Warp One Engage!

[leafman]

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html

HOUSTON — A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.


This sounds awesome! It says farther down in the article that they have begun lab tests to try to produce micro warp jumps. They are looking at going ten times the speed of light (warp one) which would be enough to make traveling outside of the solar system a 3-4 hour trip.

[Morph Bark]

Now, this is... interesting.

[pendell]

Coolest thing I've read this year.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[The Succubus]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/

[Anxe]

Expletiveing amazing is what it is. I shall now refer to this,
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/researcher_translation.png

[Tonal Architect]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

[Form]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/

It's been weaponized already! Neat! :smallbiggrin:

[Mando Knight]

So, we might make the April 5, 2063 date after all... :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

From what I understand of Alcubierre drives, it involves creating bubbles of more or less compressed space-time and then shoving them around. Sounds like Unobtainium to me.

[Morph Bark]

So, we might make the April 5, 2063 date after all... :smalltongue:

Just in time for my 73rd birthday presents!

[lesser_minion]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

[Traab]

I would kill all of the kittens to make warp 1 a physical reality. (meaning it works and is on our ships) No offense, but thats about how badly I want real space exploration to go. There HAS to be stuff out there we can use, for example, mineral deposits on asteroid belts, possible fuel sources, things of that nature, which with even as little as warp 1, we could farm and bring back to earth in a reasonable time frame. The biggest problems of sustainability of our natural resources and even the location of them would be dealt with, and it would shift to those nations which could go interstellar in reasonable numbers.

The sheer volume of job market openings this could create could virtually end unemployment since we would need everything from skilled techs and scientists to grunt labor and miners, and it could create the potential for colonies on other worlds, allowing us all to spread out and erase the problems of overpopulation. Obviously we would likely need to do better than warp 1 to get TRUE space exploration, but just by breaking the initial barrier we would likely be able to improve on it further. God I want this to happen in my lifetime so bad!

[Alefiend]

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html

They are looking at going ten times the speed of light (warp one)

I hate to be Comic Book Guy, but this is wrong. Unless something has changed recently, Warp 1 = C. Warp 2 is around 10C, according to current Trek charts.

That said, my head would asplode with awesome if this happened in my lifetime. I am not counting on it, but dang would it be sweet.

[Heliomance]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

[Mynxae]

This would be fracking awesome, to say it quite frankly. Also, I thought this picture was funny. Came up when Ele clicked on the link about this :smallbiggrin:

http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/183451384791506414_HPBJ1RJu_b.jpg

[Ravens_cry]

Well, I doubt this will ever be practical, and even if it is I almost certainly won't see it, but I hope we do or find something better.

[The Succubus]

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

It's rather vexing isn't it, given that we've been orbiting useful fusion for the past several billion years.

[lesser_minion]

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

Exactly.

If you could convert light of any wavelength perfectly into antimatter, and you could capture every last drop of sunlight to reach this planet, you'd be able to harvest less than five kilos of antimatter every month.

The Voyager I spacecraft was 720 kg, so you'd need 360 kg of antimatter -- over six years' worth -- even with a perfect warp drive and a perfect warp core.

If this is the best we can do, we'll have colonised much of our Solar system before we're likely to see any kind of FTL.

[Yora]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

It says "potentially made of exotic matter". That's unobtanium. :smallamused:

[Ravens_cry]

It says "potentially made of exotic matter". That's unobtanium. :smallamused:

Depends. Exotic matter can also be hypothetical particles that are predicted by present physics, but have not been spotted in the wild and woolly world of reality, and even stuff we do find, just not often, like Bose–Einstein condensates.
Calling it unobtanium makes it sound like they are saying "Well, if we had magic, we could do it."

[Emmerask]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/

Well if one could somehow harness this "wave of death" energy that is timelocked in the outer bubble... that would
a) solve this problem and
b) could recharge the warpcore for free :smallbiggrin:

[lesser_minion]

b) could recharge the warpcore for free :smallbiggrin:

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

[Absol197]

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

Well, it wouldn't be able to recharge the entire thing, but it would at least give it a little bit back. Sort of like a car battery, in a way - The battery expends some charge in order to get the car started, then driving around helps to recharge the battery. Only a lot more complicated than that :smalltongue: .

