Methods of Space Travel

[dreamwalker]

I do not believe that to be the case. I highly doubt the rate of change/deveopment of technology is increasing. More slowing down.
Where getting to the point in which we actually need smarter humans for any major leaps in the sciences to take place, and possibly the smart versions of the humans to make even smarter ones and so one (artifical inteligence in one sense I guess btw - this is also in the timeline, cira 100 years from now).

Look at the wikipedia article on the Kardeshev Scale.
The concept in itself is interesting, but more importantly, it has links to so many ideas to do with technology, society and civilisation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

With my 60,000 year time scale, I streched it out. Added the likely cataclysims, dark ages and aspects of human nature, social facters etc.

[chrispenycate]

You could be right- this could be a bump in the curve. I certainly can't see how the second derivitive can go on rising- it'd be like inflation in Argentina (the moment you got your wages you went out and spent them, because if you waited until going home in the evening they'd buy thirty percent less- imagine the equivalent in the "publish or perish jungle)
Until the nineteenth century only a tiny section of the population had the leisure, the educational oportunity and the wealth to do fundamental research. More importantly, only a very small percentage of this minority had any interest in doing so- indeed, for most of them, religious or aristocratic, the status quo was the optimum situation.
The twentieth century gave us meritocratic education (in theory, and in a minority of cultures) The industrial revolution demonstrated that knowledge could be wealth as well as power. Children, both rich and poor, were encouraged to think (as long as they thought about the right things) and experiment. Wars ended with the scientific advances outweighing the impoverishment due to destruction, the amount of information available increased geometrically and improving communications made cross fertilisation between different groups possible, then inevitable. Governments noticed that countries with the best technology tended to win wars, while corporations noticed the same about profits. and they all pushed universities and tried to buy the most inventive youngsters for themselves- meaning still more people inflating the information reservoir. Electronics increased the speed yet again, and improved accessability and sorting capability- gone the punch card and knitting needle. And knowledge is still being democratised, while new knowledge is being added faster than ever. So while the ability of the top peformers isn't enhanced, we get a parallel processing phenomenon where highly specialised nonentities solve chunks of problems, and anyone can access their results to add bits of sky to the jigsaw puzzle.
No, I don't know what the next stage will be- but, unless something fairly drastic happens, that mass of inventiveness is going to develop one. Improved human/computer interface? Algorithms to let the computer do more of the work on its own, only needing occasional human guidance? (after all, computers are getting more powerful every month, irrevocably, with no major breakthroughs needed) Or some form of drug/genetic modification/hypnotic treatment to push the genius button in humans?

All of which is seriously off topic, and my previous post was mainly about how to avoid space travel rather than optimise it when it's essential.

[Arkangel]

One thing that will determine any kind of technology for space travel is cost effectiveness. Though we have Concord we still fly in Boeings just because they are cost effective.

Same rule would apply to space travel as long as companies run them. Manufacture of an ultra super technology would lose out to a cost effective one. I would go with a Stargate or a teleport system over spaceships. Instead of producing the same drive engine over and over just produce a few massive drive engines and rip a portal open and push things through it. You save energy, transportation of materials from storage to a port and then burn precious energy to break orbit and hurtle it an unimaginable speeds to a point where it can rip space and time to reach its destination and follow the same procedure in the reverse order to get the material to storage. No company would go for it if a cost effective technology would eliminate the need to get their goods or people through space to reach their destination.

We do not travel by sea do we until unless you or on a cruise or transporting large amounts of raw materials.

No matter how romantic a notion of space travel would be to us but for a corporate it is just a damn lot of space in-between.

60,000 years from now nobody would want to waste time traveling the slow way when instantaneous travel would be available. My theory for such an assumption is all our technological advancements is for serving only one purpose and that is to make our life more comfortable with least discomforts and that self-serving purpose has not changed in all our evolution and will definitely not change in another 60,000 years. This drive of us to better ourselves will eventually lead us to a point where space travel would be an unnecessary expenditure of time and energy and would drive us to build something that could be more faster and what could be more faster than instantaneous.

