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Future spaceships and technology
raj011
Member Posts: 987 Arc User
Hello everyone, it has been a while since I was on here so this is my first post in the new year:). With news about new spaceships and technology coming out I was thinking about NASA and Lockheed Martin should bring back the x-33 project which would have lead to the development of the VentureStar but make it so it is designed for deep space travel, what do you all think? Also I never understood why they did not use the Linear Aerospike rocket engines which have been tested and was going to be used on the x-33 and VentureStar? Also if have not heard. NASA is researching Warp Drive technology! this is all very exciting 
What do all of you think, ladies and gentlemen? If you find anything interesting please by all means post any new technologies that are coming.
What do all of you think, ladies and gentlemen? If you find anything interesting please by all means post any new technologies that are coming. Post edited by raj011 on
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Now, we could use nuclear power to drive our rocket, but the more environmentally conscious among us aren't about to allow the possibility of a nuclear-powered spacecraft exploding during ascent (and if we launch enough of them, sooner or later one will).
Every other method of launching that we even hypothetically know how to do besides combustion or nuclear power requires a huge piece of ground infrastructure to launch it (e.g. rail launching, or a space elevator, or more exotic stuff).
As far as the Linear Aerospike engines are concerned, yes they would give an increase of about 10-20% in efficiency over conventional bell-nozzle engines, but the current focus of aerospace development is on making stuff cheap and reliable (i.e. not costing 300 million dollars for a single Shuttle launch), not on pushing the boundaries of engine performance.
On the warp drive front, and I presume you mean the Alcubierre warp drive theory, current calculations imply that a starship that fits within a one hundred meter radius warp bubble would require about seven hundred kilograms of matter/antimatter for energy--or about two hundred tons of fusion fuel. We're not going anywhere at warp until we can build an actual warp core.
Currently, NASA's experiments are focused on trying to use the Casimir effect to generate negative energy density (which can be done), and using a laser to detect any Alcubierre-like warping of space. Problem there is trying to fire a laser through a space best measured in microns, as any shaking in the equipment throws the laser off alignment.
The 90km one turned out to be an error. Almost the exact same error as the faster-than-light neutrinos from last year. Several meters has been confirmed fairly well, but it's a method that doesn't scale up - the effect that causes it only happens at sizes so small and durations so short that it can hardly be said to exist at all. It has interesting applications in computing and communication (such as teleporting a signal between chips rather than waiting for the whole electron thing to get it there), though, but other speculative physic have better promise for physical teleportation.
Something everybody needs to remember about NASA "working" on warp drive: It's not new. It's one of their rotating series of half-PR half-busywork math projects that primarily exist to keep the guys who solved the Pioneer Anomaly on staff until they're needed again, because the last time NASA let somebody like that go they got snapped up by a university and then NASA was stuck trying to figure out the Pioneer Anomaly until they could find somebody on that level again.
Aside from one guy*, everybody involved as basically given a timetable of many decades until experimental results of the effect (not its ability to exceed the speed of light, but only its ability to exist) are a thing, let alone practical applications.
*-and that guy's interviews were so hopelessly optimistic, NASA had to take the time to specifically tell the world he wasn't actually involved in the project and put up this FAQ that might as well be just be this picture.
Actually, I meant that the energy requirement to form the bubble is estimated at around 60 million terajoules (forget 1.21 gigawatts, this is millions of times that!) By e = m * c^2, this is about seven hundred kilograms of mass-energy. The amount of "exotic matter" (negative-mass matter) required is just a few milligrams to "seed" the space warping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive#Mass.E2.80.93energy_requirement
Sending VentureStar into deep space would require refueling it in orbit (at which point it would then have enough fuel to get to the Moon's surface and back or to Mars orbit and back--but landing on Mars and returning would require refueling again on Mars). The heat shielding on the VentureStar would also have to be strengthened, which adds weight and reduces useful payload. The only reasonable way of getting much more "oomph" out of the same fuel mass is by using nuclear power.
VASIMR is a great engine technology--for propulsion once you're in space, but the only way that it can get enough thrust-to-mass ratio to lift off against planetary gravity is with nuclear power--the chemical or solar power supply needed would weigh more than the thrust that its energy output could provide.
