Spaceships of the Future: Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel

I don't know about you guys, but i find this funny.. (Rude mind maybe )



As for the future i think we have a long way to go..

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
we need to get back to basics.
when i push against a wall, there is a wall to push back.

Which is analogous to the exhaust gases of a rocket pushing upon themselves...

i don't get it.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
when you release the neck of a balloon, there is an atmosphere to push back.

Actually, in a balloon, there is a fair amount of the exhaust gas pushing on itself as much as any surrounding atmosphere. The balloon would do the same in a vacuum.

the balloon cannot behave the same in a vacuum as it does in the atmosphere. the gas
from the ballon in the atmosphere pushes against the atmosphere, not itself. in a vacuum
the gas would be instantaneously be dispelled without any work done, as the pressure equalizes
to zero.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
in a vacuum there is nothing to push back.
a thing cannot push against itself to achieve motion.

Yes, there is. There is the gases expelled by the rocket motor.

no there isn't. gasses cannot exist at zero pressures.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
-there cannot be any reaction in a vacuum which is void, and where gasses cannot exist
due to zero pressure.

The gases don't instantly lose their pressure the moment they are expelled from the rocket.

yes they do. they must do as the pressure 'outside' is zero.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
-the higher exhaust speeds necessary for the rocket to function are instantaneously
reduced to zero the micro-second they 'hit' the vacuum.

No, they are not. You are basing your reasoning on false assumptions. I suggest you illuminate yourself

how long do you reckon it takes before the exhaust speeds are reduced to zero
in a complete vacuum?
prove that your assumptions are not faulty. did newton apply his third law
to the behaviour of gasses in a vacuum? if so, how does newtons third law gel
with boyle law? if the pressure of a gas is zero, what is it's volume?

Originally posted by Fisherr
I don't know about you guys, but i find this funny.. (Rude mind maybe

)

As for the future i think we have a long way to go..

edit on 1-7-2013 by Fisherr because: It Was Way To Big

well blow me down. if it isn't a giant penis and bollocks!

i am beginning to see that this is all a big joke on us, the gullible and ignorant
and well suckered public.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
how long do you reckon it takes before the exhaust speeds are reduced to zero
in a complete vacuum?

If the molecules of gas don't hit anything, then not only will their velocity never be reduced to zero, their velocity won't even change. Ever.
Since molecules of anything have mass, ejecting mass in one direction results in force applied in the opposite direction - a force that is equal to the mass of the ejecta times the acceleration of the ejecta from zero velocity to the velocity at which it leaves the rocket engine. Exactly as was explained in an earlier post.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOneprove that your assumptions are not faulty. did newton apply his third law
to the behaviour of gasses in a vacuum? if so, how does newtons third law gel
with boyle law? if the pressure of a gas is zero, what is it's volume?

If the pressure is zero, the volume is infinite.

Boyle's Law is for confined gases and won't work in a vacuum unless you're dealing with enough gas that gravitational forces due to the gas' mass come into play to confine the gas (i.e. like a nebula) or in cases where the gas is confined by gravitation from some other body (or bodies) of mass.
Even then, Boyle applies only roughly and only for the entire volume of gas because in such cases, the pressure cannot be maintained as a constant (conversely, neither can the volume.)

Harte

Originally posted by stumason
Oh c'mon, there is plenty to see an do in the Solar System alone, not to mention the hundreds of alien planets that have been discovered in nearby star systems.

Sure, but exploring the Solar system is a lot easier. Do you believe that a 20-year long journey somewhere just to watch a red dwarf without a planet (or with a barren rocky planet) is worth the effort? Recently two Earth-like planets were discovered... 1200 light years away! That's beyond feasible. And it's exactly what my point was, nothing interesting in the proximity of the Solar system. But there may be a lot of interesting places out of reach.

Originally posted by LABTECH767
...Proxima centurai...

I guess you mean Proxima Centauri (i.e. "closest of the Centaur"). The only good thing about this hole of a star system is that it is the closest to us. It doesn't even appear to have a planet (link).

Originally posted by HauntWork
Here's the thing. If we are truly going for an interstellar journey, what you are going to need is a generational ship. One that will house at least 50,000 people.

These 50,000 will be very surprised to find their distant relatives greeting them at the destination point. Sci-fi writers already noted that technology would evolve faster than the generation ship would fly. After some 500 years of travel they will arrive at an Earth colony founded 300 years ago. Not a very pleasant experience considering they were trapped in a spaceship for so long.

reply to post by zazzafrazz


Personally I don't feel excited by any of those examples you have shown, I'm an engineer and I know that rocket powered craft is absolutely not the future no matter how big the rocket is. Our future is in more exotic craft propelled via field propulsion, a craft who's working principles are based not on combustion and mechanical reaction but on electromagnetism!

BBC posted THIS FUN ARTICLE awhile back. Its more design related than science related but interesting never the less.

It is too bad spacetravel is going so slow, we should have had masses of robots out in space already looking for either a new home or resources. With the prospect of resources at least some people might want to invest. Imagine if more countries made spacetravel important and the spacestation might have been 50x bigger with hundreds of people working to built spaceships.