[Jaxom_Ruatha]

Sorry, I didn't have time to read this whole thread, but I thought you guys might find it of interest (That is if you didn't already know, or someone hasn't already said it here) that military people (Don't ask me who) are considering forming a "Space force" similar to the air force only in space, wouldn't that be cool! I think it was decided if possible it could begin forming in around 10 years.

[chrispenycate]

Oh, all right then. A space propulsion system, tailor made- but I suspect only a few thousand years on.
Fuel :- several million small diamond spheres, laid down round a central core of lithium hydride and a tiny quantity of something black, probably graphite. At the rear of the craft a heavy parabolic reflector, with superconducting threads in it (high temperature superconductor, as we will see) Four multi gigawatt lasers, producing light at a frequency at which diamond is transparent, aim toward the focus of the parabola. A sphere is fired into the focus point, and zapped by a pulse from the four lasers, and a perfectly reflective force field generated over the entire surface, covering the laser apertures. The matter inside the sphere is instantaneously plasmolised (OK, nothing’s instantaneous. But it’s faster than anything can measure) but the diamond holds the pressure for a nanosecond and a small percentage of the matter inside undergoes fusion and produces several million times the energy received. Bye bye diamond, and the incredibly hot (stellar core heat, not photosphere) are forced back along the path of the craft, pushing it forward. Down comes the force field, and the miniscule percentage of energy left in the space goes to heat the parabola, the heat is transmitted by the superconductors (which are obviously thermal superconductors as well) to a straight forward heat engine (I’m tempted to use a steam engine) to a radiator on the front. This « waste » goes to run the lasers, the force screen, the rest of the drive and life support, with a large superconducting loop acting as a backup battery.
Accelleration depends on the rate of pellet feed, and the actual speed (when the craft’s forward velocity is equal to the admittedly high but not infinite exhaust speed there is no further gain- cut the power and freewheel) Steering is done with a pair of orthoganally mounted gyroscopes, turning the entire ship, so you can give up thoughts of fast cornering. Braking’s the same- turn the thing end for end and blast forwards (but please be very careful not to aim the drive plume at your destination, or it might be somewhat the worse for wear when you arrive) Dampers link the rear plate to the living and cargo quarters, so the pressure is reasonably smooth rather than a series of jerks, If the force field fails, the rear plate is vaporised, but there’s no risk of the rest of the fuel exploding, so good design should make it a survivable experience. This is a putter around insystem drive- actual 0-60 figures will depend on the temperature (and thus the velocity) of the exhaust plasma, and the mass of the craft (including plate)

[Dean]

I am currently designing a craft that will use (*) for propulsion, the ship will use energy at a level that puts occupants in exactly One gravity for a long duration Inter-galactice journey that will take about 60,000 years to reach its destination, deceleration of the ship will also use (*) drive to slow the vehicle after manuevers keeping the occupants again at exactly one gravity. Its tricky to control course and speed but the (*) drive is low fuel consumption, durable and trouble free. "(*)=) totally imagination driven)"

[They]

Isaac Asimov's book The Gods Themselves proposed an interesting propulsion system. It proposed opening a wormhole into another universe, this universe would in a stage in which it had just under gone a big bang. To use this as a propulsion system you would simply have to funnel the energetic "plasma" through the wormhole and out you space ship.

[chrispenycate]

Originally Posted by They

Isaac Asimov's book The Gods Themselves proposed an interesting propulsion system. It proposed opening a wormhole into another universe, this universe would in a stage in which it had just under gone a big bang. To use this as a propulsion system you would simply have to funnel the energetic "plasma" through the wormhole and out you space ship.