Bigelow's inflated modules compare favorably against the protection offered by existing solid spacecraft such as Soyuz and the now-defunct Shuttle. It's still a lot less protection than Earth's atmosphere could offer--that would require about one kilogram of matter per square centimeter of hull.
doesnt matter, the russians and chinese control humanities fate into the skies these days, its fitting as the russians had the first rocket into space with sputnik anyways and china wants to do their part. as long as it benefits everyone involved in the science and exploration of the planets and solar system then they can do their bit to advance the cause.
probably a pipedream but hopefully one day their will be a multinational effort to take humans into deep space one day and jointly research projects with all that mechanical knowledge over the years from the first american/swedish designed rocket of the modern age until today. if CERN stops looking for god in a particle and helps by exploiting particles for anti matter drives one day, that would be helpful.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It is worth mentioning that the US still dominates unmanned planetary science. Russia's track record there is just bad, the ESA's is spotty, and China's almost nonexistent (their first real success after a couple low-profile failures was a moon lander just this month). NASA, however, is in a place where they are literally discussing doing crazy daredevil stunts with their vehicles, like rolling one of the older rovers down a hill or sending Cassini careening into the outer solar system in an attempt to hit a the bullseye on Neptune (they did opt against that and went with an atmospheric entry on Saturn, but the fact that they were considering doing it just to see if they could was a testament to the probe's success).
As important as the space stations and long duration missions are to deep space missions, planetary science and navigation are just as important, and right now, that's one area that the US has a monopoly on.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
The Chinese have managed to land an unmanned probe on the Moon - after three attempts, and forty-four years after Armstrong walked there. Not exactly "leaders".
No, it would appear that the future of space exploration and exploitation rests neatly in the hands of commercial interests. And the commerce is there - people are already laying out over $200,000 US a pop for a short ride on SpaceShipTwo, a glorified vomit comet; another group is raising funds for a series of one-way manned missions to Mars; Planetary Industries is already laying the groundwork for commercial asteroid mining (the Outer Space Treaty says that no nation may lay claim to celestial bodies, but says nothing about private industry). Hilton Hotels has already test-flown an inflatable orbital hotel, and Orbital Technologies expects to have a more solid edition of the concept in orbit by 2016 (at a cost of 20 grand per night, but still...).
And again, that's in the spirit of Trek. After all, what was Zephram Cochrane's reason for inventing warp drive?
Build it in pieces, launch it into orbit in pieces, put pieces together. It is more or less what they did with the ISS, after all.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
so russia made mistakes early in their efforts like the chinese, the americans are no better off after their supposed moon landing (need hard proof that it happened or it never happened at all and its a fake filmed in some hollywood studio back in the 60's), apollo program wasnt exactly the most reliable and then the ill-fated challenger program happened. ever since there hasnt been much from the americans as far as pushing for more launches into space, probably a money concern as it costs tens of billions to get such a project going. i say let the chinese foot the bill this time and give them the chance and leave the russians the space stations and the rockets with international assistance for now.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Safe:
Soyuz has had four fatalities in 128 Russian and 6 French manned launches. The most recent was in 1971, and was not with the current vehicle or launch rocket. Later versions of the system has had two failures leading to launch aborts, both of which resulted in no casualties. The current iteration of the system developed in the 90's has had zero failures. The 26 unmanned missions have also had no failures. Normalized for crew size, the fatalities are currently one per over 70 crew launched.
The Space Shuttle has 14 fatalities in 135 launches, the vehicle was never updated and the launch rockets were only partially redesigned. It also had six additional failures leading to launch aborts without casualties. Normalized for crew size, it's one per 56 crew launched
Reliable:
Soyuz total failures are 4 in 160 launches.
Space Shuttle total failures were 8 in 135 launches.
Cheap:
Price per pound to reach the ISS the last year of Shuttle flights:
Soyuz-Progress: $18,149
Space Shuttle: $28,357
SpaceX CRS: $26,770
(Source: http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/the-costs-of-space-cargo
Remember to read the text and not the image, the text explains why the congressional report figures were misrepresented and what the actual numbers were)
CRS is somewhat cheaper than it once was, but is still more expensive than Soyuz-Progress. However, it can handle ISS delieveries that Soyuz cannot and has taken the shuttle's place for those missions.
There's a reason Soyuz is NASA's primary vehicle now, too.
1) VASIMR
2) Fusion Rocket propulsion being researched by John Slough at University of Washington
3) Bigelow Aerospace Inflatable technology which I swear there is an article saying they are better than the traditional materials used for spacecraft protection?
4) Build the Enterprise but that will take a while due to money restrictions
5) NASA researching Alcubierre "WARP" Drive, Physicist Dr Harold "Sonny" White says with his equations says Warp drive is maybe doable with current power generation, apparently if you change the shape and angle of the warp bubble.