It could be done entirely just using robots, send those into space, program them to mine resources and built new robots, then at some point let them construct huge spaceships since resources like metals wouldn't be much of a problem. No worries about dangers, if a few are lost new ones will replace them. They would last centuries and could be usable outside spacetravel as well. While one group of them is building ships and stations, another could go ahead into the vastness of space and lay a trail of satellites while they explore.

reply to post by zazzafrazz


Wow I'm making some art myself but this is such great art , nice 3d art very detailed too...

I still don't get why we need to build so big to explore...With the technology available today why can't we just buld 1000's of droids with mini nuke powerd engines, give them all a different sent of space coordinates and set them free from the space station. These droids could be sent up to land if an Earth like planet is found and sent the coordinates back with important data, video and sounds.

reply to post by zazzafrazz


Cool but how about - among all the secrecy existing (FACT not fiction about classified technology) - to have already developed an interstellar travel? So more like spaceships of today go beyond your imagination, various different sources claim that humans in deepest secret possess such technology..

Sending us fragile humans into space seems like and outdated idea. Too many resources are need to keep us alive in the safest of situations - which space is certainly not. Air, water, food, gravity, heat. Too much potential for disaster IMO.

Once AI is developed there's no need to go "up there" until we have a destination that will sustain humans.

The pictures are very pretty and romantic (in a Star Wars way) though...

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
how long do you reckon it takes before the exhaust speeds are reduced to zero
in a complete vacuum?

If the molecules of gas don't hit anything, then not only will their velocity never be reduced to zero, their velocity won't even change. Ever.
Since molecules of anything have mass, ejecting mass in one direction results in force applied in the opposite direction - a force that is equal to the mass of the ejecta times the acceleration of the ejecta from zero velocity to the velocity at which it leaves the rocket engine. Exactly as was explained in an earlier post.

you are incorrect. needs must the velocity of the molecules of gas ejected be immediately
reduced to zero on exposure to a complete vacuum as gasses cannot exist in a vacuum
at zero pressure. do you dispute this?
the ejected mass of gas molecules cannot be said to go in any one direction as the very
moment it meets the vacuum the hot gas is completely and instantaneously dispersed or
dis-integrated in any and all directions.
again, can gasses exist in a vacuum at zero pressure? if they cannot (and it seems
clear that they cannot) then the velocity of those directed stream of gasses ejected are
instataneously reduced to zero on encountering the void of the vacuum of space. there
can be no directionality achieved and there can be no work done. there can be no action
produced and therefore no reaction experienced. in accordance with good old newton.

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOneprove that your assumptions are not faulty. did newton apply his third law
to the behaviour of gasses in a vacuum? if so, how does newtons third law gel
with boyle law? if the pressure of a gas is zero, what is it's volume?

If the pressure is zero, the volume is infinite.

Boyle's Law is for confined gases and won't work in a vacuum unless you're dealing with enough gas that gravitational forces due to the gas' mass come into play to confine the gas (i.e. like a nebula) or in cases where the gas is confined by gravitation from some other body (or bodies) of mass.
Even then, Boyle applies only roughly and only for the entire volume of gas because in such cases, the pressure cannot be maintained as a constant (conversely, neither can the volume.)

Harte

what did boyle have to say regarding the behaviour of any and all gasses
in a complete vacuum at zero pressure? do newtonian mechanics apply to gasses in a
vacuum? if gasses cannot exist in a vacuum, the velocity of the ejecta from a rocket
is instantaneously reduced zero upon encountering the vacuum. therefore
newtonian mechanics do apply and they tell us that at zero exit velocity
the force exerted is zero and the reaction force is also zero.
for every zero there is an equal and opposite zero!

reply to post by TopsyTurvyOne


Gas exists in space but in an expansive state, space is not a perfect vacuum and even in deep interstellar space there is at least one atom of hydrogen per cubic meter, also the propulsive effect is in no way negated by the presence of a vacuum as the displacement of mass in one direction pushed at an equal and opposite in the opposite direction (increasing the potential energy of the matter that is used to propel also increases the equal displacement effect) and this is exactly how mass driver technology works were for instance an open nuclear reactor is used to vaporise matter fed to it from the surface of an asteroid, it expands in the vaporising chamber over the radio elements (or in the laser chamber if you prefer) before being released either pulsed or in a steady stream through a directional nozzle and if moving an asteroid for use as a resource or for a space station or even ship this engine may itself be based in a conveyance that allows it to be repositioned on the asteroid as necessary and the material mined from inside to make chambers is used as the very material to propel it.

Gas is not destroyed by a vacuum it expands into the vacuum becoming more tenuous (only the event horizon of a black hole and the process known as spaghetification actually destroy matter and energy) but only to the point were the force of electrostatic attraction and inertia of the gaseous molecules is at equal force to the vacuum pull, why do you think stars and galaxy's exist and the very nebulae in which they are born.

Something for you to mull over.

look at the linear lines of even sized craters, this is Phobos the closest of Mars two moons that if it was solid would be moving too slow to be in orbit at it's altitude but there fore must be hollow and those craters need to be looked at (the small evenly spaced ones that even go in and back out of the larger one's), since when do meteors make strafing run's or are they mass driver track's, in this case our spaceships of the future may have existed in the very distant past.

