[QUOTE=Arachnidus;20620140]So, basically a Zero Point Drive?[/QUOTE]
Yeah.
I still advocate a mass driver shooting small animals out the back end. :colbert:
You'd be better off pointing the lasers backwards, like Clavus suggested.
Man, this would be incredible to see.
[QUOTE=Fredo;20593899]How would the photon sail work? Photons hit it and push it a small amount? If that's the case it wouldn't work. You are having lasers on the ship produce the photons, which would push the ship backwards, and then they hit the photon sail and applies the same force in the opposite direction. It would be like moving a boat by throwing a ball from one end to the other. Throwing it would move it backwards, and catching it would stop the boat.[/QUOTE]
I was unable to believe that it took 8 posts for somebody to point that out.
It's the goddamn yacht with fans on back cliche.
[editline]02:42PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=cherry gmod;20594299]Has anyone heard of a micro black hole motor?
This concept could revolutionize space travel. A small black hole emits hawking radiation. the smaller it is the more it emits and more violently. we could (in theory) create a black hole by focusing a very powerful laser at a point and waiting for all the photons to build up until you have a critical mass and BAM, small black hole. (i think anyway) You would then hold it using magnetic field at the focal point of a parabolic mirror. the radiation would be directed away from the ship in a concentrated beam. Using this you could accelerate a ship to near the speed of light in say about ten years. And then reach the nearest stars in about 50. That's within a bloody human lifetime![/QUOTE]
You got it wrong. The smaller the blackhole is, the more energy it releases relatively to it's mass (as heavier blackholes hold it back more due to their mass). The blackhole would never release energy higher than you put into it. You would get better results by using the laser you wanted to use to create the blackhole to actually propel the craft directly.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;20628705]I was unable to believe that it took 8 posts for somebody to point that out.
It's the goddamn yacht with fans on back cliche.
[editline]02:42PM[/editline]
[/QUOTE]
Not quite. You would be correct if the sails weren't mirrored and simply absorbed the light, but if it reflects it backwards, then it'll still work (albeit less efficiently than just pointing the lasers backwards).
[QUOTE=Little Green;20628963]Not quite. You would be correct if the sails weren't mirrored and simply absorbed the light, but if it reflects it backwards, then it'll still work (albeit less efficiently than just pointing the lasers backwards).[/QUOTE]
But there is absolutely no point in that.
Exactly, the sail is useless. You'd be far better off getting rid of it and pointing the laser behind the craft. Just pointing out that it doesn't equate to the fan blowing on a yacht's sails scenario.
My plan is to build first a base to the moon , from there we can use hydrogen to build ships what only needs water to run at large speed , at there we put up large solar panels to sun orbit so we could generate energy for earth.At the same time we start creating Mars atmhosphere ( probably just transfer the oil to mars and burn it ( needs littlebit extra oxygen ))When It has simple athmosphere we put simple photosynthesis plants there.
Okey Im just little science fictioning
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;20628705]I was unable to believe that it took 8 posts for somebody to point that out.
It's the goddamn yacht with fans on back cliche.
[editline]02:42PM[/editline]
You got it wrong. The smaller the blackhole is, the more energy it releases relatively to it's mass (as heavier blackholes hold it back more due to their mass). The blackhole would never release energy higher than you put into it. You would get better results by using the laser you wanted to use to create the blackhole to actually propel the craft directly.[/QUOTE]
You misunderstand me. Hawking radiation is emitted by black holes. To keep a black hole "running" so to speek we need to feed it, be that with neutrons or whatever. The principle behind the idea is not of putting more energy out than in, but utilizing the energy efficiently, as a black hole will very efficiently convert mass into radiation. A laser would be vastly inefficient.
Sure its been said already, but the idea of lasers being fired at solar sails just doesn't work if the ship is attached to the sails. This is pretty much the equivalent of trying to pull yourself up by your shoelaces.
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;20594057]I think the sail would be more efficient, I should look it up.[/QUOTE]
Just stick with the idea of a solar sail, capture energy from the suns rays particles and radiation to fire forwards, thanks the the zero friction in space due to the complete vacuum it wouldn't slow down so once on it's way to alpha centuri it wouldn't need the lasers.