[pendell]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?


This reminds me of a comment in a Terry Pratchett novel. The standin for Da Vinci is discussing his design for a flying machine.

"Would it work"? Asks the Patrician.

"It would if you could get someone who could spin a propeller at several thousand revolutions a minutes".

Today, of course, we can.

The principles of flight, or armored cars and submarines were all known at the time of Leonardo Da Vinci but the power source was lacking. We now know what is theoretically feasible; a solution to provide the power needed will come along eventually.

So I do not scorn this achievement but praise it in a step in the right direction. It may not bear fruit in our lifetimes, any more than Da Vinci saw flying machines in his lifetime, but if we can keep from exterminating ourselves we will get there eventually.

It's an exciting time to be alive.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Chen]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

This new paper only made it so that the energy requirements were not impossible.

The problem was the impossible energy requirements were only ONE of the problems with the original Alcubierre drives. The much larger problem is the exotic matter (matter with negative mass or equivalent negative energy density) needed to warp space time in the appropriate manner.

The problem we have is that currently we have the Casimir effect that does show the possibility of producing a net negative energy density between two parralel plates. This is a quantum mechanical effect. However, this negative energy density is not consistent with at least two of the energy conditions in General Relativity. This is somewhat to be expected. General Relativity is a classical theory and is not consistent with quantum theory. This warp drive metric is based of general relativity, but the theory that posits the exotic matter is possible is a quantum theory. Hence the problem with knowing if this is actually possible or not.

[lesser_minion]

So I do not scorn this achievement but praise it in a step in the right direction. It may not bear fruit in our lifetimes, any more than Da Vinci saw flying machines in his lifetime, but if we can keep from exterminating ourselves we will get there eventually.

I know that. I'm simply pointing out that the amount of energy this is expected to require is a hell of a lot by human standards.

Aside from the problem that we don't have anything available today that can pull it off, there are also serious political issues. Who would you trust with the keys to a planet-killing bomb?

[The Succubus]

Me.

I'd absolutely trust me with the keys to a space ship capable of travelling to distant stars and WIPING OUT HUMAN LIFE AT MY WHIM.

Also, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a jerk. :smallannoyed:

[Emmerask]

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

I didn´t mean recharge in recharge to the initial full capacity :smallbiggrin:
And yes the car battery example is quite a good analogy.

[Ravens_cry]

Me.

I'd absolutely trust me with the keys to a space ship capable of travelling to distant stars and WIPING OUT HUMAN LIFE AT MY WHIM.

Also, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a jerk. :smallannoyed:
c is a bigger one. I could live with the laws of thermodynamics if c weren't so slow.

[Lateral]

Exactly.

If you could convert light of any wavelength perfectly into antimatter, and you could capture every last drop of sunlight to reach this planet, you'd be able to harvest less than five kilos of antimatter every month.

The Voyager I spacecraft was 720 kg, so you'd need 360 kg of antimatter -- over six years' worth -- even with a perfect warp drive and a perfect warp core.

If this is the best we can do, we'll have colonised much of our Solar system before we're likely to see any kind of FTL.

You're talking about antimatter fuel, not useful fusion.

[lesser_minion]

You're talking about antimatter fuel, not useful fusion.

However you look at it, this warp drive is probably going to have to run on antimatter. My point is that we probably aren't going to get that antimatter without widespread deployment of fusion reactors.

[Ravens_cry]

However you look at it, this warp drive is probably going to have to run on antimatter. My point is that we probably aren't going to get that antimatter without widespread deployment of fusion reactors.
Eh, antimatter is dangerous stuff. It's literally made of explodium.
If containment fails, well, at least it will be quick.
While with fusion, if containment fails, the fusion just . . .stops.
The magnetic fields and other containment schemes we've thought of so far are not to stop the fusing plasma from melting the walls, but the walls from cooling down the plasma.
This leaves time for backup power sources to engage, time to repair whatever caused the loss of containment.
Frankly, given the difficulty of obtaining it and the inherent dangers in its storage, I wouldn't use antimatter unless I couldn't help it.