Originally posted by LABTECH767
reply to post by TopsyTurvyOne

 

Gas exists in space but in an expansive state, space is not a perfect vacuum and even in deep interstellar space there is at least one atom of hydrogen per cubic meter, also the propulsive effect is in no way negated by the presence of a vacuum as the displacement of mass in one direction pushed at an equal and opposite in the opposite direction (increasing the potential energy of the matter that is used to propel also increases the equal displacement effect) and this is exactly how mass driver technology works were for instance an open nuclear reactor is used to vaporise matter fed to it from the surface of an asteroid, it expands in the vaporising chamber over the radio elements (or in the laser chamber if you prefer) before being released either pulsed or in a steady stream through a directional nozzle and if moving an asteroid for use as a resource or for a space station or even ship this engine may itself be based in a conveyance that allows it to be repositioned on the asteroid as necessary and the material mined from inside to make chambers is used as the very material to propel it.

Gas is not destroyed by a vacuum it expands into the vacuum becoming more tenuous (only the event horizon of a black hole and the process known as spaghetification actually destroy matter and energy) but only to the point were the force of electrostatic attraction and inertia of the gaseous molecules is at equal force to the vacuum pull, why do you think stars and galaxy's exist and the very nebulae in which they are born.

Something for you to mull over.

look at the linear lines of even sized craters, this is Phobos the closest of Mars two moons that if it was solid would be moving too slow to be in orbit at it's altitude but there fore must be hollow and those craters need to be looked at (the small evenly spaced ones that even go in and back out of the larger one's), since when do meteors make strafing run's or are they mass driver track's, in this case our spaceships of the future may have existed in the very distant past.

edit on 2-7-2013 by LABTECH767 because: (no reason given)

bolds: and in which direction is this displacement, if the gas ejected is dispelled and
disintegrated in any and all directions at the exact moment it meets the void?
how can you then clearly define the direction any reaction produced will take?

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
how long do you reckon it takes before the exhaust speeds are reduced to zero
in a complete vacuum?

If the molecules of gas don't hit anything, then not only will their velocity never be reduced to zero, their velocity won't even change. Ever.
Since molecules of anything have mass, ejecting mass in one direction results in force applied in the opposite direction - a force that is equal to the mass of the ejecta times the acceleration of the ejecta from zero velocity to the velocity at which it leaves the rocket engine. Exactly as was explained in an earlier post.

you are incorrect. needs must the velocity of the molecules of gas ejected be immediately
reduced to zero on exposure to a complete vacuum as gasses cannot exist in a vacuum
at zero pressure. do you dispute this?

Yes. With absolute certainty and utter finality.
Gas exists all over space. Gases have existed in the vacuum of our universe for far longer than planets have, or stars, for that matter, which are for all practical purposes entirely composed of hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Are you stating that no gaseous hydrogen exists anywhere in the vacuum of space?

A rather unthinking proposition.

Do you believe that, at the top of the Earth's atmosphere, the atmospheric gases are being annihilated into nothingness by the vacuum?

Harte

Originally posted by Harte
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Are you stating that no gaseous hydrogen exists anywhere in the vacuum of space?

Well, technically if there's something in it, it's no longer technically a vacuum, now is it?

I know what you mean and you have the physics right.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by TopsyTurvyOne
how long do you reckon it takes before the exhaust speeds are reduced to zero
in a complete vacuum?

If the molecules of gas don't hit anything, then not only will their velocity never be reduced to zero, their velocity won't even change. Ever.
Since molecules of anything have mass, ejecting mass in one direction results in force applied in the opposite direction - a force that is equal to the mass of the ejecta times the acceleration of the ejecta from zero velocity to the velocity at which it leaves the rocket engine. Exactly as was explained in an earlier post.

you are incorrect. needs must the velocity of the molecules of gas ejected be immediately
reduced to zero on exposure to a complete vacuum as gasses cannot exist in a vacuum
at zero pressure. do you dispute this?

Yes. With absolute certainty and utter finality.
Gas exists all over space. Gases have existed in the vacuum of our universe for far longer than planets have, or stars, for that matter, which are for all practical purposes entirely composed of hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Are you stating that no gaseous hydrogen exists anywhere in the vacuum of space?

A rather unthinking proposition.

Do you believe that, at the top of the Earth's atmosphere, the atmospheric gases are being annihilated into nothingness by the vacuum?

Harte

we are talking about exhaust gasses exiting a rocket in the vacuum of space,
not about the theoretical makeup of the universe. not the same thing at all.
and one hydrogen molecule per cubic meter of space is an average value, no?.
have some areas less, and some more?

reply to post by zazzafrazz


Still, ma'am, it's all for show. But one thing to point out; Antimatter? No, non-existent materials thought up by an idiot that sought fame. Nuclear? Only if you want to be BBQed in the sea of energy your already in which is called "Space."

Just saying, ma'am, that they are going in a wrong direction, either intentionally or unknowingly.