And there's your interplanetary drive. And, since that universe is so much smaller than ours, yet must correspond with it at every point, for interstellar travel we put the ship into that universe- what, the multi million degree ambient temperatures? A mere engineering problem - oh, all right, we'll go into one a few thousand years older, where it's cooled down some, but distances are still enormously reduced. Navigation is a bit of a problem, you can hardly stick out a periscope, and if physical constants are modified, as in "the gods themselves" (you're sure it was that book? Not that I'm contradicting, and the idea's splendid, but I just don't remember that comment. Still, it's been a long time) then a tendency to osmose through the walls and other passengers, and an even more disturbing possibility of my liver osmosing outside my skin - yes, could be inconvenient.

Originally Posted by Dean

I am currently designing a craft that will use (*) for propulsion, the ship will use energy at a level that puts occupants in exactly One gravity for a long duration Inter-galactice journey that will take about 60,000 years to reach its destination, deceleration of the ship will also use (*) drive to slow the vehicle after manuevers keeping the occupants again at exactly one gravity. Its tricky to control course and speed but the (*) drive is low fuel consumption, durable and trouble free. "(*)=) totally imagination driven)"

Do you have to go intergalactic on your maiden voyage? A drive like that would be perfect for puttering round this galactic arm. I assume you'd have relays of human imaginers, with well coordinated change overs so that you didn't spill the bath water at changeovers. In three years you'd be up to reletavistic speeds, and I hope the screenings good, 'cause a milligram grain of dust would strike with more energy than the entire nuclear arsenal of the planet. Of course, mid way through the journey you turn the ship round and start one g decelleration, maintaining thrust all the time; you could just push in the other direction but then you'd have to put all the furnishings on the ceilings, and nobody could have a bath while it was changing.
We should be brreding these imaginers now - slight overkill for interplanetry transport, but if they could just keep it up for an hour or two…

[HieroGlyph]

This is the dichotomy betwixt sci-fi and fantasy.

In fantasy you can invent what you like and postulate how things 'could' be within your given new universe.

In sci-fi you are to bend the given Laws of Nature or add your own new sub-laws. New means of travel with some new-fangled advance-tech...

Hence no need to ask the question of 'Methods of Space Travel'.

Sorry to throw the spanner in the works, but within the Universe we know you cannot have super-luminal travel. Hence in your new Universe you 'invent' whatever type of travel you like. Or how are we to answer if we dont know your rules? So, if people are travelling across this galaxy 60,000 years hence, they will 'need' super-luminal or worm-holes, or something far (x10^20) faster than driving down that road to simply make it 'worth-a-human-lifetimes-while'!!!

Theres my spanner-in-the-works.
HG

[Thunderchild]

Originally Posted by dreamwalker

The part about it being 60,000 years is relativly important, as im trying to get you to think about what is possible to accomplish in that time

Think about whats been possible in the last 150 years, saying that we need 60 000 years to accomplish this isn't giving us enough credit I think.

Anyway I'd hate to interupt this discussion about magical drives but I once heard that a way to get allot of acceleration quickly would be to simply let off a nuclier device behind your ship - obviously you would need to have significant shielding but its a rather simple idea to get allot of velocity in a short time.

[chrispenycate]

Originally Posted by Thunderchild

Think about whats been possible in the last 150 years, saying that we need 60 000 years to accomplish this isn't giving us enough credit I think.

Anyway I'd hate to interupt this discussion about magical drives but I once heard that a way to get allot of acceleration quickly would be to simply let off a nuclier device behind your ship - obviously you would need to have significant shielding but its a rather simple idea to get allot of velocity in a short time.

Never mind about 150; less that half that gets us from the Wright brothers to a moon landing.
The problems with the Orion drive (that's the nuclear goose) is that, if you don't want accellerations to be too high, you need to use a very heavy vessel, and that it works many times better in proximity to a planetary surface (essentially makes it an energy only problem, and gets rid if the conservation of momentum handicap. Thus, fro getting large masses into orbit, it's splendid, now all we need is a country from which to take off (the fallout is a little inconvenient - I'd suggest Afghanistan or Australia, somewhere noone really wants, and yo can't do much damage. Then we could lift entire space stations into orbit, having done all the buiding work on Earth, and prepare the mars mission with one launch.