[pendell]

Who would you trust with the keys to a planet-killing bomb?

We've seen how this works with nuclear power. I would expect the same thing to happen. No one trusts anyone else to have it, so naturally every player with the capacity to research it will work as fast as they can to build it before anyone else does. In the year 2101 ... lemme steal some fictional factions (http://sidmeiersalphacentauri.wikia.com/wiki/Factions) ... the Peacekeeping forces will be terrified that the Spartan Federation will build the bomb before they do.

And then , of course, once someone is first to having the planet killing bomb, everyone else will work like mad to either duplicate it or steal it so that they aren't looking down the barrel of someone else's gun forever.

And then of course winning faction won't be able to hold together forever. After the inevitable civil war and fragmentation there will be all kinds of actors desperate for food willing to sell their expertise to the highest bidder.

...

All of which suggests, once we develop this technology, it would be a very, very good idea to spread to as many planets, stations, asteroids, and what not as is humanly feasible. Because WHEN not if someone blows up the planet, the human race will survive.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[lesser_minion]

Eh, antimatter is dangerous stuff. It's literally made of explodium.

Indeed. I'm going on about antimatter because of the article's suggestion that the new and improved warp drive would have to be powered by annihilating a mass "about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager I probe that NASA launched in 1977".


All of which suggests, once we develop this technology, it would be a very, very good idea to spread to as many planets, stations, asteroids, and what not as is humanly feasible. Because WHEN not if someone blows up the planet, the human race will survive.

Well, as I said, I expect us to have colonised a lot of the solar system before we pull off any kind of FTL. However, this seems pretty accurate.

[An Enemy Spy]

They're going about this the wrong way. The simplest method for inventing a Warp engine is to build a time machine, go to the future and steal the plans, then come back and claim it was your idea.
How to build a time machine you ask? Simple. You start with the rudimentary ideas, and then wait for your future self, having spent decades building the machine, to come back and give it you, thus saving years of hard work.

[lesser_minion]

How to build a time machine you ask? Simple. You start with the rudimentary ideas, and then wait for your future self, having spent decades building the machine, to come back and give it you, thus saving years of hard work.

While it's rather unscientific, I like to assume that Niven's law of time travel applies, and I don't think I'm alone.

[Ravens_cry]

Indeed. I'm going on about antimatter because of the article's suggestion that the new and improved warp drive would have to be powered by annihilating a mass "about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager I probe that NASA launched in 1977".

True, but that just gives an idea of the degree of energy required.
A rather less dense source, like fusion if we ever wangle our way to capturing the heart of the sun, could also provide the required energy without the insane danger of antimatter in macroscale quantities.
The only use I want for antimatter aboard a spaceship would be antimatter catalyzed nuclear fusion pulse propulsion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_catalyzed_nuclear_pulse_propulsion) and sickbay's PET scanner.

[Lateral]

A rather less dense source, like fusion if we ever wangle our way to capturing the heart of the sun, could also provide the required energy without the insane danger of antimatter in macroscale quantities.

But is nuclear fusion feasible for that? Fusion converts .3% of the fuel into usable energy (at least, Wikipedia says so), compared with 50% in antimatter reactions. Therefore, every kilogram of antimatter puts out as much usable energy as 166.6 kilograms of fusion fuel, so you'd need about 120,000 kilograms of fuel alone. How much mass would that 720 kg of antimatter let you warp?

[lesser_minion]

The only use I want for antimatter aboard a spaceship would be antimatter capitalized nuclear fusion pulse propulsion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_catalyzed_nuclear_pulse_propulsion) and sickbay's PET scanner.

For interplanetary travel, wouldn't it be safer to ditch the antimatter and have your craft propelled by solar sails or by a laser fired from the ground or a satellite?

