Near-Light-Speed Starships May Not Fly

reply to post by Astyanax


What if the ship was lined with the strongest reflective mirrors.... kept cooled to really low temperatures,

or an anti matter shield which harnessed the energy gained in antimatter-matter annihilations to created more antimatter as the shield

or something that the center of the ship would travel linearly through space but there would be an outer layer which rotated extremely fast, maybe even like a water wheel design or something, with hopes of creating a gravity well which would cause the photons to bend around.. or send waves ahead through space-time that would move the debris filled space ahead, out of the way making a clean and clear path of vacuum for the spaceship.

or.. deep freeze the members of a space flight and travel outside of our solar systems gravitational field... and just park it, and have the members wake up around the predicted time it would take the nearest star to revolve near the ship ( or would this not work because its impossible to just leave the solar system and "stand still", because other forces in the galaxy will be forcing the ship to flow with the rest of star traffic spiraling around the center galactic mass?

Originally posted by Astyanax

My research supports the contention that at speeds very close to the speed of light, the temperature of this heat bath is high enough to melt all known materials.

Depressing if true. Anyone care to discuss this? And let's try not to derail the thread into discussions about faster-than-light travel, please...

Let's see, we're still using mostly chemical propellants which also have this problem:

www.nasa.gov...

Here are four examples [large graphic] of what it would take to send a canister about the size of a Shuttle payload (or a school bus) past our nearest neighboring star...and allowing 900 years for it to make this journey.

Well....If you use chemical engines like those that are on the Shuttle, well..., sorry, there isn’t enough mass in the universe to supply the rocket propellant you’d need.

So, in addition to not having enough mass in the universe for chemical propulsion to travel to just the nearest star, according to NASA, oh by the way it would also get hot?

Of course there are alternate propulsion technologies but to be honest none look that promising for interstellar travel...see this graphic:



I think if technology advances to the point we can overcome these propulsion problems, then it might also be advanced enough to solve the heat problem. As others have suggested, a shield of some sort made of fields might be able to divert the heat, and since a field isn't made of matter, we don't have to worry about the melting temperature of the field.

One would suggest some type of magnetic/EM shield, like those used to contain/direct plasma energy.

Also, perhaps the new quantum materials that enable 'cloaking' are able to pass the photons around the ship without the energy being absorbed?

I think this guy is giving up too easy.

There was an old Ion drive system design that had a large dish out front to deflect interstellar energy sources through the center of the ship as a plasma. A space ship cannot carry enough fuel to reach the speed of light obviously, but the energy source for this ion scoop design scaled with the speed of the ship.

I think they should use a multi-phase changing skin technology that can guide energies the skin of the craft encounter to a focal point forward of the craft. Kind of like a resonate magnetic field existing within 3 mm of the skin of the craft.

Directing the energies in the direction of travel. Essential for faster then light travel.

Part of the primary magnetic field meshing manipulation.

Create the bubble, then pop it from the inside.

Stretch the field far enough ahead with enough intensity. The field will begin to interact with the space, time fabric.

Should be fairly easy to do! Lol

Now, if only they could figure out how to compress 10 tons of Osmium down to the size of a marble, then yadda, yadda, yadda for mass cancelation.

Ha!

how does anything larger than a photon travel the speed of light ?

it doesn't

you need a shrink ray first

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
how does anything larger than a photon travel the speed of light ?

it doesn't

you need a shrink ray first

It's not a size issue, it's a mass issue.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

I was going to suggest: some sort of "cocoon" (magnetic bubble or whatever) surrounding the ship -- or at least at the bow -- protecting it from the friction.

Wouldn't the cocoon have its own (probably higher) drag coefficient? Besides, it wouldn't have any effect on the Doppler heating.

*

reply to post by ChaoticOrder

Namely, a warp drive mechanism which doesn't thrust the ship through space, but thrusts space around the ship.

Relatively speaking, they are the same thing. How would this solve the problem of friction losses?

*

Here's something to think about.

In the years before the Wright Brothers came along, scientific literature was full of explanations why a heavier-than-air craft could not fly. These explanations were based on sound science, and they were quite convincing.