To all you people suggesting generation ships:
[highlight]ATTN:THEY ARE IMPRACTICAL[/highlight]
They'd probably descend into chaos and anarchy after a short while.
It's better to use an [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_space_colonization"][U]embryoship[/U][/URL], a.k.a a ship filled with, you guessed it, frozen embryos.
After getting to its objective, machines would construct everything necessary for the colony to function, and then the colonists would be grown using artificial wombs.
[QUOTE=Reborn9;20635671]To all you people suggesting generation ships:
[highlight]ATTN:THEY ARE IMPRACTICAL[/highlight]
They'd probably descend into chaos and anarchy after a short while.
It's better to use an [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_space_colonization"][U]embryoship[/U][/URL], a.k.a a ship filled with, you guessed it, frozen embryos.
After getting to its objective, machines would construct everything necessary for the colony to function, and then the colonists would be grown using artificial wombs.[/QUOTE]
That's not space travel, that's propagation, that's spreading the empire. Space travel is taking living beings from point A to point B with a spot of tea in between, at least, by my definition.
Lasers don't work like that; LIGHT doesn't work like that. A laser would be very wide before you reached the kuiper belt; miles wide without perfect calibration, kilometers with as-close-as-we-can-humanly-make-it calibration.
[QUOTE=mrhippieguy;20603047]this thread=mental exercise of the day
on a small sidenote, would it be possible to propel a ship using the same priciples behind railguns?
[IMG]http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/railgun-8.gif[/IMG]
although, from what i understand, it wouldn't work.[/QUOTE]
Great plan, but the railgun requires shit-tons of power to use. I think I heard somewhere that even if it used half of all the world's energy, it would only be powered a quarter-way or something like that. I'll have to check on that sometime.
[QUOTE=Zareox7;20639348]Great plan, but the railgun requires shit-tons of power to use. I think I heard somewhere that even if it used [B]half of all the world's energy[/B], it would only be powered a quarter-way or something like that. I'll have to check on that sometime.[/QUOTE]
[B]WHAT[/B]
What
[QUOTE=Zareox7;20639348]Great plan, but the railgun requires shit-tons of power to use. I think I heard somewhere that even if it used half of all the world's energy, it would only be powered a quarter-way or something like that. I'll have to check on that sometime.[/QUOTE]
The military are already using railguns, so, no.
I want a hover car not a spaceship.
[QUOTE=Robbis_1;20648838]The military are already using railguns, so, no.[/QUOTE]
They use them, but from what I heard, they never powered them at 100% because of the incredible amounts of power needed.
edit
[quote]Theory and construction
[b]A very large power supply providing, on the order of, one million amperes of current will create a tremendous force on the projectile, accelerating it to a speed of many kilometres per second (km/s). 20 km/s has been achieved with small projectiles explosively injected into the railgun.[/b] Although these speeds are possible theoretically, the heat generated from the propulsion of the object is enough to erode the rails rapidly. Such a railgun would require frequent replacement of the rails, or to use a heat resistant material that would be conductive enough to produce the same effect.[/quote]
[quote]The ampere is a measure of the amount of electric charge passing a point per unit time.[/quote]
Ok, I checked on that and wiki says that to shoot a small projectile at 20km/s, you need 1 million amps. Which, mind you, is a shit-ton of energy. I guess what I heard about exactly how much energy was wrong though. Will look more into that.
[QUOTE=Robbis_1;20648838]The military are already using railguns, so, no.[/QUOTE]
He means a railgun that can launch something into orbit. But yes, the energy required is nowhere near half of the world's energy output.
[QUOTE=Zareox7;20650211]They use them, but at very low power. The military cannot fully power the railguns because they just can't get enough power.[/QUOTE]
How much power would they need to put something in orbit?
Humans FTW
Better yet have a weight fired out of the spacecraft with a tether attached to it, allowing the craft to be pulled. The compartment the weight would be fired from could be filled with oxygen to give a more violent explosion.
^
Doesn't understand newton's third law.
[QUOTE=dark soul;20650353]Better yet have a weight fired out of the spacecraft with a tether attached to it, allowing the craft to be pulled. The compartment the weight would be fired from could be filled with oxygen to give a more violent explosion.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailPhysicsForever]You Fail Physics Forever.[/url]
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