[Ravens_cry]

For interplanetary travel, wouldn't it be safer to ditch the antimatter and have your craft propelled by solar sails or by a laser fired from the ground or a satellite?
Solar sails are only really feasible out to about Mars orbit. Also, it tends to be slow. Unless we develop human hibrenation fully, even there I see it being most useful for cargo as consumabless and extra sheilding could out weigh any mass savings quite quickly.
As for beamed power, well, there's been studies, and it certainly would have advantages on regular routes once infrastructure starts getting developed, but not so much for exploration and out in the boonies.

But is nuclear fusion feasible for that? Fusion converts .3% of the fuel into usable energy (at least, Wikipedia says so), compared with 50% in antimatter reactions. Therefore, every kilogram of antimatter puts out as much usable energy as 166.6 kilograms of fusion fuel, so you'd need about 120,000 kilograms of fuel alone. How much mass would that 720 kg of antimatter let you warp?
It's not warping matter so much as warping space so in my, comparative ignorance, I think mass isn't the biggest constraint. Remember, nothing is being accelerated here.
Volume could be, however, since that would change how much space is being warped.
Also, a significant amount of the energy release by Antmatter/matter annihilation is released as neutrino's. No way we're capturing those for work.

[Emmerask]

Indeed. I'm going on about antimatter because of the article's suggestion that the new and improved warp drive would have to be powered by annihilating a mass "about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager I probe that NASA launched in 1977".

Well the first step brought it down from an unimaginable mass to one that is relatively easy to imagine...
If other modifications to the idea are even a fraction as effective as the first one then warp drive could really be achieved even with our current energy potential :smallbiggrin:

/well atleast one of the problems would be solved then ^^

[sktarq]

It's not warping matter so much as warping space so in my, comparative ignorance, I think mass isn't the biggest constraint. Remember, nothing is being accelerated here.
Volume could be, however, since that would change how much space is being warped.

If I understand even a small percentage of all this stuff both do matter. You still have to move within the bubble of distorted space time. And for that mass matters....but only in terms of acceleration.
Then the bubble has to be created and the radius of the bubble does matter-so volume of object being sent "FTL" is a factor.
FTL is in quotes because while it would be seeming to ge FTL to us it would not be in relation to its local surroundings.

[Emmerask]

Hm, I thought you where dragged and pushed with the bubble with no other form of acceleration required?

ie similar to surfing

[Shadow of the Sun]

I've seen a proposal for building a black hole as a power plant, and I think this would be the best possible use for it.

This (http://io9.com/5391989/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships) is a summary of the article.

[noparlpf]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/

Great, we haven't even invented the Warp Drive yet and we've already figured out how to use it to make faster-than-light super-bombs. I suppose we could use this to destroy all alien life on a planet so that we could colonise it later using conventional space travel combined with cryo-sleep, but that seems kind of unethical.


I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

Scientists are working on that, actually. There's a paper somewhere on my hard drive about breaking the laws of thermodynamics. I'm sure if they've found one way to do it, they'll find others sooner or later.

[Lateral]

It's not warping matter so much as warping space so in my, comparative ignorance, I think mass isn't the biggest constraint. Remember, nothing is being accelerated here.
Volume could be, however, since that would change how much space is being warped.
Also, a significant amount of the energy release by Antmatter/matter annihilation is released as neutrino's. No way we're capturing those for work.

Yeah, you're right. Still, 120 tonnes of fuel takes up a lot of space, plus however much is needed to hold the containment device.

Yes, 50% is released as neutrinos. I accounted for that.

[Ravens_cry]

Yeah, you're right. Still, 120 tonnes of fuel takes up a lot of space, plus however much is needed to hold the containment device.

Yes, 50% is released as neutrinos. I accounted for that.
No doubt. Yes, it is a lot, yes, but I think the Saturn V could put about that much in orbit.
So while it *is* a lot, it's not an inconceivably large amount either.

