that the human race MUST become a space-faring species.

(Perhaps this post should be put in the Rant forum!)

reply to post by chr0naut


I am speaking of a vessel that could collect anti-matter from stars (as in any star). I understand the problem with protecting the hypothetical vessel, but in an environment where density is 1/6,000th the density of air at sea level certain permutation do come to mind (also there is no solid surface). Our space shuttle had to deal with temps of 2,300F, while the surface of the Sun is about 5,000C to 6,000C.

So all we need do is essentially quintuple our efforts and generate a "Starship", that could tolerate, as a result of its physical structure, at least temperatures of 10,000F

Do you remember who made it first to the Antarctic?

Same difference.....

Any thoughts?

In only two years on the faculty at the University of Arizona, Dr. Erica Corral has distinguished herself as one of the brightest research stars in the College of Engineering. She is a recipient of prestigious awards from both the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award. These awards are highly coveted in her field, and winning them both in one year is extremely rare. She’s one of only three scientists and engineers to receive these awards simultaneously.

These recognitions affirm her research, which focuses on finding new materials for spacecraft coatings that can withstand super-hot environments. How hot? The spark plasma sintering furnace in her lab can create focused temperatures of over 10,000 degrees celsius (a rather balmy 18,000 fahrenheit) between particles of test material.These tests and others like them measure the fundamental thermo-mechanical properties of ultra-high temperature ceramics.

The high temperatures reached by vehicles during re-entry are a constant challenge, and any breakthroughs that increase survivability would have immediate applications for the current generation of spacecraft. But it’s the potential applications for the next generation aerospace vehicles that is perhaps most exciting. New, more durable materials could extend the length of space missions and allow spacecraft to enter environments that are too extreme for existing materials to withstand.

Before she completed her bachelor’s degree, Dr. Corral served as an undergraduate research assistant at Sandia National Laboratories for 5 years, including multiple summers as an intern.

At the University of Arizona, Dr. Corral created a program to train underrepresented minorities and women in the field of high-temperature materials. The program is called Southwest Materials Research and Training – or SMART. As a graduate student, she founded the Society of Flamenco Arts at Rice University and taught students the art of Flamenco dance. She was the first female Mexican-American to graduate with a Ph.D. in materials science from Rice University.

Dr. Corral serves as the faculty advisor for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) student chapter, where she initiated several programs to increase retention rates of first and second year engineering students. She draws inspiration from her parents, who broke the cycle of poverty by obtaining an education and passing those values to their children. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband and fellow U of A faculty member, Dr. Samuel K. Campos.

www.greatmindsinstem.org...

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by litterbaux
Wouldn't antimatter instantly negate any matter around it making the entire project completely wasting everyone's time?

Give me a break.

They already know how to both create, capture, and store anti-matter. Way to show complete ignorance. There is already a plan to use lasers to generate the antimatter from the vacuum to continually refuel the ship as it goes. Basically it would refuel itself and use solar panels to power the lasers when needed.

You collect antimatter in a vacuum.
and hold and move it with powerfully magnets.

? how to fire it out the back?
you could only use it in space. as you need a vacuum out side too.

you would need to fire matter at it.so it explodes out side.
See pics of daedalus spaceship.
Pics of space ship Daedalus.

Originally posted by buddha
You collect antimatter in a vacuum.
and hold and move it with powerfully magnets.

? how to fire it out the back?
you could only use it in space. as you need a vacuum out side too.

you would need to fire matter at it.so it explodes out side.
See pics of daedalus spaceship.
Pics of space ship Daedalus.

edit on 11-10-2012 by buddha because: (no reason given)

Actually no, it would work like a rocket unless one suggests using anti-matter for a warp drive, recently offered as viable, in the not to distant future. It could operate in an atmosphere without a glitch, but safety concerns are an issue and there is no reason use such a Starship, in an environment like Earth.

Actually, a more effective way would be to set up satellites that collected solar energy, throughout the Goldilocks zone in relation to a sphere and respectively 93, 000 miles from the Sun.

Any thoughts ?

I still don't really think an antimatter drive is appropriate for interstellar travel. It's fine within our own solar system, but beyond? Nah.

There was an article just a few days ago about these guys who are making what are essentially the impulse engines from Star Trek. They also use dilithium crystals. They expect it to be ready by ~2030.

So there's a lot of promising propulsion technologies in the making right now, but they all are only really practical for our solar system. We need albecurrie's warp drive theory to work if we want to get out of here.

Originally posted by Kashai

Actually no, it would work like a rocket unless one suggests using anti-matter for a warp drive, recently offered as viable, in the not to distant future. It could operate in an atmosphere without a glitch, but safety concerns are an issue and there is no reason use such a Starship, in an environment like Earth.