The problem was solved, ultimately, by trial and error invention. Along the way, a new science was invented: aeronautics. It was not in conflict with earlier science, but it delivered new technical perspectives on well-known facts as well as uncovering some new ones. Heavier-than-air flight turned out to be possible after all.

The tradition of trial and error is strong the field of aviation. Supersonic flight was attained in much the same way, against similar theoretical pessimism. And even today, organisations like DARPA and Ansari encourage inventors to come up with their own solutions to problems of commercial spaceflight, building a space elevator, and so on.

I think this will probably be how the problem of relativistic interstellar travel will be solved—if it ever is. I am not expecting that we will find ways to overturn the laws of physics. I believe we will find ways to work round them, or turn them to our advantage: human beings have always been rather good at that. While I applaud the contributions of Blue Shift to our discussion, I do not share his or her pessimism regarding interstellar travel.

reply to post by Astyanax


Wonders how this would be effected if the STARSHIP fired a (RAY field) wormholelike made of what is here known as anti matter in the direction of location of interest.. Absorbing massive ENERGY from some Constant Cosmic Present Sources for example. Then having harness technology to gather enough and AIM like sitting near star... till build up connected array of Starships associated with ray field size is gathered and READY.

Then fire OPEN anti matter CONDUIT eliminating OR TOTALLY BYPASSING -assessed path of objects in way or that would potentially be producing LGRB or grb / slow speed causing object. For tech is sorry like anti matter associated understood here. (ADD NEUTRINO TRAVEL INTELLIGENCE energy TO RAY FIELD & craft) all matter in designed path avoided. INTRA...

In association with shields and plasma fields - maybe place solid element material in plasma / gas form charged -/+ to manage distance of shield field from star craft, then go. What conductive material

To conclude also can make anti matter neutrino field portal- = distance brilliant pebbles like objects in array ACTIVATE THEM then drive star craft near to begin intra into field. Craft enters field w/ crew, all particles after all, then field charged with unknown energy within pebbles broadcasters to make ray field of neutrino/antimatter SPHERE OR ME KA BA. Charge = distance / dimension--- hence massive power needed Then craft and crew is converted INTO RAYFIELD ENERGY AND SENT Just thinking deep. ADD PARANORMAL energy from natural umm situations that occur ele INTENTIONAL OR NON to FREE paranormal energy could make natural gates hence no wars CREATOR Creations...

LOVE LIGHT ETERNIA*******

neutrino intelligence w/STARS then does exist in observable range here. So how do the neutrinos go though ALMOST everything w/o interference?

What happens within Stars to make neutrinos so defined a particle they seem to ignore matter (whats the process) that's needed in crafts maybe, is it heat-magnetism-radiation -exposure -all- all and more?

Ahh, i see you have
managed to rule out
MASS from the eq.

I thought that was imopssible, but then again so is free energy right

The faster an object move the more mass it gains.
So your talking about Shields, deflectors. I think
90years is not nearly enough time to fix all these
problems.

Warpdrives on the other hand..Dono.
Maybe...

reply to post by Miccey

Ahh, i see you have
managed to rule out
MASS from the eq.

Are you talking to me, Miccey? You're a dab hand at free verse.

No-one is 'ruling out mass' (whatever you mean by that), we're just not talking about it as a factor.

The faster an object move the more mass it gains.

Indeed it does, and that poses a further obstacle to relativistic travel, though perhaps not an insuperable one. Mass in Special Relativity.

I thought that was impossible, but then again so is free energy right

Free energy is possible. All you have to do is find yourself some suckers to donate theirs to you. Normally this is done in the form of greenbacks following mass-energy conversion from the suckers' labour. All free-energy experts are familiar with this principle; it is how they make their living.

The problem of whether temperature is observer-dependent or invariant has been controversial even since the days of Einstein. Giants like Einstein and Pauli held that temperature is observer dependent, while other giants such as Planck held that temperature is Lorentz Invariant by showing entropy is a Lorentz Invariant. There is still no strong consensus among experts, although there is the first rigorous treatment of relativistic thermodynamics by Stewart-Israel which suggested a temperature transformation doesn't exist by showing temperature to be a 4-vector. A quantum field theory analysis agrees with this result and leans more towards temperature being invariant. The fact that the researcher doesn't highlight which model he is using to base his results on is troubling at best.