[Traab]

It might be more feasible, as a start, to use it like a booster rocket. In other words, you arent traveling at warp speed the whole time, just as much of a boost as you can get, then let the engines recharge until you can do it again. It would slow the travel time way down, but it would also still likely be, if you pardon the pun, light years away from what conventional current engines can do. That way you arent trying to supply a constant stream of energy sufficient to maintain warp travel, just building up a charge big enough to power it for x amount of time.

Im actually picturing warp engine batteries. They sit here on earth or wherever charging up, then when a ship comes in they switch it out so the shuttle now can travel so far at warp before the battery goes dead. If that is viable, you could even setup an interstellar pony express where the shuttle warp jumps from waypoint to waypoint exchanging batteries at each spot.

[pendell]

Im actually picturing warp engine batteries. They sit here on earth or wherever charging up, then when a ship comes in they switch it out so the shuttle now can travel so far at warp before the battery goes dead. If that is viable, you could even setup an interstellar pony express where the shuttle warp jumps from waypoint to waypoint exchanging batteries at each spot.


I suggest earth orbit instead of earth. That way we don't have to fight the gravitic field whenever we want to replace batteries. Instead, have the warp engine systems recharge in earth orbit. Ships from outside the solar system come in, drop their cargo, head back out without having to reenter atmosphere. Use dedicated cargo shuttles or perhaps a skyhook to move stuff from orbit to the earth's surface and back. As a bonus, the more antimatter and warp engine technology we have in orbit, the less we have on the surface, the less likely a malfunction will prove catastrophic.

For that matter, the more industry and so forth period we move off the earth's surface, the better for the planetary ecology.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[noparlpf]

I suggest earth orbit instead of earth. That way we don't have to fight the gravitic field whenever we want to replace batteries. Instead, have the warp engine systems recharge in earth orbit. Ships from outside the solar system come in, drop their cargo, head back out without having to reenter atmosphere. Use dedicated cargo shuttles or perhaps a skyhook to move stuff from orbit to the earth's surface and back. As a bonus, the more antimatter and warp engine technology we have in orbit, the less we have on the surface, the less likely a malfunction will prove catastrophic.

For that matter, the more industry and so forth period we move off the earth's surface, the better for the planetary ecology.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Shouldn't it probably be a little further out than standard satellite orbit? I mean, the space stations humans go to still feel above 9m/s/s of gravitational acceleration, if I remember that correctly. Although now I think of it, I'm sure it's much easier to escape that from outside of the atmosphere.

[Mando Knight]

I mean, the space stations humans go to still feel above 9m/s/s of gravitational acceleration, if I remember that correctly.
No, no they don't.

Using the law of universal gravitation (with values G = 6.674*10^-11 m²/kg², mass of Earth = 5.9736*10^24 kg, approximate orbit radius 6780 km = 6.78*10^6 m), the approximate average acceleration due to gravity induced on the ISS is 8.673 m/s².

[noparlpf]

No, no they don't.

No? The International Space station is only 370km up. The difference from that is pretty small. So the acceleration due to gravity ought to still be around 9m/s/s. I'll go find the masses and do the math if you'd like, but I remember doing this back in Physics I a few years back.

Edit: By gh = g0(re/(re + h)) I get 9.26m/s2. By ag = G*Me/r2 I get 8.69m/s2. I'm not sure why the difference because both ought to be valid methods of estimating gravity at some distance from the center of mass of the planet. Anyway, the "free fall" experience of "zero gee" is perceived because the station is falling at the same rate as its contents. It doesn't fall to the ground because of its tangential velocity--as it falls sideways, "down" changes, so it ends up moving in a circle.

[pendell]

Good question. Checking out the theory of parking orbits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_orbit), it appears that getting to LEO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit) is the hardest part. At least, everybody goes there and typically assumes a parking orbit before punching on either to geostationary orbit or to other planets.


So my back-of-the-envelope guess is that LEO is probably the best place to put this stuff, as it's the point of diminishing returns. Below that, you might as well be on the earth's surface. Above that, you need to burn additional energy for the sake of getting to the higher orbit, and that would be more expensive on a day-to-day basis. So from the viewpoint of minimizing the need for acceleration, LEO should be the way to go. I think.