Actually, a more effective way would be to set up satellites that collected solar energy, throughout the Goldilocks zone in relation to a sphere and respectively 93, 000 miles from the Sun.
Any thoughts ?

solar energy? that would be very slow.
a nuclear reactor would be beter.
but what propulsion would you use?
maybe a big 100 million volt Ion propulsion.

how would they use antimatter for propulsion?
and I find it odd that antimatter would not blow up the dust in air.
or the oxygen in the air.

reply to post by buddha




The anti-matter would be kept in a vacuum until it is used. The energy released after a controlled release and interaction with matter that is also contained, is then vented in such a way that it ends up pushing the craft.

The big advantage as described above is that the "fuel tank" is really small. It would take about a table spoon of anti-matter to get to the nearest star and back. Ion propulsion is fascinating the only problem is how long it takes to relativistic speeds. Solar sails are also interesting but again the same problem, getting up to speed makes for a very slow journey in relation to our solar system. Ion propulsion would get us to Mars in about a month, solar sails would probably take a bit longer but an Anti-matter engine would get us there in about 15 to 30 minutes..

Hello Shadowland8.

Actually you should check out this post....

Micro-Warp Drive

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by chr0naut

 

I am speaking of a vessel that could collect anti-matter from stars (as in any star). I understand the problem with protecting the hypothetical vessel, but in an environment where density is 1/6,000th the density of air at sea level certain permutation do come to mind (also there is no solid surface). Our space shuttle had to deal with temps of 2,300F, while the surface of the Sun is about 5,000C to 6,000C.

So all we need do is essentially quintuple our efforts and generate a "Starship", that could tolerate, as a result of its physical structure, at least temperatures of 10,000F

Do you remember who made it first to the Antarctic?

Same difference.....

Any thoughts?

edit on 10-10-2012 by Kashai because: Modified and Added content

But, just above the surface of the Sun is an invisible region where temps go over a million degrees. We can't even imagine tech that would survive that for any length of time.

and in regard to the Antarctic, Captain Cook came within 150 miles but didn't sight the continent. Then some Russians saw it (Lazarev). Then some Americans landed there (Davis). Then the Norwegians (Larsen). Scott, Shackleton & Wilson.tried to reach the pole & Amundsen did. Not sure why you asked though.Must be getting tired... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.

reply to post by chr0naut



You are reffering to CME's. You should have listened to the You Tube vid which, explains that Jupiter is also a good source for anti-matter and then there is this...

The odd thing, though, is that Saturn is actually a better source of antimatter than Jupiter, with 250 micrograms produced by reactions in the rings and injected into the magnetosphere every year. Bickford’s work showed that the process by which galactic cosmic rays produce antimatter isn’t as effective around Jupiter because its magnetic field shields the Jovian atmosphere and lowers the flux. A much larger flux reaches the atmosphere of Saturn. But Bickford also believed that our own Earth would be a good antimatter source, leading to the idea of using a plasma magnet — the scientist discusses using high temperature superconductors to form two pairs of 100-meter RF coils to manage this. The result is a kind of magnetic scoop that could trap antiparticles found in our planet’s radiation belts.

Antimatter: Finding the Fuel

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by chr0naut

 

You are reffering to CME's. You should have listened to the You Tube vid which, explains that Jupiter is also a good source for anti-matter and then there is this...

The odd thing, though, is that Saturn is actually a better source of antimatter than Jupiter, with 250 micrograms produced by reactions in the rings and injected into the magnetosphere every year. Bickford’s work showed that the process by which galactic cosmic rays produce antimatter isn’t as effective around Jupiter because its magnetic field shields the Jovian atmosphere and lowers the flux. A much larger flux reaches the atmosphere of Saturn. But Bickford also believed that our own Earth would be a good antimatter source, leading to the idea of using a plasma magnet — the scientist discusses using high temperature superconductors to form two pairs of 100-meter RF coils to manage this. The result is a kind of magnetic scoop that could trap antiparticles found in our planet’s radiation belts.

Antimatter: Finding the Fuel

Any thoughts?

I was actually referring to the Chromosphere. A nearly invisible layer stretching out to about 1,200 miles above the visible surface of the Sun.

Despite its low density and invisibility, its average temperature rises from 7400 degrees Fahrenheit to around 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit at about 1,200 miles from the Solar surface. This high temperature is believed to be caused by magnetic reconnection happening in this plasma layer and therefore does relate slightly to CME's.

The temperatures in the Chromosphere around CME and sunspot regions rises even higher, to exceed a million degrees.