While I think there are many serious problems to overcome if rapid interstellar travel is to ever become a reality, it is highly unlikely based on current models that relativistic thermodynamics is one of them.

reply to post by Astyanax


No i was talkin general as in the topic answers.

And NOT talking about mass as a factor is like
saying "Im gonna light a cigarette, i have a ciggarette"
And stop there.
You need a light aswell.

Mass is a HUUUGE obstacle.

I've always like the Bussard Ramjet idea. It fired my imagination as a teen back in the late 1970's when reading Larry Niven's scifi books.

The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero, Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books, Vernor Vinge in his Zones of Thought series, and referred to by Carl Sagan in the television series and book Cosmos. Bussard proposed a ramjet variant of a fusion rocket capable of reasonable interstellar spaceflight, using enormous electromagnetic fields (ranging from kilometers to many thousands of kilometers in diameter) as a ram scoop to collect and compress hydrogen from the interstellar medium. High speeds force the reactive mass into a progressively constricted magnetic field, compressing it until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field then directs the energy as rocket exhaust opposite to the intended direction of travel, thereby accelerating the vessel.

Of course it's not FTL, but the idea of actually fueling the craft by using what is out there was very appealing to me.

Ghosts can pull HEAT from this dimension and use it for their energy.

We have to figure out their dimension and figure out how to get the heat to their dimension....maybe even developing a propulsion system using the other dimension they reside in.

reply to post by Astyanax


May need some other technology to make it feasible...like "shields" for example.

Even in the Star Wars universe, they addressed this issue back in the 70's...at least conceptually... Of course, it's more prevalent in the Star Trek series....

Think of the challenges we had when making very fast spy planes... Sure, we have these huge engines...but the aircraft materials at the time couldn't handle the heat, so they had to come up with that...then, there were even more issues that arose, that needed solving, etc. By the time it was all done with a working Blackbird...there were tons of advances and new tech, all due to one plane.

I suspect an interstellar starship project would be very similar in what was needed to make it work...numerous advances and solutions to problems that pop up.....

i think travelling at the speed of light i am pretty sure you would not be able to spot the smallest little piece of space rock. even the size of a golf ball. which would be my biggest worry. they cant even spot an asteroid the size of a school bus flying towards us at 170000mph. so fling through space at a billion mph you would never see what lies ahead. so it would be stupid to even try.

If the craft can generate a meissner field, exernal influences can be ruled out. It's basically an a.t.(think Evangelion) field that creates a frictionless pocket around said craft. Solid objects and energy are kept outside this bubble. Utilizing the zero-point energy (pregnant-vacuume) prevalent in outerspace, would yield unlimited energy output.

Originally posted by Diablos
The problem of whether temperature is observer-dependent or invariant has been controversial even since the days of Einstein. Giants like Einstein and Pauli held that temperature is observer dependent, while other giants such as Planck held that temperature is Lorentz Invariant by showing entropy is a Lorentz Invariant. There is still no strong consensus among experts, although there is the first rigorous treatment of relativistic thermodynamics by Stewart-Israel which suggested a temperature transformation doesn't exist by showing temperature to be a 4-vector. A quantum field theory analysis agrees with this result and leans more towards temperature being invariant. The fact that the researcher doesn't highlight which model he is using to base his results on is troubling at best.

While I think there are many serious problems to overcome if rapid interstellar travel is to ever become a reality, it is highly unlikely based on current models that relativistic thermodynamics is one of them.

Temperature is observer dependent isnt it. (this may be a bad analogy and inaccurate in regards to what is meant by observer dependent). Say you down a hundred foot long dock on the water on a windless day, your wearing a jacket that can detect the temperature. As opposed to being in a speed boat along the same length of dock ( Now even though you may feel more cold from the contact with air... i not sure if the jacket would detect this as heat because the molecules moving more relative to the jacket).