Well, the wiki article has another good reason:



Orbits higher than low orbit can lead to early failure of electronic components due to intense radiation and charge accumulation.


LEO is just below the van allen belts. So it's probably best to store your stuff there, long-term.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[noparlpf]

Good question. Checking out the theory of parking orbits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_orbit), it appears that getting to LEO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit) is the hardest part. At least, everybody goes there and typically assumes a parking orbit before punching on either to geostationary orbit or to other planets.


So my back-of-the-envelope guess is that LEO is probably the best place to put this stuff, as it's the point of diminishing returns. Below that, you might as well be on the earth's surface. Above that, you need to burn additional energy for the sake of getting to the higher orbit, and that would be more expensive on a day-to-day basis. So from the viewpoint of minimizing the need for acceleration, LEO should be the way to go. I think.

Well, the wiki article has another good reason:



LEO is just below the van allen belts. So it's probably best to store your stuff there, long-term.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yeah, on second thought I figured the difference wasn't so much escaping Earth's gravity as escaping the atmosphere. Definitely makes sense that radiation is a consideration too.

[Mando Knight]

Edit: By gh = g0(re/(re + h)) I get 9.26m/s2. By ag = G*Me/r2 I get 8.69m/s2. I'm not sure why the difference because both ought to be valid methods of estimating gravity at some distance from the center of mass of the planet.

They're not. The first one isn't good at all, since it doesn't take the square of the distance.

[noparlpf]

They're not. The first one isn't good at all, since it doesn't take the square of the distance.

Oh! I forgot to square it, my bad. That's the problem.
That would be gh = g0(re/(re + h))2 = 8.76m/s2. Much closer.
Either way, it's slightly below 9m/s2. But I was close.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It might be more feasible, as a start, to use it like a booster rocket. In other words, you arent traveling at warp speed the whole time, just as much of a boost as you can get, then let the engines recharge until you can do it again. It would slow the travel time way down, but it would also still likely be, if you pardon the pun, light years away from what conventional current engines can do. That way you arent trying to supply a constant stream of energy sufficient to maintain warp travel, just building up a charge big enough to power it for x amount of time.

I don't understand enough of the details to go into specifics, but I'm pretty sure that, given the nature of the "warp" propulsion, this can't work. If you're not in "warp" you're not moving at all. Depending on how quickly the fields in the front and rear of the bubble collapse, they might not need constant energy input. I don't know enough about that for further comment.


Im actually picturing warp engine batteries. They sit here on earth or wherever charging up, then when a ship comes in they switch it out so the shuttle now can travel so far at warp before the battery goes dead. If that is viable, you could even setup an interstellar pony express where the shuttle warp jumps from waypoint to waypoint exchanging batteries at each spot.

This could work if you take a -very- loose definition of "battery."

Battery technology is the chemical storage of electricity. No chemical combination will ever be able to hold the kind of energy potential we're talking about here.

If the "battery" were some sort of self contained, high-yeild nuclear or antimatter reactor, it might work. Those are pretty dangerous though, and wouldn't have very much appeal compared to simply having an actual, full-sized reactor on board the ship.

[nedz]

The fastest route from Earth to another solar system still involves sitting here and waiting until our technology improves. In other words: if you were to set out now, using current technology, and I stayed put: I would still probably get there first.
Until this changes, enjoy earth.:smallsmile:

[Asta Kask]

I'd be perfectly happy if they could give me a holodeck.

[lsfreak]

Just to add in, if I did my math right, the amount of energy needed (which isn't specified as to what that energy is doing - is that just starting the engine, or getting to another star, or what?) is on the same scale as world annual electric output as of 3 or 4 years ago. Or, as it's for some reason a popular measure for energy output, on the scale of tens of gigatons of TNT.