6) Also Harold White is looking in to quantum vacuum plasma thruster which will also help with warp drive.
7) Another type of plasma thruster called Plasma Jet Electric Thrusters http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027072188/plasma-jet-electric-thrusters-for-spacecraft
8) Em drive
9) Long range communication made by NASA called LADEE
10) Quantum computers by NASA and Google
11) Superconducting magnets could block space radiation http://www.aviationweek.com/media/images/fullsize/Space/NASA/Miscellaneous/Magnets_radiationSheilding_NASA_NIAC.jpg
12) another space shields http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6567709.stm
13) Project Orion using fusion instead of fission
14) Sunjammer Solar Sail
15) Electric Solar sails
16) Graphene
17) Apparently a new material has been made but can't remember what it is called beings with S.
This is so far what I know on what is happening in space exploration and new technologies, have I missed anything out?
As for the VentureStar designed for deep space, they could use some of the tech in the list e.g VASIMR.
I'm sorry, we can't discuss this, not if you're unwilling to actually examine available data.
Yes, thank you, I forgot about that. It looks like Star trek is coming to life
Sure--in fact, most plans for large VASIMR spacecraft (i.e. nearly all reasonable plans for crewed travel to Jupiter or beyond) require assembly-on-orbit, based on the assumption that we aren't going to build any super giant lifts-a-thousand-tons-to-earth-orbit-per-launch rockets (current rockets under consideration max out at 200 tons payload).
But be that as it may, we still need to get into Earth orbit, and the options for that are: chemical power (existing rockets, maybe bigger and marginally more efficient for single-stage-to-orbit, but will need refueling once in orbit if they're going on to other destinations), nuclear power, a space elevator or orbital tether system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether , or some big piece of launch infrastructure on the ground such as a rail launcher.
hah! i never believed it was real because again you like others are not providing anything but words to try and dissuade me from this, frankly some people want to believe things so badly especially back then during all that cold war stuff. these days it just looks like fiction. the apollo program apparently bought back rocks from the moon to study, but how is the rocks on the moon any different from the rocks on earth? there is a theory that another planet and the earth collided causing some sort of cast off which became the moon, both the cast and earth shared the same elements and what not (thats how it goes anyways), if this is true then they could of found these rocks from anywhere nearby a volcano on earth and could be made to look like the real deal. im not completely dismissing it, im challenging the claim made and so far not a damn thing anyone has come up with to prove it was real so far.
as for the apollo unreliability, i read up that there were mechanical faults within that program including one which apparently happened on the way to the moon and the team sent had to use the life pod to find their way home.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
My character Tsin'xing
There were three people lost during the entire run of the Apollo program - when lightning struck Apollo 1 prior to launch, and revealed two serious design flaws (the capsule hatch was impossible to open from the inside, and filling the capsule with pure oxygen might not have been the best idea ever). NASA boasts that they have never lost a man in space, which is technically true (Apollo 1 was on the pad, and the Challenger and Columbia disasters both happened in atmosphere).
My understanding is that the biggest "proof" that the lunar samples could not have formed on Earth is because they apparently had formed in a vacuum environment and had never been exposed to molecular oxygen--clear impossibilities for anything formed on Earth. They also can not be synthetic because radioactive dating shows that they are between two and 4.5 billion years old since they were last melted. In short, either these rocks came from beyond Earth, or else every person who has ever been in a position to make a meaningful analysis of them has been part of the conspiracy--and they do say that three people can keep a secret only if two are dead.
If you don't believe we went to the Moon, then why would you pay any attention to this:
As for, "the apollo program apparently bought back rocks from the moon to study, but how is the rocks on the moon any different from the rocks on earth?", we brought back the rocks to answer that question.
Science Fiction is not a substitute for science education.
True, even in the media world, such as TV shows and movies they can get things wrong for example the link i just posted which has something interesting but it lists the fastest spacecraft travelling is the Voyager 1 probe but it is the Helios spacecraft right?
Take a look at this link ladies and gentlemen, http://www.space.com/24306-interstellar-flight-black-hole-power.html?cmpid=514630_20140117_17191204
Yeah, that would be awesome, Back to the Future predicted that we will have flying cars and hover boards and My Fusion during this decade. Fly cars already exist its just politics holding it back, I watched a documentary saying governments don't believe we will be good pilots but thanks to computers they can make flying safer and have it automatically controlled or have an option to choose both.
Also look at this, imagine ships power by black holes to propel the ship and power its technology. Which would be better, black holes or Matter-Antimatter power?