[The Succubus]

Shouldn't it probably be a little further out than standard satellite orbit? I mean, the space stations humans go to still feel above 9m/s/s of gravitational acceleration, if I remember that correctly. Although now I think of it, I'm sure it's much easier to escape that from outside of the atmosphere.

If only we had some sort of orbiting celestial body that we could use as a staging point...

[Asta Kask]

If only we had some sort of orbiting celestial body that we could use as a staging point...

Of course! 2002 AA29!

[noparlpf]

If only we had some sort of orbiting celestial body that we could use as a staging point...

If only...


Of course! 2002 AA29!

Probably not what The Succubus was thinking. Also, that thing is tiny. The Moon at least has a tangible gravitational field.

[Chen]

For reference here is the link to the actual paper on the subject:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936_2011016932.pdf

As I said earlier, the amount of energy is NOT the biggest hurdle in this endeavour.


While it would appear that the model has nearly all the desirable mathematical characteristics of a true interstellar space drive, the metric has one less appealing characteristic – it violates all three energy conditions (strong, weak, and dominant [9]) because of the need for negative energy density. This does not necessarily preclude the idea as the cosmos is continually experiencing inflation as evidenced by observation, but the salient question is can the idea be engineered to a point that it proves useful for exploration

Even the experiment they designed is used to show the contraction effect on space-time, which is something we DO know how to do. Its the expansion of space time that requires the negative energy density and is currently not something we can reproduce. The original article is typical bad science reporting and is cherry picking the "it may be possible now because the energy requirement is less!" rather than the "but it requires a type of matter we cannot produce and aren't even sure if possible to produce".

[Dimonite]

I'd be perfectly happy if they could give me a holodeck.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202062/Microsoft-files-patent-bring-Star-Treks-Holodeck-future-Xbox-consoles.html

They're working on it. Also, we have flying cars and jetpacks. WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!

[noparlpf]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202062/Microsoft-files-patent-bring-Star-Treks-Holodeck-future-Xbox-consoles.html

They're working on it. Also, we have flying cars and jetpacks. WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!

I recently read something about a 3D open-air hologram. I think they still only had it working with green lasers at the time, but give them a couple of years.

[Ravens_cry]

If only...

Probably not what The Succubus was thinking. Also, that thing is tiny. The Moon at least has a tangible gravitational field.
The trouble is keeping a long term, stable orbit around the darn thing. With the with the Earth and Sun's gravity tugging in differant directions as well as mascons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_%28astronomy%29) (mass concentrations) in the moon itself screwing up local gravity, long term lunar orbits are inherently chaotic.

[noparlpf]

The trouble is keeping a long term, stable orbit around the darn thing. With the with the Earth and Sun's gravity tugging in differant directions as well as mascons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_%28astronomy%29) (mass concentrations) in the moon itself screwing up local gravity, long term lunar orbits are inherently chaotic.

Well, the Moon has no atmosphere and is small enough that simply lifting off from the surface shouldn't be all that hard. So why orbit?

[Alefiend]

The trouble is keeping a long term, stable orbit around the darn thing. With the with the Earth and Sun's gravity tugging in differant directions as well as mascons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_%28astronomy%29) (mass concentrations) in the moon itself screwing up local gravity, long term lunar orbits are inherently chaotic.

Is there a reason we're not considering a Lagrange point for building a staging area?

[Traab]

I don't understand enough of the details to go into specifics, but I'm pretty sure that, given the nature of the "warp" propulsion, this can't work. If you're not in "warp" you're not moving at all. Depending on how quickly the fields in the front and rear of the bubble collapse, they might not need constant energy input. I don't know enough about that for further comment.



This could work if you take a -very- loose definition of "battery."

Battery technology is the chemical storage of electricity. No chemical combination will ever be able to hold the kind of energy potential we're talking about here.

If the "battery" were some sort of self contained, high-yeild nuclear or antimatter reactor, it might work. Those are pretty dangerous though, and wouldn't have very much appeal compared to simply having an actual, full-sized reactor on board the ship.

Yeah, i dont know the science either, I was just thinking that maintaining warp might take more power than can be created, as a loose description, it takes 15 units of power per second, but our best power production can only do 5 units per second. So instead of trying to push our energy production speed to that level, it might be better, as an interim solution, to travel in spurts as the power is built up to do so.

As for the battery thing, my intent was to suggest something like a container holding enough of a "charge" in it to allow for warp jumps to happen. If our power production couldnt keep pace with the power demands, this would be another way to set things up. We can only have so many reactors or whatever on a spaceship, but earth, the moon, various planets and asteroids, whatever, would have the space to mass produce and charge these things so space ships, instead of getting a single good jump then sitting still for 6 months, could just jump, change batteries, and leave the empty behind to be recharged like a propane tank exchange for our grills. Best example I can think of? The Fifth Element. When they were getting ready to leave for flosten paradise, the baked rastafarian runway crew member was switching out power sources on the ship.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, the Moon has no atmosphere and is small enough that simply lifting off from the surface shouldn't be all that hard. So why orbit?
It's still an added complexity and waste of fuel. It didn't take much to get the Apollo lunar module ascent stage up to orbit, but it was very light and pretty much only carried two guys and the rocks they brought back. They even ditched most of their spacesuits before hand. The moon is actually a fairly nasty place to land as it's large enough that the gravity means you need to shed a lot of velocity, but no significant atmosphere means that you have to do it all by rocketry, pretty much the most inefficient way possible to set things in motion.


Is there a reason we're not considering a Lagrange point for building a staging area?
I don't see why not except the radiation issues mentioned earlier.

[The Succubus]

As for the battery thing, my intent was to suggest something like a container holding enough of a "charge" in it to allow for warp jumps to happen. If our power production couldnt keep pace with the power demands, this would be another way to set things up. We can only have so many reactors or whatever on a spaceship, but earth, the moon, various planets and asteroids, whatever, would have the space to mass produce and charge these things so space ships, instead of getting a single good jump then sitting still for 6 months, could just jump, change batteries, and leave the empty behind to be recharged like a propane tank exchange for our grills. Best example I can think of? The Fifth Element. When they were getting ready to leave for flosten paradise, the baked rastafarian runway crew member was switching out power sources on the ship.

Another thought occurs - why use batteries at all?

Wireless power is actually feasible these days - my next phone (a Nokia Lumia 920) uses wireless charging to power up and I would imagine that the greater the power source, the easier it would be transmit it wirelessly.

I think it would be easier to think in terms of Mass Effect and the Relay system rather than trying to cram power source + storage into a ship. It would result in needing a smaller warp bubble and prevent unnecessary detritus littering the solar system.

[Mando Knight]

and I would imagine that the greater the power source, the easier it would be transmit it wirelessly.

Not really... especially not at great ranges, since that's going to take an inverse relation with the square of the distance...

[pendell]

Is there a reason we're not considering a Lagrange point for building a staging area?

He's right. A Lagrange point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) would be useful for long-term things in permanent orbit, like a space station or shipyard manufacturing. But we could also have stuff in LEO, because as before it is a 'break-even' point for acceleration and it's also below the van allen belts.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Traab]

Another thought occurs - why use batteries at all?

Wireless power is actually feasible these days - my next phone (a Nokia Lumia 920) uses wireless charging to power up and I would imagine that the greater the power source, the easier it would be transmit it wirelessly.

I think it would be easier to think in terms of Mass Effect and the Relay system rather than trying to cram power source + storage into a ship. It would result in needing a smaller warp bubble and prevent unnecessary detritus littering the solar system.

Because if the problem is a lack of power production speed keeping up with the power requirements, its really no different than just slowly recharging the motor with an on board power plant. The battery option is to make up for lack of power production speed, through sheer numbers. By producing the batteries all at once, you are creating a surplus that keeps the ships moving relatively fast instead of forcing them to hang out and recharge however slowly it may be. It doesnt matter if you need batteries for 30 ships that are burned through faster than they can be filled, if you are filling 180 batteries at once. Because you can use those extra 5 spares per ship while the next 180 are being charged up.